My first shoot

Our fifth class of contemporary design culture was all about movie making. The aim of the class was to teach us the basic principles of moviemaking ahead of making our individual sizzle reels. The start of the class introduced us to key factors involved in both the shooting and production of a film. After this we formed groups and were tasked with making a 30-second-long movie which captured a particular emotion or journey.

We chose the emotion of depression as our focus for our film. Given the film itself might be a bit depressing but hopefully that means we achieved our goal. I found the whole process very interesting from shooting right through to editing. As we began shooting all of a sudden, everyone in the group became a director in their own right. I never really put much thought into how films were made, maybe a bit towards the special effects but until you shoot one yourself, it’s hard to understand. As the process goes on you learn more and more and by the end I had a good understanding of how each element complimented each other.

One of the things I found interesting is how much of an impact adding a greyscale filter and a soundtrack had on the film. When we watched it without sound and in full colour, it was hard to see find any emotion really being portrayed. It also gave me an understanding into how important the setting of each seen and even the extras that are featured and their body language and how fast they move.

Although the film only came to thirty seconds, we had about 3 hours to shoot and produce. At the start, it seemed like a very long time but we used every second of it. In the end one of the biggest challenges was choosing which parts to cut and deciding which what scenes were the best. We often found that we had a good shot but in order to fit in every scene we couldn’t show as much as we wanted.

Although it was a short production, I really got a better understanding as to what goes on behind the camera rather in front and the effort that is involved to make the real thing. When I first heard that a requirement for the module was to make a sizzle real that would show our design process, I was daunted by the prospect to say the least but now that I have a bit of experience, I can move forward with a bit more confidence with regards editing and production although I can’t say the same about the acting side of it