In week 10, Monday’s class was dedicated to every group’s work in progress (WIP) presentations. This was a very daunting and vulnerable experience to share our work with not only the entire class but also two panel members who work professionally in comedy. Both Stayci and Hannah were very helpful and lovely, and their feedback was very valuable. A piece of feedback that seemed prominent to them was that we needed to make the parts of our film that are set in the 60’s more nuanced. We understood this feedback because we found this aspect of our film challenging which is why it was a bit underdeveloped. They also gave us some advice about the actual script, some things needed to be added or changed to help jokes land or to help the narrative make sense. Hannah gave us advice about our characters from an actor’s perspective, which prompted us to think more deeply about our main protagonist and her mindset.
It was also helpful to do a table read of the first two scenes of our script. We’d read it aloud before, but it was a different experience in front of an audience who hadn’t heard it before. It was nice when people laughed at jokes and were interested by the narrative (I hope!). Furthermore, it was also interesting and helpful to listen to other groups present and hear the feedback they received that were sometimes also relevant to my own group. I enjoyed listening to the other groups ideas and narratives, it was interesting to see the various approaches others have taken to the task.
On Wednesday’s class my group and I devoted this time to filming the first two scenes. I’ve never filmed something with so much equipment before, it was a very big task! First, we had to find a perfect place to film the office/meeting room scene. We knew we wanted to be in RMIT’s building 100 but it took a while to find the right location. However, after a kind staff member helped us, we were able to find one. Then came the task of setting up the space and equipment. We had lots to set up and it was a collective effort. I could probably have helped more with this, but I was rehearsing my lines as I had some big chunks of dialogue and I’m by no means an actor, so I was quite nervous! Zoe, Anna, and I who were being filmed on this day all had our spy agent costumes on, which I found quite fun. We did a LOT of takes of these scenes. It was more difficult than I thought but it was also more fun than I thought. After a few hours of filming in different locations, it was time to wrap up. Various members of the group had to leave, so Zoe and I stayed back to transfer the clips onto the hard drive, which I found very tedious because it took ages but of course, necessary.
This week was jam packed with things to do, and I’m extremely proud of my group for achieving what we did. I’m really happy with where we’re at in the project and I’m keen to film more next week.