Organised by sci-fi London, the 48 hour film challenge is on. Josh has a really good sense for convincing people even if they are tired. Up until yesterday I was. I show the symptoms of flu when I’m really tired. That’s just my body’s way of saying: stop you fool, now!
So here I am, having finished a week on Casualty, I’m now helping out on Josh’s film. Neil pickes me up and drives us down to location: a remote part of the country outside Bridgwater. Not remote for those who have a car and live around there, remote enough for me, though. The scriptwriting already had already started, the shooting script is nearly ready. Neil and I put together the sound kit and check it over. After everyone arrives we drive off to get some supplies (food and chocolate) to help us get through the night.
Filming starts around 11pm, and takes an extremely long time to complete just the first scene. I’m not even sure if it’s going to cut well. I just remember to put on my multi tasking hat. It’s a different ballgame outside the professional world. We know that TV (and possibly even features) are very formulated, the shooting time can be predicted almost to the minute. Not so much so when we’re working all together. The pitfall of our method is that it’s not best suited when time is so important. We tend to wonder off and discuss things which in the grand scheme of things aren’t that important. The great side of this kind of collaboration is that we all want to make the film to the best of our abilities (and to the limits time allowed us to). You wouldn’t see a boomop moving lights if the boom is casting a shadow on the actors, would you? Well, not too much into the night I’m doubling up as a gaffer, moving lights, keeping the team organised and focussed, to get the film done quicker. I’m not interventing the creative decision making, there are enough people to do that, having one more person to throw ideas in would just slow things down too much. Instead I’m “clearing the road” for this self-inventing circus to drive on.
Officially we are the sound team, and as such Neil is mixing and I’m booming on this little project. I take my hat off for Neil, he’s paying attention to a myriad of things. A good production sound mixer can think in sequences and knows which part of the recorded sounds will be used and when. Not only this, but he also recalls which lines need to be re-recorded, how they should sound (close micing, or distant perspective) and when to record wildtracks. It’s a skill I would like to improve. For the benefit of a faster edit we decide to get all lines of dialogue, even those which we normally wouldn’t bother with. This should help speeding up the edit, which is of essence. I’m uncertain where the film is right now, I belive it has to be hand delivered in London by tonight. I would think that the deadline is over now, and it’s already screening somewhere in London.
Towards the morning people start to loose focus. Most of them have been up for more than a day. I’m not sure how and why but I find it easy to concentrate. Because of this I think that it’s best to keep the momentum. We are near to the finish line of shooting, and a different process should start within hours: post production.
It is fun to be on borad, and it definitely highlighted some areas I would like to improve. (Production sound mixing). Tomorrow I’m back on Casulaty, with another bunch of questions to ask.