Looks real eh ? I would have loved to have had the clapper with my name on it here, but I was messing about with the camera at that time and had no time making pictures, so you have to do with this one.
There is only one thing really wrong with this film making course I am doing at the moment : it goes way too fast !
Yesterday was our shooting day, and it was a very representative day for a day on a professional film set.
It meant : standing up at 6.30 am. Take the tube at 7am, arrive in Fulham at 7.45am, quickly buy some breakfast, and walk into film school at 8am sharp. Better not be late on a film set, as chances for you getting fired are close to a 100%.
We started at 8am and we finished around 9pm, add to this working temperatures (closed windows because we don’t want any external lights, a lot of heat coming off the lights we were using, the airco off because we don’t want to record that noise, and 25 degrees outside didn’t really help either) of 34 degrees and you get an idea. It was tough, hot and sweaty, the day was long, but it was so great.
We were split up in 8 teams of 2, and shot our script with a real 16 mm camera, real film, real lightning, and a very real (and funky) actor.
A few things that I learned today (I learned 1000s of things today, but the list would be too long):
Being a cameraman is really cool. But when you are used to digital photography, it is very weird not to be able to see you shots back right away. It’s all on film, and it has to be developed and processed first before you can see if you have messed up a shot or not. And focusing through a one eye eyepiece, well I had to get used to it. Having glasses is certainly not an advantage either if you ask me (and I have them – one-day contact lenses might be an option maybe). I hope it doesn’t look too bad. (The camera we used looked a bit like this one, looks old fashioned but they are still doing feature films with cameras like those).
We have been shooting in the studio on the loft of the film school, and it is amazing what you can do with 2 fake walls (with doors and windows in it), a set of lights and some furniture props. You can create a lot of different interiors with this, and the light can create any moods from sunshine to moonlight, from spooky green light to romantic candle like light.
It is also amazing what a good actor can give you. Especially a slightly crazy but excellent actor with a very good sense humor. He can make your script come alive in ways you never imagined, and it is really very impressive to see how a few lines of text on paper come to life when being played by a good actor.
Two weeks from now we will edit our (short!) film, and after that it will be screened in a preview cinema in Soho, on a big screen. I can’t wait.
Will you be uploading the film for us to see? I’d very much like to see it.
It is a very short filmclip (2 minutes) so don’t expect much, and I am not too crazy about the script either. But the actor is on it and he is cool.
So if I can get it online I will upload it somewhere (if it’s ok with the other half of the production team).
It sounds like an intense and fun day Ingrid! You sound so happy with what you’re doing. (And, by the way, i love that postcard on today’s post). xxoo, BL
It was a fun day indeed, and I don’t like to think about this course being nearly finished already ! I need to come up with a plan :)