Production Documentation

Production - What I learned

Through the shooting of this film I learned a lot about how to balance time while producing quality content. Although this project is different than most because it was shot all in one day the basic principals are still present. The basic principals of balancing time and quality are to remain flexible, experiment, and know when to call it. Flexibility is absolutely essential to creating content that is conjoined with its surroundings. One such problem that occurs that requires flexibility is a change in location, missing prop, or shot that isn't working. Sometimes you might have a scene mapped out in your head based on your presumed location. However, when you arrive on set the location might be slightly altered. Being able to adapt to these slight alterations are what makes the film retain flow. The audience should think that it was planned that way from the start. If there is no adaption to the new situation it will be pretty clear. The audience will notice that things seem to be out of place. Often times this is worse than just adapting to the new situation altogether. Experimentation is linked in quite closely to flexibility however, this is more about adding something that wasn't there to begin with. Sometimes when you are forced to adapt you might decide recreating the scene completely is better. One scene that I had to do this was when Mike and Tim leave the movie theater. Originally we were going to shoot on the street outside the theater as if we had just left. The problem was that the theater was right on the main road and all you could hear were the cars. I didn't want to ADR all the dialogue since it was a lengthy scene, so instead we went into a parking lot nearby and filmed there. The one thing that I most enjoyed about this adjustment was the formal balance created in the parking lot with the pillars. The most painful but essential piece to remaining on schedule is knowing when to call it. As the director it is extremely hard to move on when something doesn't feel right. However, having a bad shot is better than having no shot at all. When working on this film there was one shot in particular where Tim and Mike walk into the office. We had to film that shot at least five times and every time it just didn't come out right. Either the camera or the performance would be off. In the end I had to call it and I'm glad I did. It turns out I was able to use the footage once I cut out certain parts. This was only made possible by the close up I cut to mid action. If I hadn't filmed that close up of Jim I wouldn't have been able to salvage that scene. By having extra angles to cut to you can save footage most times. Not to mention that sometimes it improves a scene as well.