Olivia McDonald // Mediafactory Blog

The start of a new semester has come and with it, a totally fresh studio with very exciting possibilities and so much to learn.

Jumping right into it, here is one media project that is exclusively online.

In 2011, still in the relatively new world of Facebook, an interactive short film was released on the social media website called Take This Lollipop. The film was delivered through Facebook Connect, allowing individual’s data and information to be incorporated into the film. The result was a short three-minute film that centered on a man stalking the user on Facebook, with the user’s own profile picture, name and friend list appearing in the film.

It is a warning not to share too much personal information on the internet, as the film ends in the stalker finding the user’s house. As a 13-year-old it was terrifying.

This could never work offline, as its effectiveness is in its effect of cutting close to home, of getting under the user’s skin and scaring them by using the user’s own information. Of course, the piece itself is about the internet, so it wouldn’t make great sense to exhibit it away from the internet.

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.

Episode reflection

I’ve already reflected on our initial episode one, but given it’s more recent additions I think a re-reflection is required, as well as a reflection of our second episode.

So: our finished first episode. While the added in scenes do look different, in their lighting, location, and maybe even filming, I still think they help the episode make more sense and generally better. I especially like the soda machine line, I think that worked out really well.

Technically, I think there were a few issues with sound being too quiet. A few scenes that were fine in the original sounded quieter, so I think the lapel mic tracks must have been removed in the second edit because of rustling (maybe). I think it sounded better when it was louder, even with the rustling.

There was also an issue with the sound (and lighting) in the hallway scene. The lighting was ambient (i.e. just the normal hallway lights), and fine for most of it, but towards the end it’s really dark and hard to see the actor’s faces, which isn’t great. Also, the cutaways to the doors didn’t work quite like I imagined. I like this scene but I pictured it slightly snappier and faster paced. They were also too dark sometimes.

Narratively, I think the whole spin/call Arabella/cancel the spin joke goes on far too long. Maybe I’ve just seen it too many times, but I think it could be half that length. On that note, I think it’s hard for me to be really critical on this episode because it’s been milling around in my head for so long. At this point I’m just a bit sick of thinking about it to be honest!

Here’s the final episode 1:

https://vimeo.com/239302975

On to episode 2, slippery business! I do quite like this episode. I think it’s funnier. I really like the interaction between Arabella/Christian and I think we filmed those scenes really well. I think the style and humour is a little more developed in this episode.

I don’t think the dark hallway lighting is such an issue in this episode but it still isn’t perfect. I really love the tomato being kicked down the hall, especially that thudding sound!

In terms of the garden scene, it’s a real pity the lens was so dirty. It’s a noticeable difference and detracts from the scene, but overall, I still like these scenes and I think, while the garden was very busy, it still looks nice. I think the Twizard dialogue drags on a bit, but I genuinely do like the interaction between all the characters outside, and even though we’ll never know what that scene has to do with the greater plot, I still think it was a funny addition.

Episode 2:

https://vimeo.com/239762317

Overall, these episodes don’t resemble the short, fast paced, witty web series I had hoped to or imagined making. I think even these episodes themselves could be broken up further, or just contain less complex narrative. I still like them though. And after all, even if there is a lot left to be improved and even if this is far from being “good quality”, it’s a starting point. No one is going to make a technically and narratively amazing series on their first go.

I am going to reflect on my work as first AD, which took place in the last six weeks or so. I also was a sound recorder at one point in my Serial life, but I have already reflected on that, and I put about 17 times the amount of work into being first AD. I am SO proud of the work I did as first AD. I didn’t spend an exorbitant amount of time working but it was really tricky for me to get my head around my responsibilities at the beginning. That may seem silly, but it was genuinely overwhelming trying to organize everything and everyone, especially throughout the breakdown.

During this time particular, I spent a lot of time stressing about what was going to happen and how we were going to fix the problem. I wasn’t even involved in any of the talks (about stopping the project) with the writers but it still made me very nervous. As I’ve said before, once the decision was made to return to Human Resources, it was just about getting on with the show for me. And that’s what I did. I spent a lot of time working out our schedule, making sure everyone was prepared for our shoots and corresponding with different people. I really believe I played a big part in how smooth and efficient our shoots were. It’s not something that’s visible in our final episodes, apart from the fact that we even got it done maybe. But the success of the shoot was definitely tangible on the day and I thank myself for that. I think I did a good job of organising (of course, along with Bridie).

