self reflection

so over the last term i feel i have learnt a great deal. as far as directing and story telling goes its been a blast, i may have had a few problems with the script and story line but apparently that is to be expected. i feel that looking back to the beginning of term the story morphed from being a very rough outline to a very mature and difficult narrative to a concise and warm story. my personal choice to make a dramatic change to the narrative at such a late notice was due to the presentation as a focus group, the fact that there was no reaction meant that there was no engagement with the story and i was obviously putting too much time and effort into trying to tell the lives of the characters outside of the story instead of telling the actual story.

there have been some tough decisions to make over the course of the project too such as the choice of members for example, i have no regrets about who i selected as i selected them for specific reasons and for how they not only interact in the working environment but how they function outside of project time too.

it was easy to see that they wanted to work on the project and that was the first step, passion.

i then decided who i wanted to do what and whether or not the film could be achieved with said members.

so now i can say that i am proud of the work we have achieved so far and i have my team to thank for that.

there was also the very difficult decision to cut the penguin from the film. i had asked emma to design the penguin for me and we had a hard time hitting the target but eventually after re-evaluating the story i realised that it was the character of the penguin that was throwing the story off. the penguin was cute and funny and my initial idea was to show a developing relationship between these 2 characters but as the project progressed i found that i was really wanting to tell the relationship between the eel and the kid. thus rendering the penguin useless, it is a shame and i was gutted to cut him out but at the end of the day the penguin would have compromised the production.

i also found it difficult to tell people the truth, in reflection to their work. initially i saw areas of peoples work which i thought could have been improved but i didnt push the matter, but as we progressed i realised that the film would look crap over all if i didnt say anything so it just clicked. it was a huge learning curve for me but at the end of the day i have the film to think about and sometimes being harsh with criticism is the right way to go. also if i push my team harder then they will become better artists for it.

i have discovered that having checklists of things to achieve is the best way to prioritise the project aswell. i am able to easily see what needs to be done then can pass the information on to ben to schedule it so we know what needs to be achieved.

personally i have learnt soo much about directing as i have had to think in a more technical and cinematic way.

CINEMATIC STORYTELLING has been my main reference for this project it offers soo much to new directors i learnt something new on every page, so much so that i have read the book cover to cover twice to make sure i didnt miss anything. i feel that this book is partly the reason why my film is where it is now and i also thank it for teaching me so much. it has shown to me that i could possibly have a career in directing and story writing. so thanks to ben for lending it to me was definitely worth it.

before when working i never really thought too hard of framing or composition but now its all i can do whenever i draw a picture its all about how it will look on the big screen and does it have an impact. this has been key to the story board but i feel that shots and angles may change as we get a new perspective through the 3d software.

narrative is something i have always thought about as it is key to engaging the audience, if there is no narrative then there is no film. i had soo many ideas for this project that i could have pitched but i had to bite my tongue and pick the best one. i still think now though about how one of the other stories i had would be doing at this stage in the project.