Week: 16/03- 22/03

Monday kicked off with Adam putting us to work in our film groups on pre-production. Me and Paul are both on camera and DOP, which reminds me how hard it will be to light up a big office space for a wide shot. The group also started thinking of how to provide some of props without buying it, so we bothered quite a lot of people in the Academy. In the end, it was all worth it. Because we don't have one person responsible of producing the film, we split the tasks almost equally. After 2 hours of preparation, Adam was impressed with our work and encouraged us to move on.
Tuesday began with Andy's class: Hollywood Studio System. We watched a bit of "That's Entertainment 3", highlighting a scene of filming a musical star while some carpenters are disjointing the props of another scene on the same location. The point is that for studios like MGM and Paramount, filming process is a job like any other, with the stars not being pretentious. As far as the director is concerned, he might finish a picture on Friday, but has to go on another on Monday. Moreover, there was no active communication between cinematographers and editor, so the editor has full control over the cut.
We continued the day with Richard in the Afternoon. Tried to do an exercise involving the whole class creating 12 stories, with every classmate adding to the script. Apparently, the first 5 stages or decisions in the script are the most crucial ones, because they determine the continuation. These first stages of the exercise are character description, character need/ flaw, action, inciting incident, goal. Afterwards we discussed our premises and Richard gave us homework for the holidays to come up with 1o premises for a 7 min film. In the mean time, we have to write another 3 min script. I have to change my premise, because it involves a restaurant and a kitchen, which will be hard to provide regarding production.
Wednesday we had Andy again for Television and Society class and watched "Cathy Come Home" as an example of a TV that actually changed society. The film deals with the problems of the working class, that was not shown on TV at all. Therefore, the middle class could close their eyes on the problems seriously developing in Britain in the 60s. Homelessness, lack of care and sympathy in the administration are some of the issues "Cathy come home" projects. I certainly felt moved at the end of the film.
Thursday's class with Ray aimed to give us some insight on how to shoot the film and achieve the desirable effect. His advice definitely helped us to decrease out shot-list, but I know we'll still struggle with time management next Tuesday and Wednesday (because of too many set ups!)
Friday was an open day for the Drama Schoolin the Academy, with the most interesting part of Ray teaching us how to use tracks and dolly spider. We intend to use it in the 3 min films.