I was successful in my planning of the schedule in terms of timing and how long each scene would take, and how long we needed for breaks and location changes, etc. Something I learnt the importance of or would do more in the future is rehearsals. We learnt after our first shoot that these were important but I still think I could have allocated more time to them in the later shoots. I’m not making excuses, but I was worried about getting it all done and that’s why there wasn’t a tonne of time left for them. It mostly didn’t cause any problems, but there were a few scenes that could’ve been improved with a bit more practice.

Something else I definitely learnt was the absolute importance of having reliable crew/actors and making sure you have confirmed their availabilities!!!!!!! I think that in the future, I will make more to-do lists and checklists that have to be completed before moving on to the next stage of planning. I.e, check the main actor is available and willing to shoot before writing call sheet and confirming shoot. I also learnt the value of communication. Even within our own group, there were many times that more communication would have helped everyone out a lot. Especially myself, as there were a handful of decisions I was reluctant to make by myself. At the end of the day, I needed to make them for us to get anything done.

I also learnt of the value of a runner! It would’ve been splendid to have someone else go and fetch baby powder from Melbourne Central 15 mins before we were due to start shooting, but alas, I was destined for the journey of the baby powder. I also learnt that it feels silly to continually say “Quiet on set” when no one is making any sound.

I did enjoy being assistant director, but I am actually looking forward to sinking my teeth back into some technical or more ‘creative’ work in the next opportunity I get (even if creativity is overrated).

Today was our last shoot of Human Resources, and the last work I will really do on the project, as I am not involved in post-production. Like Monday, today was really efficient and successful. Once again, I was proud of my planning and proud of us all for being so productive. I probably should have allowed more time for rehearsal because some of the scenes were slightly complex and it would have been good to run through them a few more times before shooting. Ah well, I still think they will look good.

It was an absolutely splendid day, as we shot in Kings Domain under the trees and nestled in between ponds and blooming flowers. We were scared about the heat but it turned out to be fine in the park. Really warm, but not too warm. Something that was an issue was the insane amount of pollen that you could see being blown around by the wind. Luckily no one had really bad hay fever or was asthmatic, but everyone was still coughing and sneezing more than normal. We made sure we had lots of cups of water available for everyone and I ensured everyone could take a break if they needed it.

Unfortunately, we’ve just heard from the editors- Jen and Amber- that the lens of the camera looks dirty or foggy in all of the shots in the park. This is a pity because it will take away from the quality of these scenes, but again, not much we can do about it now. Gianella took the blame- but I definitely don’t think she or anyone is really to blame as such. I’ve never thought to clear the lens of any camera, and I’m sure it wasn’t noticeable when shooting. We reckon this was actually pollen in the air, maybe sticking to the lens. Just another thing to learn- make sure lens is clean!

I was only doing the job of the first AD in the first half of the morning (it was a half day), because Bridie and I swapped half-way through. Apparently, there were some issues later because there were a lot of people in the park having picnics and milling around, getting in the background of our shots. As frustrating as it is, there probably wasn’t many always around this. Any park would have had people in it on such a lovely day, and this park was the most convenient as it was so close to RMIT.

Like on Monday, we really had a fun time today. In our break, Bridie was doing some tarot card readings and we were all happy lil relaxed workers laying under the breezy canopy on a lovely day. It was a really nice and pleasant way to end all of the hard work we have done together.

 

Our third shoot for Human Resources was on Monday. It went really well! We were efficient and professional and finished ahead of schedule. We still had a relaxed and fun environment and everyone seemed to genuinely enjoy themselves.

