UNIT 2E - Review the Project and Leadership Role
Review of the Leadership Role:
The BFI course gave me a great opportunity to improve my leadership skills and I was very grateful for the opportunity to be the Director for our Project / Arts Challenge,
Over the week I really got to grips of what it would be like working as a filmmaker. I now have some insight into how difficult and how skilful a professional director must be in order to work with others to create a whole feature length film from scratch.
The individual skill that I developed the most over the week was my communication skills within my group. I found that I developed this very quickly as I went from never speaking to (or indeed never even knowing) these people before to becoming good friends with the entire crew.
Over the week I really got to grips of what it would be like working as a filmmaker. I now have some insight into how difficult and how skilful a professional director must be in order to work with others to create a whole feature length film from scratch.
The individual skill that I developed the most over the week was my communication skills within my group. I found that I developed this very quickly as I went from never speaking to (or indeed never even knowing) these people before to becoming good friends with the entire crew.
Review of the Project:
I really enjoyed creating our film and was pleased with how our final product came out.
Our success was down to a big group effort and everyone performing their roles to a high standard. We also were all determined to do well, so we kept a strong drive to succeed throughout the whole process. I particularly enjoyed watching the final screening of the film, and seeing how everyones hard work paid off.
Our success was down to a big group effort and everyone performing their roles to a high standard. We also were all determined to do well, so we kept a strong drive to succeed throughout the whole process. I particularly enjoyed watching the final screening of the film, and seeing how everyones hard work paid off.
Achievements Gained:
The achievements that I think I reached on the BFI film academy course include:
- Working within a group with professional actors. I've always wanted to work as part of a larger film crew so that we could all socialise in our specific roles. The opportunity to work with good actors was also a great experience.
- Create and plan a professional film to add to my showreel. I'm hoping that this film will help me to stand out in my applicaiton to a University.
- Have my film screened at the Arts Picture House in front of an audience.
- Create a blog for the Silver Arts Award.
- Working within a group with professional actors. I've always wanted to work as part of a larger film crew so that we could all socialise in our specific roles. The opportunity to work with good actors was also a great experience.
- Create and plan a professional film to add to my showreel. I'm hoping that this film will help me to stand out in my applicaiton to a University.
- Have my film screened at the Arts Picture House in front of an audience.
- Create a blog for the Silver Arts Award.
Review of Working with Others:
In this part I will be talking about both how we worked together as a group in person and online through our Facebook group messages.
When we were first put together as a team we focused on group debate all together, but as we got more confident we started to work in smaller groups to break up the tasks / workload.
For example, on one day we sent our producer, editor and set designer to scout the locations, whilst the rest of the group planned the storyboard and shot-list. By doing this we where able to do two jobs in a much faster time, also it was much easier to do a job effectively with a smaller amount of people in the group. On set I feel that we worked really well in our communication and team work skills, and it always felt as if discussions about improvements to be made where done in a supporting and conversational way.
We also created a BFI group chat using FaceBook, which we used as a place to make decisions when we where not at Long Road 6th Form College. This was extremely useful as it allowed us to make progress towards completing our film even when we where not physically with each other.
We are still using the group chat today as it is nice way to keep in touch and perhaps we will be able to work together again in the future.
Below is just 2 of the many times the chat was useful:
For example, on one day we sent our producer, editor and set designer to scout the locations, whilst the rest of the group planned the storyboard and shot-list. By doing this we where able to do two jobs in a much faster time, also it was much easier to do a job effectively with a smaller amount of people in the group. On set I feel that we worked really well in our communication and team work skills, and it always felt as if discussions about improvements to be made where done in a supporting and conversational way.
We also created a BFI group chat using FaceBook, which we used as a place to make decisions when we where not at Long Road 6th Form College. This was extremely useful as it allowed us to make progress towards completing our film even when we where not physically with each other.
We are still using the group chat today as it is nice way to keep in touch and perhaps we will be able to work together again in the future.
Below is just 2 of the many times the chat was useful:
Review of the Screening:
I was super excited to see our film screened at the Arts Picture House in Cambridge in front of an audience. I think that the final product looked great on the big screen, and I was so proud to see my name in the credits along with my fellow crew members. The Q&A session afterwards was another first experience that I enjoyed as I felt proud of the product that we had created together.
What I would Change?
The things I have learnt in this arts challenge is that you shouldn't take any short-cuts as a job that is worth doing, is always worth doing properly!If I was to redo the Arts Challenge, I would defiantly change the location we used for Day 2 of filming, as this caused most of the issues. The location that I would pick now would be much quieter and have less public traffic. Another thing I would change would be lighting on the second day because when I watch our film back, some of the shots where slightly grainy as the environment was too dark (this was due to a weather change which was not within our control, but we could have employed LED lights to bring the brightness up). The final thing I would do differently, would be to make sure we did more equipment testing before our shoots, as it was disappointing when we found out that our monitor didn't work and our batteries where almost dead...
Overall, despite the problems we experienced, I am so glad I was part of the BFI course as it really has made a big difference to me in learning more about film than I could have imagined, improving my communication skills, and meeting new people.
I think I am now more prepared to pursue a role in the film industry.
Thank you to all of the staff at the BFI.
Joe Wright (Director, Film-Maker)
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