Following the end of year one we were given a task over the summer to begin our pre-production for our second-year film. In the first year I had made a film called ‘The Oddfather’ which was the story of mob boss Carmine Angelo and his reluctance to have his best friend Pasquale Aprile killed after he robs another member of a different mafia family, he fights a battle against his emotions and eventually he may have to give in to fellow mob boss John Rizzo.
Currently I have completed the script which is quite long and will definitely make my film the required 15 minutes that it needs to be, it shows that I have made suitable progress in my pre-production as the script is normally the piece of pre-production that takes the longest to write so it's lifted a big weight off my shoulders and allows me to focus on other aspects of the pp. Regarding this, I still need to do the storyboard as I'm not 100% sure how I want some scenes to be acted out so completing the storyboard will be the next and logical step, then afterwards I shall focus on the smaller but just as important permission forms, where I need all the actors/locations to have signed off permission for me to use them in my film.
Before second year, I thought I was going to suffer a massive problem, I thought that some people who were in the course on first year were going to be dropping out and I thought I may not be able to do The Oddfather part 2, however everyone stayed on and the problem was avoided, however, if that problem did occur I had a plan to overcome it, I would've wrote out all the characters who wouldn't be able to be in it and still make the plot work, thankfully I didn't have to but that was my solution if a problem was to arise.
My initial ideas for the film is to shoot it in a variety of shots and a variety of locations, my reason being is that is gives the film life because if there was only one location in the film then it would be incredibly bland and mundane and people will slowly lose interest in the film if they see the same location over and over again, these locations will include 'public' places such as the beach and also 'private' locations such as my friends houses as I may use a house as sort of a hideout for my character, also the multiple locations will create tension as my character is a mobster and any open location is quite dangerous for him, so this idea will create tension as you never know what will happen. I choose locations/types of shots based on how I feel the production should be, I feel that the locations I have chose will gain mass interest and will be an enjoyable film.
The resources I require will be cameras, tripods and microphones, I shall go about getting them in one of two ways: way one would be to borrow them from my college as they lend cameras out for all their students and this is how I filmed my first year film. The second way is to 'share' with my friends, as last year too we also helped each other by lending one and another small bits of equipment that we needed which was very helpful and took the pressure off of us somewhat, this method is useful as we can all be getting on with our productions because we'll all have the equipment we need and if not we'll just ask each other if they have a certain piece. These two methods will make sure that getting equipment is easy and will require absolutely no hassle at all.
Considering it was my first time ever making a full fledged movie, this whole process was a massive learning experience to me, it certainly wasn't what I thought it would be. It was a lot more stressful, at times difficult, but ultimately when I did finish it was very rewarding and I was glad to finish it, however, there's still a lot for me to improve on. For example, the amount of 'paperwork' that was required did cause me a few headaches, obviously I knew everything we needed to do but it still did take me by surprise. I did do every bit of paperwork but it was very frustrating at times, needing to meticulously analyse every location for its positives and negatives did agitate me, writing the same thing over and over again gets to you. Overall apart from the paperwork the rest of the process wasn't stressful and I got through it with no hitches, the filming process had no issues although regarding that I was disappointed in myself because of the lack of variety of shots in my film but this comes with experience and with my next film will be a lot better shots wise as they'll look better and will have more advanced shots. I will improve this by not finishing shooting unless I am 100% satisfied with the shot, and it may annoy the actors but deep down I consider the shot more important and will do anything to get it, because not only will the second year film be longer, the marking will be a lot less lenient than first year and I will do everything I can to achieve nothing but the best.
I believe that I have improved on every aspect, because I've actually made a film now, so everything that was new to me is now something I've done, and with anything in life the only way to progress at something is to do it more, and this was a big learning experience for me. It showed how much works goes into productions, at times I felt there was too much work so I couldn't imagine how professional filmmakers feel. How I will improve is taking my time, because last year I felt that I was rushing because I wanted to get my film done as soon as possible which in turn hindered me at times, because when you're in a rush you often 'cut corners', for example there were times were I claimed I was happy with a certain shot when looking back it quite clearly isn't the standard that it should be, so overall I've improved by realising that I shouldn't rush things, I'm also more experienced with paperwork that is needed to be done so this year it shouldn't be an issue. Now I feel more confident as I've finally got used to all the aspects of pre-production and film production overall.