We started off the day in the building 14/media precinct area. The scenes we were filming there were short and didn’t require much rehearsal. Filming was a bit tricky at times because there were people furnishing the area and setting up for some event at the same time. It was frustrating because it wasn’t just talking or “normal” background noise, but noise like the sound of heavy-duty plastic being unwrapped or the floor being scraped. Eve and I spoke to the people a few times to ask them to be a bit quieter when we were shooting a take (asked nicely). I’ve got to hand it to Eve for being more confident in asking perfect strangers to be quiet, honestly, I was quite nervous to even though that was more of my job.

We then later moved into building seven to shoot the hallway scenes. If I thought sound was an issue in building 14 I was in for a cruel shock in building seven. People were constantly moving around, leaving rooms, talking further down the hallway, coming down the stairs (how dare they!) This held us up a lot and quite a few takes were ruined by doors slamming in the background. The frustrating thing is that the hallway had apparently been very empty the other times our crew had been there. I’d only been there once but even then, we saw one or two people, not lots of people every few minutes. Also, people need to learn to let a door close gently.  Anyway, even though it was very frustrating at times, we did get it all done.

The actors changed (i.e. some left and some arrived) at lunchtime. One thing I was really happy with for this shoot was all the food that we provided and breaks we offered. Inevitably everyone was tired, sore and a bit over it by the end of the day but we weren’t too overworked- and we had lots of yummy food.

A really fun moment was when we replaced the coffee from the first scene in episode two (the coffee that Liz drops and Duncan kicks down the hall) with a tomato. I bought four tomatoes for our lunch because my portion understanding was way, way off, and we didn’t want any drink to spill because it would be such a hassle to clean up. So, low and behold in our giggly state we devised a plan to replace the coffee with one of the three spare tomatoes. It was hilarious to film. The idea of an office worker turning up with a single tomato and then her boss kicking it down the hallway was very funny to us. It may seem bizarre in the episode but I think the bizarreness will really help make it a more engaging and funny episode.

Everyone worked really well in their roles, getting into it and helping each other out. I was especially impressed by Matilda who had originally been so apathetic about the idea of directing, but really came forward with a lot of direction and focus. I think it shows how it’s important not to reject the idea of doing something just because you don’t think you’d be good at it. Anyway, we only have one more shoot to go now. Looking forward to wrapping it all up, but overall I am really proud of how we worked on Monday.

 

This week has been focused on pre-production for episode two, and the remainder of episode one that we are yet to shoot. We have two days of shooting in the upcoming week- Monday (tomorrow) and Wednesday. The past few days have blurred in my mind, but I have put a lot of work into preparing for the shoots so they can be as seamless as possible. We have gotten really lucky, and all the actors who we needed are available for a good amount of time. This means we are shooting six scenes! I am worried about getting it all done, but I know if it came to it we could push some scenes onto the Wednesday shoot.

Preparation that Bridie (producer) and I have done thus far include the call sheet, organising catering, researching any filming permits we may need, corresponding with the actors, and helping Matilda (director), Gianella (DOP) and Eve (Camera/second AD/all-rounder) work out a rough storyboard and shot list. This part was actually pretty fun as I had not helped with the “creative” side of pre-production yet, and we were working on one of the funnier scenes (Duncan showing Liz down the hallway in ep1) from the episode- in my opinion.

It was disappointing that a lot of our crew couldn’t make it on Friday (our second session of pre-production- and also our last ‘class’), but it also worked having fewer people there to make decisions more efficiently. I’ve put a lot of work into preparing for tomorrow and Wednesday and I’m excited to see how it all works out.

Yesterday we finally had our second shoot. It feels bizarre that it was only our second when it feels like it should be the fourth or fifth by the amount of work that was put into the cancelled shoots, and how long it has been since we first shot. It went well, all things considered. Due to the chaos of the past few weeks, I feel we have definitely lost our momentum and general organisation that made the first shoot so successful and had us on track to get up to three new episodes made by the end of the semester. This is really unfortunate (to be clearer, this sucks) but there is no use dwelling on what could have been.

After our two meetings on Tuesday (where only half of us were present)- with Paul and Rachel and with the writers, we started to organise the shoot for Friday. I don’t know how much of plan there was before then for what we were going to shoot and when, there mightn’t have been one at all. I think there was a loose and ideal plan that didn’t have any finer details confirmed.  Which meant I had some work as AD to work out what was going to happen when and with who.

