Once our group had been formed and the roles had been decided we set our first group meeting for the 7th of February, Shannon (Editor), Federico (Writer), and myself were present, Andreanna (Producer) joined us through Facebook audio chat as she was unable to attend in person. Michael (Director) was not present as he was working on a project outside of University. Lubeeda (Camera Operator) was absent due to illness.
Federico had a concept for the story that would revolve around two strangers meeting on an underground platform or train and share an exchange that could be read romantically, none of the group including myself had any other ideas at this point and Federico explained his idea very well and it sounded interesting.
As part of our planning stage, we had to deliver a group presentation to our class about our production, which gives us a way to gain feedback and structure our ideas early on in pre-production. We were given contradictory information about how to make these power points, as last term we were told to make slides focusing on our job roles and how we would each be contributing to the production, and this is how many of the groups were told to structure the presentations, although after a number of groups had presented this year our tutor told us that we should structure them around explaining the story and the concept of the production and not our job roles. This was confusing and several students reacted with criticism.
My slide based on my job role was uploaded to the Google Drive we were using to share documents as a group, but the producer chose not to include the slide after a disagreement, which I have included as a separate post:
https://jamescoppin.tumblr.com/post/159315620340/the-first-two-images-are-the-group-chat-on
. This disagreement left me upset and angry with the producer for a long time, I considered bringing up the issue with my tutors but waited in case the producer was having personal issues that were effecting her judgement and would later apologise. She did not and as the production continued I decided it would be easier to make the video and then never work with her again.
The reason for there being only two bullet points on my slide was that putting too much information on a slide has the opposite intended effect, people won’t read it and the presenter will just end up reading what is on the slide. I feel it is better to put some key points on screen with images as an aid whilst you explain them in greater detail. As the notes show, I had prepared for the presentation.
As pre-production continued, the producer scheduled a meeting for the 14th of February at 12pm but only let us know at 10:49am, so I was unable to attend as I was already busy at this time. There was another meeting on the 21st of February where everyone was present except Lubeeda. These are the only two meetings we had as a group for several months, ordinarily I would have made a point to bring up that we should have more meetings but as I was frustrated with the producers attitude I did not. We met with our tutor Lee-Jane for a few months for half an hour on Friday’s to discuss how our project was progressing and get any advice we needed. Most weeks only two or three people attended. I attended most weeks, except a few where I had other course commitments or was ill.
We talked with Lee-Jane about filming on the underground and she advised that it would be very difficult to get permission and that the equipment could be seized if we filmed without proof of permission. For a while, we considered filming in Bar Latitude, although Federico felt this would not lend itself to the idea that the characters lead busy lives in a metropolitan city as this was a large part of his concept, that the two characters would have a chance encounter that is sweet and poignant. Although I felt it would still work as we could make it that these characters are at the bar after a long day or work. It would also be very easy to get permission as it is run by the Student Union and they often let students film there with a weeks notice. Another option we considered, and eventually went with, was shooting at an overground station.
Our tutor Chris sent an email that he and Lee-Jane were worried about our groups progress and attendance of the meetings with Lee-Jane. Sadly this didn’t really change anything as far as I can tell.
On Thursday the 16th of March, the producer sent a message to the group chat that we should have all our pre-production paperwork ready for the day after to show Lee-Jane so that she could give us permission to film the following Monday. This was a surprise to me as I had not been informed we were filming until that message, and I asked if we were filming at Mudchute or Bar Latitude and whether we had permission for either location, but no one answered. I missed the shuttle bus and so missed the meeting the next day with Lee-Jane, but informed her and the group of this.
I had to ask many more times throughout the next few days what was happening, as different people were saying different things about whether we were filming. It also turned out we had not got any actors for the roles, which was one of Frederico and Michael’s tasks. As far as I can tell from the group conversation, we were planning to film on the Monday, although no one would tell me where or when, and then when we couldn’t confirm actors we moved to Tuesday, then to Friday, and then to the next Monday.
I completed the pre-production paperwork I had been given as Sound Designer based on the location of Mudchute and Bar Latitude, as I was unsure when and where we were filming.
