Creating the book was a simple process, using the website 'BLURB' I was able to find a quick book template and insert text and pictures easily and proficiently. When it came to the final print out of the book, the pages and front cover were done by the people at 'The Printers' in Chatham who kindly professionally printed out my book and wire blinded it, all ready in 5 mins, ready for my submission.
The story and structure took a while to shape out but as soon as I got my story idea, the plot and characters soon became to shape out. It was simply taking my title and reconstructing the idea into something different but had the same edge.
Finding the right actors was a simple process as most of the character roles I visualised already had people in mind. John Redding for example was planned from the beginning to be a major part of the production and he kept at the chance to work with me again.
Other actors were found by mere coincidence such as Natalie Bradbury who worked at my part time job at PQA in Tunbridge.
Most of the researching process on a specific religion was a challenge yet interesting to ravel into. I found out so much at the Jehovah's Witness religion, some facts even scared me a little. What made it fun was imputing these facts into the script and story.
My concept artist was amazing to work with and she delivered what I wanted, when I wanted it. Her work was up to professional standards and I was happy what she came up with and the style in which she constructed it.
What didn't work?
My original idea of having a failing psychology student to rehabilitate a bunch of messed up young delinquents was way to complicated to make into a short film. The plot was far to complicated for some people to understand, some of the ideal locations I wanted were far too big and too expensive to hire and design.
Working by myself was a challenge, I needed to communicate with my peers and team up with someone in order to get more work done. I found myself over stressed and tired because of the amount of work required and I found it a struggle.
I let to let the original idea go, in doing so I had to come up with another as soon as possible and pitch it to my tutor. At lot of the time it was time wasting in finding my new story and finding a new angle of tackling my characters.
Since I was partnered up with 2 other uni mates who were also making films, we had to organise our thoughts and find a way to work together in order to make our films work and most of all achievable. Because we had to spend most of the time thinking hypothetically, we wasted to much time on showing action plans, and pointless updates on our blogs instead of showing how we were going to share resources and make our films work and achievable so we can in the end, 3 short yet detailed films all ready to submit for our final major project by the end of the third year.
There were a couple of issues when it came to printing out my book for submission. 'BLURB' needed me to first upload my book and then requested that I had to pay for a PDF file to be sent to me. The only problem was that the file has less quality then I thought as the company want to professionally print out a hard copy of the book which would have cost me over £100 and I would had to have wasted over 2 weeks in order to receive it. with the time that I had I went with the PDF file as that was all I could do.
What did I learn?
- I have learned the value for organisation and working with other people. 3 films are hard to work around and even harder to predict as well as plan around them to see if each of them can be filmed and achieved.
- Research is essential, when it came to researching the Jehovah's Witness region, I needed to make sure that each fact about their religion was accurate and true.
- Use time wisely, most of the time my team were too focused into proving to our tutor that our films can be achieved that half the time we could have just gotten to the point and continued with our pre production.
- The amount of detail required is necessary, the director's statement was a long process as I needed to make sure I had my vision explained and understood in paper form which is often my week point. I have learned that the more detail you have the better, even though I feel that I could have added a lot more detail.
- I have learned that I don't have to necessary do the work all on my own, there were professionals I could have hire like a production designer. Since I was by myself I found that all of the work was often too much for me to handle and often found myself staying up till 2am or 4am to make sure certain aspects of my work was done.
What could I develop?
- I could develop my communication skills when working in a team. I was so focused on my work most of the time I needed to keep up with my team to work with them and get to the point of were we knew what we could share in order for our films to be achieved.
- My research, I feel that I need to amp up my research into my pre production. My director's statement needed so much detail that I feel I could have added a lot more content. I couldn't even find or get a production designer to help with the design of the film.
- My confidence, the first presentation I pitched was terrible and I could have said and explained things a lot more detailed and simpler.