Between the Tuesday and the Friday, we confirmed that Mitch and Brittany would be available to shoot- we wanted to shoot a few short scenes from episode one that would help make the rest of the episode make more sense- i.e. fill in the B line that we originally cut out.  This technically included a scene with the vampire Christian but due to uncertainty as to who would play Christian, we replaced him with Carl (Mitch). This was one of a few executive decisions I made as AD to get us moving again and get through any obstacles (which I expected to face, given our history). Luckily, the scenes were easily adaptable, and so we had a plan if anything happened and Brittany couldn’t make it. Which was good, because she couldn’t in the end.

Throughout this week and when shooting I felt a vague yet strong sense of frustration. I felt like I was making a lot of decisions in the dark, unaware of if they’d already been made, if people would agree, if it was the right decision, so on and so forth. Throughout all this frustration, which wasn’t helped by sparse online contact and response to my messages, I just knew I had to move forward and get things done despite my uncertainty. In this way, I am proud of myself for objectively moving on from the chaos of the past few weeks (which involved emotions for many people) and taking initiative on working out our plan.

So after Brittany/Arabella fell through, I suggested we just replace the scene she was meant to be in- Arabella and Christian/Carl in line for soda machine, Christian/Carl make annoying remark to Arabella- with a similar scene, with a generic line of people that look hot and communicate the idea that the office is overheated. We all worked out together what would work best before shooting, and had a few of the crew step in as actors. The rest of the shoot was pretty efficient. There wasn’t too much for me to do as AD on the day, as the set was pretty casual as we didn’t have much to shoot and there weren’t too many people there, which really meant I didn’t need to run the set much at all.

Inevitably the session wasn’t bound to be completely issue-free. There were some minor frustrations amongst the crew with a writer who didn’t understand the significance of an allocated director and thought it was okay to give input whenever he felt like it (all of the time). I know I signed up to boss people around, but honestly, I still didn’t feel totally comfortable telling him he needed to stop giving his two cents. I tried, by saying that he needed to step back because Matilda (the director) is the one to make a lot of these decisions.  It kind of worked. I know he has/had a vision from writing it and I respect that he can have helpful ideas. However, at the end of the day, my main concern is that this is our project as much as the writers, and we already are stretched for roles between the ten of us. There is simply no room for more input without taking some away from our crew.

Simultaneously there was some serious disengagement from crew members who didn’t care for the production after the recent meltdown. I completely understand this, and just moved on with everyone who was there and committed to getting it done.

Overall it went well. We overcame our setbacks by adapting to fix the problem and made something that is pretty decent (I think) given the circumstances. After packing up, we read through the script for episode two which the writers had just finished. (Another quick note of disbelief… only the second script? In week 11? How did this happen?!) It was a bit longer than we wanted, but it wasn’t bad. I had a chuckle here and there. They wrote in another character, which is rather frustrating given it made the character count exceed the initial request from us (2-3 characters) by another 3 characters. Oh well… It’s all about getting on with the show now…

 

(Pre-production for ep 2 to start next week!)

So, after my long and heartfelt post about why we’re stopping Human Resources, things have changed (which really shouldn’t be a surprise at this point) and we’re going back to Human Resources. Bridie and Amber met with Birrin (who was representing the other three disappointed and seemingly offended writers) on Friday to talk about it and the outcome was to forego Serial 2.0. At the end of the day, it is a little disappointing that we didn’t get to create something else (within the course), but it is more disappointing that we wasted a whole week on this kerfuffle and will now consequently be set one or even two weeks back in our original plan.

Overall though I don’t mind that we’re going back to Human Resources. I know that might seem incongruent to my previous musings, but at the end of the day, I just want to make something. In that way, I am happy to (and have to) agree with the majority/group decision, because no more time can be wasted on group politics or indecision. Furthermore, I have gotten to such a point of frustration within this studio that I now really don’t care about what the project is, I just want to move on and get it done. So that’s what we’re doing. I’m sure with this behind us we will be able to work coherently together and efficiently create something we are (hopefully) happy with.