Blog post reflecting on collaboration 

Throughout pre-production and production, I believe I was a valuable collaborator in the group project. In the beginning of brainstorming ideas, we had some difficulties deciding on the main focus, story, and characters. We had our vision of filming at a retro, funky skatepark, and possibly even to make the skatepark the main ‘character’. Though we had our primary figure, Rib, the idea was to interview multiple different skaters to get their views on what it’s like to skate there. After thorough group discussions and talks with Rohan, we all agreed that it would be best to simplify the idea. We agreed to make Rib the main character and focus the documentary around her personal and skating life. I was very relieved we had settled on this idea because personally I was not too keen on making the skatepark the main focus and having multiple people interviewed. During the initial stages of brainstorming, I was trying to nudge my group away from this idea; in hindsight, I could have been a better collaborator if I had openly stated my feelings about the initial idea earlier on so they could see my point of view, which maybe could have saved us some time in the early stages. However, we landed on a solid idea eventually and all group members were happy with it.

During production, I was present for all three days of filming. The first day of filming we wanted to become familiar with the skatepark, and also to re-familiarise ourselves with the Sony x70 camera before filming Rib. The second day of filming was shooting the interview. Jen and I went to this but unfortunately Emma couldn’t make it. Rib was generous to allow us to film inside her home. Jen and I worked together to make Rib feel as comfortable as possible and to set up the interview shots the way we envisioned. During the interview, I was responsible for wearing the headphones and operating the camera while Jen asked the questions. The third day of filming was shooting the b-roll of Rib skating. My teammates and I all worked well together to set up different angles, shots, and frames. I’m a little quieter than the rest of my group so I could have been a better collaborator by offering more ideas, however my voice was heard when I did offer my suggestions, so I am happy with my contribution.

Unfortunately during post-production, I became very unwell with glandular fever, which meant Jen and Emma had to do majority of the editing. I’m very disappointed that I did not get to go to the editing suites or help nearly as much as I would have liked to. I’m very grateful for Jen and Emma for taking the responsibility of editing while I was out of action. However, we communicated clearly online, and I helped with many decisions as well as making my own suggestions. We had calls and they FaceTimed me from the editing suites so I could see what was happening. I also did get to have my contribution; I made the credits which I thought were very cute and I was proud of. Overall, our team collaborated very well, we communicated our ideas clearly and made sure all voices were heard.