Currently I have completed the script which is quite long and will definitely make my film the required 15 minutes that it needs to be, it shows that I have made suitable progress in my pre-production as the script is normally the piece of pre-production that takes the longest to write so it's lifted a big weight off my shoulders and allows me to focus on other aspects of the pp. Regarding this, I still need to do the storyboard as I'm not 100% sure how I want some scenes to be acted out so completing the storyboard will be the next and logical step, then afterwards I shall focus on the smaller but just as important permission forms, where I need all the actors/locations to have signed off permission for me to use them in my film.
Before second year, I thought I was going to suffer a massive problem, I thought that some people who were in the course on first year were going to be dropping out and I thought I may not be able to do The Oddfather part 2, however everyone stayed on and the problem was avoided, however, if that problem did occur I had a plan to overcome it, I would've wrote out all the characters who wouldn't be able to be in it and still make the plot work, thankfully I didn't have to but that was my solution if a problem was to arise.
My initial ideas for the film is to shoot it in a variety of shots and a variety of locations, my reason being is that is gives the film life because if there was only one location in the film then it would be incredibly bland and mundane and people will slowly lose interest in the film if they see the same location over and over again, these locations will include 'public' places such as the beach and also 'private' locations such as my friends houses as I may use a house as sort of a hideout for my character, also the multiple locations will create tension as my character is a mobster and any open location is quite dangerous for him, so this idea will create tension as you never know what will happen. I choose locations/types of shots based on how I feel the production should be, I feel that the locations I have chose will gain mass interest and will be an enjoyable film.
The resources I require will be cameras, tripods and microphones, I shall go about getting them in one of two ways: way one would be to borrow them from my college as they lend cameras out for all their students and this is how I filmed my first year film. The second way is to 'share' with my friends, as last year too we also helped each other by lending one and another small bits of equipment that we needed which was very helpful and took the pressure off of us somewhat, this method is useful as we can all be getting on with our productions because we'll all have the equipment we need and if not we'll just ask each other if they have a certain piece. These two methods will make sure that getting equipment is easy and will require absolutely no hassle at all.
Considering it was my first time ever making a full fledged movie, this whole process was a massive learning experience to me, it certainly wasn't what I thought it would be. It was a lot more stressful, at times difficult, but ultimately when I did finish it was very rewarding and I was glad to finish it, however, there's still a lot for me to improve on. For example, the amount of 'paperwork' that was required did cause me a few headaches, obviously I knew everything we needed to do but it still did take me by surprise. I did do every bit of paperwork but it was very frustrating at times, needing to meticulously analyse every location for its positives and negatives did agitate me, writing the same thing over and over again gets to you. Overall apart from the paperwork the rest of the process wasn't stressful and I got through it with no hitches, the filming process had no issues although regarding that I was disappointed in myself because of the lack of variety of shots in my film but this comes with experience and with my next film will be a lot better shots wise as they'll look better and will have more advanced shots. I will improve this by not finishing shooting unless I am 100% satisfied with the shot, and it may annoy the actors but deep down I consider the shot more important and will do anything to get it, because not only will the second year film be longer, the marking will be a lot less lenient than first year and I will do everything I can to achieve nothing but the best.
I believe that I have improved on every aspect, because I've actually made a film now, so everything that was new to me is now something I've done, and with anything in life the only way to progress at something is to do it more, and this was a big learning experience for me. It showed how much works goes into productions, at times I felt there was too much work so I couldn't imagine how professional filmmakers feel. How I will improve is taking my time, because last year I felt that I was rushing because I wanted to get my film done as soon as possible which in turn hindered me at times, because when you're in a rush you often 'cut corners', for example there were times were I claimed I was happy with a certain shot when looking back it quite clearly isn't the standard that it should be, so overall I've improved by realising that I shouldn't rush things, I'm also more experienced with paperwork that is needed to be done so this year it shouldn't be an issue. Now I feel more confident as I've finally got used to all the aspects of pre-production and film production overall.
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