(Rabiger, 2020)

I will be able to use skills that I have attained from previous filming projects and knowledge from analysing films to bring across my own ideas and opinions to make our video project both professional and unique, but with 'dramatic' tropes that are recognisable and relatable, such as the theme of 'loss', 'friendships/relationships' and 'attachment'. These are all tropes that relate to the 'human condition' and are found within everyone. I am excited to be able to take on a 'producer' role, because normally I have preferred roles that have more creative input to the story of the short film, but I want to be able to focus on the 'behind the scenes' work that has to be done alongside a short film such as planning and people managing. I look forward to learning these skills, despite the challenges that could come from taking on tasks I am not as familiar with.

(Stradling, 2010)

One major concept that I strive for when it comes to any project, wether it be in film, or in any kind of work, is the concept of maintaining schedule and order. As the 'Broken window' theory states, it takes as little as a broken window in a singular house to eventually lead to an entire neighbourhood into more serious crimes. I take this theory into the world of work, and in this case within the filming industry, as all it takes is 1 team member to be absent, or 1 piece of equipment that we are missing, and that can lead to the entire project being under jeopardy. I have had instances in the past where I have had to create contingency plans for when thing such as these happen, such as back-up actors and crew, and I plan on doing the same in this project to maintain the schedule and order that is so important when completing any team-related task.

Although a lot of us knew each other already, there were a few unfamiliar faces, including our director Vedad. We briefly introduced ourselves and what our roles were so that Vedad could see what experience we had, and so that we could all feel comfortable working in a team together.

Being a filmmaker "requires an ability to collaborate and an understanding of how to get the best out of a creative team." (Rabiger, 2020). Knowing this, I made sure I got to know the team a little better, asking them questions about what projects they have done in the past, and asking them about how they feel about the role they have been given for this project. There were a few people that have not had any experience in being in a crew for a filming project, so I gave them my insight from previous projects for what to expect, and ensure that they can ask myself or some of the other crew for help if they get stuck.

After our introductions, we then moved our attention to reading the script that we would be making a short film about. We learnt that we would be creating a short film about a character who has a pet goldfish (hence the title 'The Goldfish'), and her struggle with letting go. After a couple more read throughs I identified other emotions and feelings that the script portrays, such as attachment, and loss. It took a while for me to understand the draft script initially, but after recognising these themes, I understood that as a team, we could do a really excellent job and conveying this script into an engaging short film.

Our script had large sections that had dialogue, we were tasked to try to work out how we can make the dialogue scenes effective. And make sure that these scenes didn't seem 'boring'.

In the next session, we had a script read-through with the cast in the roles we decided seemed the best fit.

We were happy with our choices of actors. Myself and the other directors and producers gave input with how we want the characters to be conveyed.

I made sure by speaking to the directors and the other producer that we all understood the 'central theme' and it was clear from the script that the human condition we would be exploring would be the emotions connected to loss and attachment.

During my reading research, I discovered the production triangle, and made it applicable for this project. I realised that we did not have a great budget, so I made sure we focussed on making sure the short film stays good and also fast as we only have roughly a week to shoot and another week to edit.

I will also apply this research into future projects, giving me the understanding of how difficult it is to balance all 3, and how you should only aim to get two corners of the triangle effectively.

We made sure after we had secured the actors, we had costume and props in mind for making the character 'click'. The hair and makeup departments also started with preparing a mood board. We made sure the cast had plenty of preparation time in order to perfect their role.

I was very happy with how my presentation went, and I believe I helped the team to feel as though they can put their trust in me for the rest of the project.

Sam, Lola and I created a document that had the different locations that were booked out for each day of rehearsals, and created a schedule with the times and room numbers which would help with the creation of the call sheets.

Sam and I was not involved with this process, so we used this time to gather final documents and information from the other departments such as: Helping the costume department secure costumes, listing the props we would need for the different scenes and ensuring these would be sourced in time, creating the final equipment lists and making sure everything was booked out for production week and help to find the locations for the community centre scene and the park scene.

"Remember that you are the one setting the tone on set, so being relaxed, calm, and centered will be important. If you’re anxious and stressed, it will show and will affect the space." (Lyons, 2015) I made sure that I stayed positive and maintained a constant line of communication to the team, because if the producers or directors seemed to panic, that would then rub off onto the rest of the team. So I made sure I was able to speak to the crew to let them know of the plans and what they needed to do.

