Use film commisioners

Something often overlooked for student filmmakers. Use film commissioners - especially if you are not in the middle of New York City or LA. Each country has their own commissioner who often will not get many phone calls or requests. If you present yourself professionally they will be more than willing to spend their time working for you. I mean it, they will literally help you with preproduction and they have connections. They can get you locations, sets, crews, equipment, etc. Usually for no to little cost.

I should have used this resource earlier. It has helped me immensely for preparing to shoot my thesis. I got location I thought were impossible for little cost.

End-of-semester Reflection

As the semester comes to a close, I have a lot to think about and a lot to reflect upon; mainly, the new-found appreciation I have for the field of film production. Before this class, I can confidently say that I already knew much more about the industry than the vast majority of my friends. I've always had an appreciation for the film industry and for those who work in it, but not to this level.

Last year, I took an intro to field production course, and I certainly learned a lot from it, but my overall opinion of film production was not at all affected through the experience. Fiction Field Production 1--through the semester-long project we had to complete--taught me a whole lot more about the industry than I ever would have thought possible.

What was so different about this class was the fact that, for the first time since I've gotten to this school, we were assigned a legitimate project that really put everyone's skills to the test. The project was simple (or so I thought): make a film that's based off a news story. The story can cover any topic and can be from any time period. Everyone in the class brought in a story, we voted on the two we liked best, and then we split ourselves into two groups.

With two groups of seven students, everyone was able to have their own crew position, instead of having everyone split the work evenly like in the intro class. The most exciting part was that we, for the most part, chose the group and position we would stick with for the entirety of the semester. As one who has never been particularly fond of preproduction work, I was ecstatic to be able to step aside and let someone else take care of it.

Now, while this was an especially exciting part of the project for me, it was also one of the more nerve-wracking aspects of the process. While it was no longer my responsibility to write, schedule, direct, or shoot the film (I was given the position of editor), it also meant that a whole lot of things were out of my control. Sure, I could give my input on whatever I wanted--and it was often well-regarded--but for the most part, the final decision on most things was not mine.

My point is that while it's nice to not have to bother myself with certain aspects of the project, it also meant that I had to have faith in my fellow group members. As one who tends to take control in a group setting, this was something I had to quickly learn to get over. From the very start, I had to constantly remind myself not to intervene in others' work and to trust them more than I usually would have in the past.

With everyone working on their own portion of the film, a whole lot more effort could be put into each aspect of the project, as opposed to when everyone had to split their efforts amongst everything. With every student putting forth a whole new level of effort into their work than I've ever seen before, I was able to really watch and admire everyone's talent while also taking the time to appreciate the amount of work they were each completing.

Yes, my job as editor had a lot of work that came with it as well, but to truly be able to see the amount of work that goes into the entire process of a film's production and the high level of skill that's required to make a quality product is unbelievable. I used to think we simply weren't using the proper equipment to make a good film, but it turns out that what it really takes is a group of talented students who are willing to put forth the effort. Duh.

Thank you, Arturo Sinclair, for a brand-new experience and for passing your knowledge onto all of us.

Here's the Facebook event for the screening this upcoming Saturday!

Latest Update

The Purple Cobras have their final script finished and we are currently finalizing our locations and actors for tomorrows shoot and preparing our locations and actors for Sundays shoot.  All seems to be going well so far and everyone in the group is doing a great job.  Today in class our group decided to shoot the car scene with a green screen in order to accommodate one of our actors in not having to drive.  I am excited to see what shooting this scene will entail.  Our group will have to carefully plan out everything that we want to shoot for the scene in order to do it in a timely manner.  As we began to move from pre-production to production I am beginning to see our film play out in my head.

Final Project

I think everyone is going to enjoy completing their final project mainly because of the freedom involved with it. We can choose our own topic (more or less) and there is a lot of independence from pre prod to post prod. One thing that will be good for everyone is having set position so that everyone knows their responsibilities and what each of us need to do. People can help out with other departments but for the most part, camera will stick to camera, sound will stick to sound, and so on and so forth. That lets everyone focus more on their part of the project as opposed to wearing multiple hats and trying to help write while you make a shot list or plan out locations, etc. That may make it stressful for a person to coordinate a lot, but it will definitely make the project better in the end.

We all came here to learn how to make films and doing a final project like this, culminates everything we have learned thus far. We can all learn from each other as well. Of course there will always be more experienced people and less experienced people on set. But that works in everyones favor to teach and learn and help each other out to make something we can all be proud of at the end of the semester.