Georgia Brooke - Personal evaluation

When thinking about ideas for this experimental film I approached some students that I had worked with before in the documentary module, as we all get along and share common interests we quickly started forming our ideas. We put out a call for another member in the filmmaking group chat and through email to all second year students and quickly got some replies leading to us finding our fourth crew member. We had multiple meetings to develop our idea before our first tutorial with Sarah.

In the pre-production process I took on the role of creating rough storyboards and shortlists so we could start to visualise our idea and work out what equipment and locations we would need. With this ground work I started researching into how much money we would need for set design, costume, trains, accommodation and food. This averaged out to around £300. With this information Andrea set up a go fund me with which we all shared on our Facebook and social media in order to raise some money to help fund our project.  

Before production we all met up to make sure we had a clear idea on what was happening on each filming day by making call sheets and contacting the actors. I organised costumes for the actors by working round clothes they already owned to try and avoid spending the tight budget, but also keeping within the theme of bright colours and white clothing for the different locations. I did go and buy a few props such as the bracelet and headband. Overall this helped us by giving us leeway with the budget for other necessities.

I found the music studio in which we filmed the controller scene and as it is owned by some relatives, we could film any time for free which really helped when scheduling our filming days. When on a reccie before the first shoot day we found a brilliant arcade to film in but unfortunately couldn’t get permission to film in time, luckily we had permission to film all over briggate so we found new locations and worked with them to produce the same feeling we wanted from the arcade.

The rough storyboard also helped to develop our storyline when we focused on what the character would be doing, going and why they were doing so. Once our rough storyboard was completed we started to get interest from actors alongside a few auditions. We did contact dance schools and performing arts schools as well as posting on dance/performing art Facebook pages around the Leeds area. Finally we got a few auditions from which we chose Fred Newnes to play our main character. We did have a drop out last minute so I quickly contacted a friend of mine, Georgia Dossis who had a background in acting and dance, luckily she was available, living in leeds and happy to help out.

In the production stage we all shared the roles as we had no crew who studied directing, producing or sound. I mainly engaged with the director role although I did help with assisting camera and setting up all of the lighting and cinematography kit once on set.

In post-production we all met to assist Andrea in the edit giving him advice and sharing ideas to strengthen the film. Overall I am extremely happy with how it turned out, I enjoyed working with my crew and pushing my creative imagination and skills to produce something interesting and of good quality.