During this rehearsal day, we secured the community centre location with Lily for the Monday and Tuesday the following week.

We were able to use the motion-capture room to do a rehearsal of the main community centre scene which included all of the cast. I had to fill in for the character of 'Marla' as Holly was going to be late. So I stood in to read her lines.

Sam and I continued to create the set-up documents, and starting inserting floor-plans and costume designs into the documents.

Sam and I also gathered the floor-plans from lighting and camera crew to finalise the set-up documents.

On the day we realised that the robotic 'goldfish' prop still looked too similar to a clownfish. So Josie from props and I drove to a nearby beauty shop to buy orange nail vanish to paint the fish with to make the fish look more realistic.

My first task was to secure the make-shift black curtains onto the windows with clips and tape. I worked with Vedad and a ladder to make sure they would stay in place throughout filming (as best we could). I also helped with set dressing, attaching the china ball lamps across the room. These would keep falling off throughout filming so I had to stay outside to hold them in place when it got windy each time we took a shot.

Before we could start filming, we realised we needed weights to be attached to the Jib, Josie and I then drove to Argos to buy some free-weights that we could use to stabilise the Jib.

We used this day as a practise run instead, so that the next day we were prepared adequately.

I drove the equipment over to Lily's house after the the filming day completed as she was happy to keep them at hers overnight.

I also set up the china ball lamps using the ladder too in the same positions as yesterday.

For the rest of the day, I didn't have a lot to do, but I made sure I was readily available in case there were any roles that I needed to fill in for. I made sure we all kept to the schedule to help make sure we finished in time. I was also involved with people managing, making sure everyone knew where they needed to be.

I used some of the free time to prepare the call sheet for tomorrow.

We brought a smaller team for filming on this day, because we had a smaller set. This meant that Sam and I had to fill in for different roles again.

We all as a team transported the equipment by carrying it 15 minutes into the park where the filming would be taking place.

I blew dandelions over the camera which was to help with the atmosphere of the scene.

I used the clapper board to signify what scene was being filmed.

I also took on the role of controlling the fish by going into the river and attaching the fish to a string which I would drag with me down stream. Josie helped put the fish and string together too.

I made sure to keep track of time, as we all had parking for a certain amount of time and we had to hand the equipment in before 5pm.

The robot fish stopped working, which is why I had to step in to control it.

Although I am not part of the editing team, I came in twice to help out with different parts of the edit so that we would be finished before the deadline. I linked the sound files to the video files and faded the audio between the shots.

Firstly, I was very happy to be able to step up into a position where I would be people-managing and scheduling a larger project and team. This was a new experience to me as I have only been a producer for smaller projects with a team of 4-5 at most. I would now say that because of this module, people-managing is one of my strengths.

I did not realise before coming into this project how much work a producer has to do, and that you have to be on top of all of the paperwork and different departments. It was very stressful at first making sure each department was up to speed with their work, but after a few Teams meetings and messages, I was able to see the progress of pre-production work and help departments that were behind with work.

A less technical but more practical difficulty I had throughout this project, mainly in the filming week, was keeping mine and the teams energy levels up, as working on the project for 9 hours a day for multiple days is a lot more than what I am used to.

I worked really well with Sam as a producing partner, and we were able to bounce of each other well, and most tasks we shared between us, especially the paperwork and pre-production work. We also worked really well with the assistant directors, when it came to organising the team. I also worked very well with the director Vedad, I listened and took on board lots of industry related information from him which will be useful for after University when I get into the filming industry. I mainly let the directors lead the way with creative input, but I added my own ideas and thoughts in the meetings as I feel passionate for making a short film that the entire team is proud of.

Irving, D. K., & Rea, P. W. (2013). Producing and Directing the Short Film and Video (pp. 50, 95). CRC Press.

Lyons, S. (2015). Indie film producing : the craft of low budget filmmaking (p. 118). Focal Press.

Rabiger, M., Mick Hurbis-Cherrier, & Mercado, G. (2020). Directing : film techniques and aesthetics (pp. 20, 27, 200). Routledge.

Ryan, M. A. (2010). Producer to producer : a step-by-step guide to low-budget independent film producing (pp. 125, 128). Michael Wiese Productions.

Stradling, L. (2010). Production Management for TV and Film (p. 1). Bloomsbury Publishing.

Us. (2018). Cautionary Tales (Award Winning Short Film) [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEsoDFBdQeU