The Hidden Reflection

My Production Role 

   For the Hidden, I was the 2nd Assistant Director. One of the main challenges I faced was learning how to have a director role in our film and being able to work over people but also being directed by the Director and 1st AD. I had to learn how to do things like make call sheets and schedules, which took a while to get used to. Along the way, I learned how to make it clear that people needed to change their behavior on set and I adjusted to being somewhat in charge. I actually had to make some important decisions with this film. However, the director yelled at me a couple times for not doing my job even though he did most of the aspects of my job until the last filming days and didn't teach me how to do said parts of my job. On the other hand, some told me that I needed to be more firm in my direction, especially on set. In response to this advice, I heavily enforced the "Quiet on Set" rule, especially when we were behind. I also occasionally had to be boom operator, so I learned a lot about the sound side of the production. Overall, I think I did a fairly good job of keeping people quiet and on task, but we also had those moments where we got to have fun and make memories. 

Time Management 

   In class, I used my time pretty well when I had to make schedules, spreadsheets, and call sheets. When I was done for the day with Hidden work, I worked on creating my website or I started to learn some things in AfterEffects that I could use in future projects. Outside of class, I spent some time watching documentaries and videos about creating and editing documentaries to prepare me for projects that I want to do this summer. 

Strengths and Areas for Improvement

   In e-Communication, I feel that I have lots of skills in communicating my thoughts and ideas and collaborating with others. In terms of leadership, I feel like I really stepped up to the plate this year and took on a role that I wasn't used to and I think I did a pretty good job in this position. I do have a fair amount of technical skills, although I would like to learn a lot more. For areas of improvement, I feel like I need to work on my project management skills. Although I do delegate my time very well, tasks end up taking longer than they should and I get very behind. 

Summary

   On May 9, we premiered The Hidden at a movie theatre. One of my favorite parts about the premiere was being able to eat with the crew and the cast because it felt like one last bonding moment. However, I feel like the premiere could have been a bit more organized because the night kind of felt rushed and that the plan wasn't exactly set in stone. In terms of the process, I liked being on set when we filmed major scenes and seeing how the whole shot would come together. Overall, I learned how to work with others to make something amazing and I really enjoyed the experience. Next year, I would like to be able to choose whether we could do a feature film or not individually because although I loved the experience, it caused a lot of stress and took immense amounts of time and there are other big projects that I would like to do on a more small group basis. To conclude, I will really treasure the experience of working on the feature film this year and it is something I'll never forget. e-Comm this year was a bit of an adjustment, but I had a great time. 

My Role(s) in our Feature Film

   Our Feature Film The Hidden has been a huge success! With a sold-out theatre and an evening of fun planned, it can easily seem that most things went smoothly in order to create a project on the scale that we did. However, there were many issues between people's ideas a suggestions and some of these things often slowed the process and resulted in arguments.

   In terms of my role as Second Assistant Director, I had duties that included making call sheets, asking for the crew's availability, sometimes making schedule breakdowns, and lots of other things involving Pre-Production. For about half of our filming days, I worked as Boom Operator when others on the sound crew could not be there.

   The article from No Film School suggests that if you anticipate working on a directing team with multiple people, it's important that the group sets boundaries so that each person knows what they are expected to do in their set role. I think that it would have been beneficial for us to communicate more on what our roles entailed because, in my opinion, our director took over a lot of the assistant director responsibilities and we ended up not doing much for the film in the beginning. I understand why he wanted to start off doing things by himself because we have similar personalities, but those duties weren't apart of his role and he should have focused more on being with actors while the First Assistant Director and I worked on call sheets and scheduling.

   Also, the author pointed out that listing our personal strengths and weaknesses to the group would help with designating certain responsibilities. Each director was different on our crew and we were interested in doing different things, so it would have helped to know that someone would not be able to perform their best on a certain task. Especially with our first few days on set, knowing our strengths and weaknesses ahead of time would have eliminated our confusion on what we had to do on set.

   With these tips from the article, I think that I can improve my communication skills with others before we get into the whole process. Although I don't want to participate in making a feature film next year, I still think these skills will be extremely valuable for working with others on any project and learning how to collaborate efficiently and effectively.


https://nofilmschool.com/2014/10/horror-director-duo-soska-sisters-how-to-avoid-collaborative-nightmares