Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Final Reflection

I think the most important thing I learned from 312 was that I need to be more prepared when shooting a film. On my scene assignment, I completed all the required pre-production materials, but it seems as if it wasn't enough. When we started shooting there were still things, like the color and placement of the lights, that me and my DP were having to figure out on the spot. This made my job extremely stressful, because I knew people were waiting on me, but there were problems that had to be solved. Having done the assignments in 312, I think I'll be more prepared in the future.

One thing I learned is the kind of look I want as a filmmaker. I've already beaten that horse to death in my other blog posts so I won't explain what that is - but basically I know what I want to do with film now, and I know how to achieve it.

I think I understand the basic concepts of filmmaking pretty well by now; what I'm still lacking is technical proficiency. What is kind of perplexing about that is the fact that a lot of what I'm lacking is knowledge about the technology of filmmaking. Obviously 312 taught us those skills, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around it sometimes.

This is perplexing because I am by no means tech-deprived; I build my own computers, I am obsessive about using the right cables and converters to get the best sound and video quality possible out of my devices… etc. For some reason I have a problem with film technology. I'm confident that this is something I will eventually overcome (and 312 has certainly helped), but it's probably going to take a while.


I think the best thing that 312 did for me was to give me experience. Although I know the projects we worked on in 312 were relatively simple in the bigger picture, compared to the projects I'd worked on in the past they were fairly complex. As I already mentioned, they taught me the importance of planning ahead. What I think is really important is that they gave me a feel for how things work. There's really know way to know what it's like to shoot a film like Alpha Contentment until you actually do it. I have an enormous amount left to learn, but genuinely feel that 312 has helped me advance towards what I ultimately want to do with film.

1 comment:

  1. Hey bro. I came into TCF with a really, really, really technical background in production, especially in terms of post-production; my boss is very technical, so I've learned a lot from him. If you ever need any help with running FCP, compression, codecs, etc. give me a call or text. 205.626.9673.

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