That's a Wrap

So this past week, me and my group finally got our hands on one of those fancy cameras and began to shoot our little masterpiece. That initial excitement that comes from finally partaking in the action you’ve spent all your time thinking about for the past few weeks didn’t last quite as long as I thought it would. It’s hard to describe to people just how stressful and time consuming shooting films can be. Because of the scheduling issues within my group, we were only able to shoot three days total I think. In those three days, I only shot close to an hour of film. That’s doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment, but many people don’t realize the time it takes to sit up each shot visually, and the run-throughs it takes to ensure that the scene goes off without a hitch when the recording process begins.

I think I’m luckier than the other cameramen in my class in the fact that I was under the control of a director that, for the most part, took care of all the behind the scenes casting and preparations, and knew exactly what he wanted each shot to look like. I felt kind of useless on set and, for the first time in my life, I didn’t really mind. It was kind of nice to not have to worry about anything but pressing the start and stop buttons on the recorder and hauling the equipment around.

There were several instances where the lighting on location didn’t really work for the shot. I was surprised that the camera will only achieve a relatively small level of brightness. Even with the onset lighting we brought with us, I spent a lot of time turning dials and flipping switches just to get the shot bright enough to see what was actually going on. I hope that the people who edit the film can find a way to brighten the scenes a little more.

Going into this project, my only worry came from the fact that we, as honors students, are used to getting our way. The thought of making something from scratch with a group of kids seemed to foreshadow lots of conflict and strife. For the most part, however, my little group was able to put our egos aside and create something that is both a reflection of our unique personalities and completely independent from them. We reached precisely that level of conflict necessary to develop key details and make the plot-line both fluid and to the point. Overall, the process was pretty stressful and left me feeling like I’d just sprinted a long race, but, now that it’s over, I’m proud of the accomplishments we made through it all.