Short Film Experience
My experience with creating a short film was very immersive and an amazing growing opportunity. I have previously worked on a short film in Portland as a makeup artist where I got to be on set and witness so much, as well as help with many miscellaneous tasks, but my fall semester in London was my most hands on experience thus far. I learned so much about filmmaking from conceptualization, pre-production, filming and post-production. I first created and proposed a pitch packet, then wrote my script, mapped out my storyboard and shot list, and made a shooting schedule.
For the process of filming itself I took on the role of producer (not planned) and director, as well as filling in for one of the actors that could not make it, making me very involved in the process, even more so than I had originally intended. It was a bit overwhelming, and I was not anticipating how much involvement I would have, but I'm grateful for how I got to see many different sides to making a short film and because I had a clear vision for how I wanted my story to turn out I was able to make it work.
I greatly appreciate the relationship between director and cinematographer, and having a detailed shot list both in the order of what we were shooting and organized by location was super helpful, and I noted which takes we liked which helped tremendously later in the editing process. Sharing the script and storyboard with my actors, cinematographer and lighting technician was super helpful for creating an understanding of the tone, style and genre I was going for and my actors and crew did such an amazing job. After filming, I met with my editor and sound technician several times until we got the final edit. We learned together how to color grade, do sound effects, add music and dialogue, transitions, zooms, cuts, etc.
In general I learned a lot about working in different roles and on different aspects throughout the filmmaking process. The hardest part was balancing everything and trying to figure out how to communicate the most effectively, as well as how much responsibility was mine / encouraging others on my team to take more initiative, and I'm happy with the growth I got out of the experience.
