Working on Cleaned Out has been an extremely beneficial experience that has set me up with the essential basics needed when working on a film set, as well as boosted my confidence in my technical competence. Although I knew, theoretically, how a film set operated, being the first time I’ve ever worked on a short film (or series of short films), I was a little bit worried about my involvement in the project.
In this project, my group produced three episodes or a web series, each better than the last. The first episode felt kind of slow paced and awkward due to us media students only starting to grasp hold of the ropes, but the next two episodes after that were much better, and more enjoyable to work on.
Even though I have had experience with the equipment, such as cameras and microphones on live sets, my involvement in the production was mainly as the editor. Because it was technically my first time working on a set like this, at first, I didn’t want to set myself as the main director for a bit, as I wouldn’t have had a clue as to what to do, but I still wanted to have a large involvement in the creative decisions.
As the main editor for the production, based on the problems I encountered in the first editing session, I quickly devolved a set of two main rules for the actors in every project I work on. I noticed that a lot of the time, the actors would deviate from the script, and would paraphrase differently in every take. They also used different hand gestures, and positioned themselves differently every time. This made it difficult to join sequences together, and made discontinuity a big problem. The first thing I made sure happened before every shoot was that the actors rehearsed the scene until they knew it word for word, and established the gestures that they wanted to use along with it. It also helped with the pacing of the dialogue. The second problem I encountered was that the actors would speak over each other with their lines. This caused a problem in post-production for when I wanted to change camera angles, but with every cut, the last word of the previous line would be heard again in the background. Because of this, I made sure that the actors would leave about a half second pause in between their lines in the close-ups. This way, I could adjust the pacing of the conversation in post-production. After establishing these rules with the crew and actors, all of the footage we got after was much smoother and better to edit.
The first time on set, filming moved pretty slowly. The crew was there for hours, and only got one scene filmed in that time. This was because we hadn’t planned things such as what specifically needed to be filmed, the filming location, and the cinematography. We quickly tackled this problem by making sure that we had a filming schedule for every shoot, and knew exactly where and how we were going to do them.
Probably the biggest impact that this project has had on me was that it helped me begin to narrow down my own specific style. I’ve always wanted to have my own personalized style in which the cinematography and the editing would support the dialogue and story.
One thing I enjoyed specifically, was coordinating the drama. Having been an actor in various stage productions in the past, I already had some idea of how to create the scene. Before filming (and sometimes during), I, along with some of my group members, would sit down with the actors, and make sure that the dialogue was punchy, and fast paced, so that the scenes felt lively and less awkward than the first episode.
Even though I didn’t get to experiment with it as much on set (as I didn’t want to try and completely take over the project), I felt that there were decisions I would have liked to make that may have seemed odd and confusing to group my group members, especially in regards to the cinematography. For example, the first thing I noticed when I started editing the first episode was that the camera was at chest level. I instantly decided that I was not liking it, and made sure that in every shoot we did after, the camera was always at eye level. Secondly, I noticed that the handheld camera was a little off-putting. When I brought it up with the group, their opinions differed to mine. But I have officially decided that I’m not a fan of handheld camera technique. Unless it has a specific purpose (like a documentary style film), I do not like using handheld camera as the main filming style, and believe it should only be used in very small bursts. Lastly, I am also not as much of a fan of a stationary camera, except for dialogue scenes. Like the handheld technique, I believe that it could be very effective in small bursts, but if the camera was stationary with every shot, I feel like the pacing of the film would feel much slower. Instead, the camera should always be moving very subtly, whether it be tracking, panning, or zooming.
When it finally got to the editing stage, I added some more comedic value to some parts, such as odd transitions, and background noises, some of which worked, some of which didn’t. Sometimes, some of the jokes I added in post-production didn’t feel right as they weren’t suited for the script. The main thing I learned from this was that editing decisions were to be kept in mind in early stages of planning.
When you break it down to one core rule, I would say that the main thing I got out of this whole project was that planning is the most important part of it. It was frustrating when we encountered problems that could have been avoided, or noticed that there were elements that we could have added if we had thought about it at the start. Even though I was completely satisfied with the outcome of the overall project, there were parts that I still would have loved to include if they worked correctly.
Overall, I really enjoyed working with my group. The best thing about it was that even though we spent half of the time sitting around and talking, we knew when it was time to be serious. Having a group that was so easy to talk to, and were very understanding of each other’s own unique style of sense of humour, made the project one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. So, to all of you idiots, thank you so much! It was absolutely awesome working with you. 10/10 would work with again.
Adrian Lapiz
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