Wow-wee. What a semester! As always it feels a lot longer than 14 weeks ago that we first met and began our journey, yet that journey has whizzed past. I am sad to see our journey end- not so much the occasional chaos and frequent frustration, but rather the people that helped make it a really fun time and all the really valuable experiences that have taught me so much. It is no secret that this semester was on a rocky path at times, and on one we didn’t expect it to take. Regardless of this, the studio was an invaluable one for me and I don’t at all regret choosing it.
I’m just going to sort through some of my thoughts and experiences to try make sense of it all:
Expectations Vs. Reality
Back in July when I was fresh from a European holiday and ready to dive into the world of web series, I wrote about what I chose Serial and what I expected from the studio (the holiday is irrelevant, I’m just getting nostalgic). The main points were: I’m looking forward to a change from non-fiction audio work (from my previous studio, Room With A View), to visual fiction work, I expect and want to learn new technical skills, I want to learn about the media making process and different roles and responsibilities and I’m looking forward to collaborating with the writers. I’m happy to report that I fulfilled a lot, essentially all of these desires! I think I learnt more than I could have hoped about the roles within and processes of filming, and while I didn’t learn as many technical skills as I would have liked (no-one’s fault), I definitely came out feeling more skilled than when I went in.
I don’t think I knew what to expect regarding how we would collaborate with the writers, but in the end, we did get to work with them in different and collaborative ways even if it wasn’t directly contributing to the script. Something interesting to note, was that in this first post about my expectations, was that I specifically said I was happy not to have the responsibility of coming up with a story idea. I think this correlated with an apathy towards writing. But I learnt that writing doesn’t mean coming up with a completely original idea and writing with marvelous prose all by yourself. I really enjoyed the early discussions about what would be good to make a story about, and later in the story development I had my own ideas about characters and storylines. I learnt not to reject doing something (i.e. writing) because I think I wouldn’t be good at it- not just because I might be great, but also because the task might be different to what I think. And with that, I will delve into…
What I Learnt
A lot! From day one I was learning new things and broadening my mind. In the beginning, it was about the web series. There was so much more to them, and so much more of them than I had ever really considered. I was genuinely a little overwhelmed in class discussions and felt like a fraud amongst everyone else who was rattling off series after series. I think in the second half of the semester we lost sight of our aim to create and explore the web series, but I don’t think that matters too much in the scheme of things. The earlier discussions still taught me a lot and have opened my eyes to a world of online content. I still reflected on the definition and concept of the web series on this blog, and while some of my thoughts developed and changed, my main understand of them remains the same. This is, that there is virtually no constraint on the makers of a web series, meaning it could be made by someone with no budget or someone with a $10,000,000 budget (just theoretically). This range of accessibility ultimately delivers a wider range of content and form. I just really love how ‘free’ they are- how free they are to be whatever you want them to be.
Moving on in the semester, I learnt about the roles in making a series, or even a film, and things like the set hierarchy. This learning continued through right until the last shoot. Obviously, our set and crew weren’t a perfect replica of a Hollywood film or even Home and Away, but nonetheless, my understanding of this topic has grown enormously. On a side note, if my work as first AD for our production was to scale of that for a proper film, I am simply outraged at how far down in the credits the AD is mentioned!
I also learnt a handful of technical skills. I learnt about audio recording (different microphones, that big ol’ recorder which I forgot the name of, how to use a boom, that being a boom operator is the most strength my arms have needed in a good while, what constitutes a good recording, about peaking, and so on) from being a sound person in our first shoot. While I didn’t get to be camera operator on any shoot, I did get a chance to learn some basic skills for using the EX3, both when we had some small shoots as a class and when Jen taught the camera operators for episode one- and me. Again, while I have a lot to learn, I still feel I am in a much more confident place with that camera than I was before. I really appreciated Robin’s dedication to giving us the opportunity to getting our hands on equipment and learning new things while we were waiting for the collaboration to start, and then later for the scripts. While I’m on this topic, I’d like to say thanks to Robin for all of his work trying to make this studio what we wanted it to be and trying his best to ensure we got as much as possible from it.
Anyway, this is all not to mention all the experience I got in organisation and bossiness as first AD. While these aren’t ‘technical’ skills, I definitely learnt a lot about planning, time management and frankly, crisis management. Other skills I learnt were more personal, like gaining experience in conflict management and being reminded of the importance of communication and understanding. This leads me to a few…
Disappointments
I was disappointed that we didn’t get more of a chance to properly collaborate with the writers. Like I said earlier, I didn’t know what to expect and I don’t know what the plan was when the studio was initially thought of. However, I do know that it could have worked better. We definitely needed more communication with them at the beginning, and it would have been a lot smoother if we both had the same expectations of the studio. We obviously did not which was what frustrated us often as we received work from them that seemed irrelevant to us, and not very collaborative.
I am also disappointed that our project got to such a state of disarray that we almost stopped it. I still think it was a reasonable idea to try something different, but it is genuinely disappointing that we got to that point. It was no one’s fault and everyone’s fault at the same time. We definitely could have made it all easier by being sure of the actor’s availabilities before planning an entire shoot- it seems small in the scheme of things but this was really the first gust of wind to blow the down the house of cards.
Finally, it was also a pity that we didn’t do more class analysis into web series, or have many resources about them. I think our initial discussions about them could have continued a lot more throughout the semester. It is also bad luck that we didn’t get to make more episodes and distribute them too. It would’ve been great exposure to online distribution and getting views. But that’s enough of the downs, let’s move on to the ups!
What I loved
I had a lot of genuine laughs throughout this semester. Even through all the trials and tribulations I had fun with my group and there were a lot of really positive moments of collaboration, productivity, giggles, and conversation. I got to know people much better than I would in any other subject, and was shown how fun and productive group work can be (not always a given in university).
As established, a hell of a lot of learning was done. This was awesome. I loved getting the chance to work with external actors, and I loved getting to try different roles in the crew and seeing how much work goes behind film-based production.
This paragraph seems a lot shorter than the others, but it’s not because I was more disappointed than I was pleased. I think there’s a lesson in everything, even unexpected twists and turns that don’t feel so pleasant at the time. Coming to the end of This is Serial, I am happy with what we have achieved and all that I have learnt along the way. It’s been good, and I’m sad to go.
A final note- I definitely learnt that reflection doesn’t always need to be made up just to satisfy teachers and get marks. It can be genuine! (See above).
That’s all from me. So long, see you next semester.