Week 12 (Thursday the 25th of May)

The most interesting and worthy part of this semesters Studio ‘More Than Fabrics’ was by far the group collaboration process. It was refreshing to join forces and work in partnership with other students who had like-minded ideas. Taking a step back to the beginning of this semester my ultimate goal was to create an experimental fashion film. Playing around with various film processes to produce something out of the ordinary, abstract and atmospheric. One could say an anti-fashion film was really what I wanted to experiment with. My Media 3 group consisted of Kaisa Kosidlo, Emily Buckland and Lisa Miller; we became a collaborative group due to sharing similar ideas of what we wanted to achieve within the studio. The first big milestone was creating a plan for the piece; as there were quite a few individuals within the group we needed to allocate roles so that the planning process would be easier and less convoluted.

As Emily and I knew the technicalities of filming and editing we decided to step in together as co-directors whilst placing Lisa as producer and Kasia to help her as assistant director or production assistant (lighting, sound, ect). The planning process was enjoyable, with a meld of different ideas and concepts being placed into a google word document so that we would be able to build on chosen themes. Most of the planning was initiated once we had chosen our fashion students whom Lisa was liaising with. We ended up working with two separate students. The two students each had different products which were created out of different materials but they were both shades of pink and also were quite daring, something we wanted in our chosen pieces as it would help out with the experimental aspect. We like both of the garments so much we wrote both into our film, it would also make the film even more captivating with more visuals.

The first assessment for our final fashion film was presenting our pitch. I felt like we had a good grasp on what we wanted to achieve, there was a lot of information to be presented- but as we had more individuals in our group then others it meant we needed more roles and were able to complete more in the set time frame. The pitch centered around our creation of two pieces that would go together. A ‘Behind the Scenes’ view of creating a fashion film and the experimental piece itself. We thought both would complement each other and It would be a nice idea to document the whole process. Capturing trials and tribulations along the way. The pitch was a nice way to get feedback although more feedback would have been good upfront rather than waiting for our results as waiting for feedback meant we wouldn’t be able to incorporate it into our pre-production process.

Post pitch was when elements of the production became harder. Honestly the most challenging part of the process overall would have had to been scheduling, scheduling times for studio locations, editing suits, talent and of course ourselves (the crew). I noticed when booking studios, it was quite hard to book in advance and sometimes even when a studio was booked teachers were able to go overtime on their bookings which made the processes a little frustrating. For our studio shoot I managed to book a studio in Building 94. This was the building I completed my Diploma within and I knew the ins-and outs of the studio. Inside there were redheads which we used for lighting, I would have liked to use a fill lighting kit to have a better back-light on our studio shots but as we were shooting quite late in the evening the AV department was shut and it would have been hard to return the gear post shoot. We captured a lot of footage during this day and the studio shoot went well although I knew whilst shooting that the footage would most likely need colour grading due to the intensity of the hues in the redheads. Our group worked together on the day of our shoot Lisa and I stayed for the whole day starting around 10am and finished around 7pm. Emily and Kasia stayed for most and helped  quite a bit. One of the main benefits with having a larger crew was we didn’t have to have as much weight on our shoulders compared to if we were working individually.

The final stage in our production was editing, which was quite tranquil- time consuming but there wasn’t as much running around and organizing which made the process more relaxing. Our whole group spent a good chunk of time re-watching our footage to pull out the most efficient and technical shots. As Em and I were the co-directors we were the ones who would be doing the actual editing but it was good to have the group input there for when criticism and critic was needed.

Emily did a lot of the clip placements whilst I worked on green screen and effects it was interesting to see how the joint editing would work. One aspect I found a little frustrating was coming into university and spending hours in the small edit suites to edit. I also noticed towards the end of term the schedule for the suites would be booked well in advance which made finding time hard. I would have liked to edit via hard-drive on our own computers as I have quite a good edit space set up in my home environment but again this was one of the aspects working in a group had, we had to compromise what was easiest for everyone else and some people in the group found it easier to work at university.

Overall our editing process was insightful to me. Editing with other group members was something different and a little challenging; as normally I edit alone. The rest of the process was similar to other studios and collaborative projects I’ve done but was still rewarding. It is always enjoyable to collaborate with likeminded students. If I were to give feedback on this studio I would have liked to see a few more excursions to places which had items of fashion- just to get into more depth with fabrics and the actual design phases fashion students go through. I really enjoyed listening to the producers who came into class during our tutorials. I found their career advice helpful and it was interesting to see where most fashion films end up; whether they be commercial or experimental. Also, how creating experimental imagery can help the imagination to flourish. In conclusion to this studio it will be rewarding to see what various students have achieved during the studios screening, I really like to watch creative ideas become reality so I hope watching the screenings will help keep me inspired for the next studio I collaborate within.