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I was assigned the role of camera operator - thus I had a key role towards the production of our film and a great responsibility.

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I was also assigned the role of editor - which meant my role and responsibility towards our project was even greater. With the circumstances of my roles, I knew I had to dedicate my efforts towards the project tenfold and understand my responsibilites.

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Spreadsheet created by one of the producers, Jason, in order for the crew to manage their pre-production duties.

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An essential step for the crew as a whole was to fulfil our duties as individual departments, respectively. The spreadsheet above outlined tasks that each department should complete within an allocated timeslot.

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A rough draft of a shot list I created - specifically for Scene 1.

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Here, I am fulfilling one of my designated tasks as a member of the camera department; crafting a rough shot list.

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Above is a floor plan that was created to present the layout of one of our interior locations. With this, we could plan where each piece of equipment goes for each shot, e.g the camera, lighting.

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Table displaying editing roles, created by Morgan

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In terms of my role within the editing department, we collectively decided upon how we will divide the workload. The ultimate decision was for me to handle organising the footage and putting it together (in sync with my camera role). Johnny to handle the audio side (in sync with his sound role) and Morgan to handle colour grading, effects, etc.

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After doing some research, I proposed the ideas for different styles of our film. A blend of Wes Anderson's symmetry and colours, David Fincher's camerawork and Chloe Zhao's use of natural lighting.

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A video I created to present the initial style of our film.

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In order to prepare for my camera operator role, I did an induction over the easter to familiarize myself with the suggested camera for our filming: the RED Komodo.

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Throughout April 22 - 24, we used those days as rehearsals in order for us to prepare properly for filming and work through any trial and error.

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Rehearsing Scene 2 (community centre scene)

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We began filming on 25th April - this was for scenes 1 and 3 which take place in Lena's apartment.

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Prepping lighting, sound and camera for Scenes 1 and 3.

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Production coordinator consoling Camera operator

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All in all, day one of filming went fairly successfully. We ran into issues when it came to timing, as it did take us a while to do just one shot, We just about ran over time too, but we still managed to get everything done. There were also issues in terms of continuity and sticking to the original shot list - some things changed, such as the use of a microwave, a protein drink (which ultimately turned into using a blender and making a smoothie), but we made it work in the end.

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After a weekend of (no) rest, we went back to filming. Here, we began shooting our biggest scene: the group therapy scene.

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It took us about 3 hours to just set everything up. Vedad and the others were setting up the lighting poles, whereas the camera department had to set up the jib and other camera equipment.

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Co-ordinating the group therapy scenes

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With the use of the jib, we aimed to shoot several unique tracking shots of Holly.

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To conclude Day 2, we managed to shoot about 50% of what we needed for this scene. We ran into further complications of time management, complications of blocking and framing - but we aimed to sort that out and continue the scene and do reshoots the next day. Or at least so we thought.

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Due to certain controversial complications, we had no choice but to reshoot the entire scene. Although disheartening at first, we built the morale to power through and get straight on with it.

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Although it was a grueling process, we ultimately managed to do everything we needed to do for this scene. The obvious complication was of course the fact we needed to start again, especially because of the absence of the lighting stands from the previous day (which messed up continuity, and were replaced with aperture lights within lanterns). But overall, through sheer teamwork and dedication, we managed to power through and complete our shoot for this location.

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The next day, we were all up and ready to contribute towards the final day of filming. Our location was Carrs Park, and we utilised the location very well.

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Here we were experimenting with shots for scene 1 whilst we were in possession of the jib - which we certainly put to good use.

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After a small hike, we arrived at our 'beach' location for our final scene.

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Preparing for a shot from the other side of the water

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After a day of filming at the park and the lake, it was officially a wrap on The Goldfish. The primary issue we faced was that of dealing with the general public - there were cars that drove past on one of our shots, which we couldn't control and there were bystanders/animals that would pop into the shots which proved problematic. But ultimately, we managed to find a way through it by taking multiple takes and hoping we'd get lucky.

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To celebrate a wrap, we embraced the nice weather and indulged in a few drinks. And now everyone can sit back and rest! Well, maybe not everyone.

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As I was responsible for handling footage, one of my main jobs was to organise the data. It proved difficult at first because my laptop didn't support whatever format the RED footage was in, so I couldn't view/organise it in my file explorer.

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My only resort was to organise/label the footage within Premiere Pro itself. Although I managed to successfully label each shot/take, this technique ultimately seemed to complicate the process. However, this proved a valuable lesson for the future in terms of data wrangling, e.g organising everything properly into seperate folders, etc.

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The next step was to organise the workflow between ourselves. It took us a while to transfer the footage/audio files between us considering the size of the files. But eventually, we all had a copy of our film's files and so now we were able to divide and organise the workload.

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Over the course of a few days, we all worked both simultaneously yet also independently - we aimed to stick to the original workflow plan of the three of us organising footage, audio and colour/effects respectively. Both myself and Vedad worked together to cut and put together the footage, whilst also helping a bit with sound by syncing the dialogue, adding sound effects, etc.

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The editing team that is definitely not stressed

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As expected, we faced a multitude of problems. This came in the form of data wrangling and organising the folders/media between us, as we had issues with media not being able to be located, etc. A prominent issue we faced was that of sound - some of the dialogue (particularly the external location audio) was of a poor quality and required ADR, which in turn was hard to sync up with the footage. We faced issues with hard drive organisation (things not syncing up, things being erased) which was naturally deterimental to our progress.

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The final day proved just as stressful as the others, if not more. We started the day finalising sound and colour grading - but we ran into a major issue when it came to bouncing between Premiere Pro and Da Vinci. This came in the form of synchronization - the film footage was only about a second out of sync with the audio (which is still detrimental to our progress). We worked with Ryan and Jason in order to solve this problem. It also didn't help that most of our colour grading and effects were based on Da Vinci and not on Premiere (which has the properly synced version of the film). Dear oh dear.

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All in all, despite the extremely stressful and difficult process, I realised and learned a lot throughout this project. I learned a lot more about operating a camera, in terms of lenses, aperture, etc and definitely feel a lot more confident when it comes to camerawork now. I learned a lot more when it came to editing - I've realised now that it is important to data wrangle more specifically in order to ease the workflow and I've also learned a lot more in terms of using the editing software. I now know how to use the razor tool and make cutting more easy and efficient, and much more. One prominent issue I faced personally however was management, both of time and work. It wasn't easy to work on the padlet and other module projects simultaneously as I was constantly on the job as a DoP and editor.