Catch Up

I have a lot to catch up on in this post! Since I last wrote, I received my results back from our Vox Pop assignment - which I must admit, I'm a little disappointed with! Luckily there was some good feedback which I will take on board for the next assignment. Speaking of, we've started that too!

In this assignment, we have to do a 1 minute poem adaptation. I was assigned as Director... eek! Scary! This is my first time being a Director, 100%, so I'm feeling all kinds of nervous! Although I saw a quote which I've decided to take on board:

My fear of being in charge, so to speak, has really come down to that notion of being wrong. But, I'm going to embrace my new position of power! I need to trust my ideas, which I think I'm slowly coming to terms with. 

Being Director, I launched straight in! I picked out 4 poems and posted them to my group on facebook. I wanted to get them involved in this whole process, because after all, we all get the same mark in the end! I don't want any of them to be unhappy with the overall product. But... several days passed and no-one responded. So, I had to just pick a poem in order to get things going. I wrote 4 different script ideas based on the poem "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost with the idea that everyone could vote on the script they liked the most. Again, no response. I approached one of my group members in class, where we discussed the scripts I'd posted and he told me the script he liked the most, so that's what we are going with! I posted on facebook what the chosen script was, the actors we'd need, the location, props and equipment. Our Production Manager said she was on it! Finally, I received some responses! We planned to get filming this weekend. However, nothing ended up being organised, so we couldn't film. A bit frustrating and stressful, seeing as it's now due in under 5 days!! Eeek! Fingers crossed we'll have things organised to film tomorrow and Tuesday.

Working in a group can really test you sometimes! I guess it's good practice for the future.

Apart from this assignment, we've also been learning about mise-en-scene and the top-down plan, as well as storyboarding and we briefly touched over some filming styles including Naturalism, Surrealism and Film Noir. Touching over Surrealism and Film Noir brought back some memories from high school! One significant movement I'd never heard of before though was Dogme 95. Very interesting. No genre? No credit to the Director? Everything seems to have to be very raw and natural. I think I need to see a movie or two in this style! I'm intrigued.

I'm still getting my head around the top-down plan. It's definitely very useful in terms of organisation! It has the ability to save lots of time and money, but I need more practice to figure out where the cameras are within the movie space. Also, the 180 degree rule I need to have set in my head too! I need to really figure out where that line is. Luckily there's diagrams to help me!

Cue: brain power.

The major plan for now though is to get this filming done for our assignment! Fingers crossed...