The Creative Process and Varying Production Stages
My biggest contributions to the creative process were the following:
1. Create an outline: I had to create an outline that explained in detail what each of our series would be about (scroll down to the next post to find out more) and brainstorm on what kind of content would be engaging for our viewers to watch.
2. Find inspirational videos: I suggested a few Buzzfeed videos for Jin to watch (the one we found most interesting is listed down below). I thought it would be a good idea to use their comedic style and cross it with our theme of educational.
3. Implement the end campaign Jin initially came up with the title of our film and used a hashtag in the name itself, so I decided to expand on her idea and come up with a campaign at the end. I suggested that we have some sort of viewer participation that would be revealed at the end of the film in series 3 and I managed to come up with a well connected selfie campaign at the end which linked with our film’s name.
Our project required Jin and I to manage pre production, production and postproduction work… and boy was it a lot! We had from September 2016 till March 2017 to complete our film and have it ready for screening on the 24th of March 2017.
These three stages of work really helped us learn new skills, improve on any weaknesses and of course gave us great insight and experience in to what industry level film making is all about.
Pre production work began with our conceptual development and included: crew casting, scheduling, expert tutorials, coming up with an equipment list and creating a production folder. Creating the production folder was a large part of the project and pre production work and it included a whole host of documents that helped bring together everything we needed from start to finish. There were 5 sub sections in our production folder and they included: research, pre production documents, production documents, postproduction documents and distribution and beyond. Our folder was extremely detailed but here’s a quick list of what sort of documents were under these sub sections. 1. A short summery of what our project was about, Jin’s original treatment, A list of team and crew members, who our characters and participants were and formal invitations inviting participants to be part of our film. 2. Sub section 1: Pre production Work A detailed calendar with various important dates. ie. shoot dates, editing dates, studio time etc. Schedule: A production schedule outlining various production and post production dates. Storyboards. Jin and I created a rough storyboard drawing which depicted exactly what would be in each of our series. We sat with our teacher took her through our storyboards to get approval before filming. Insurance documents for the equipment we checked out. Risk assessments for each of the shoot locations. Call sheets detailing when and where each shoot would take place. A template budget that was primarily done for us to learn how to write a budget Booking requests for equipment from our tech office at Goldsmiths. Contacts sheet including onsite contacts of our participants, crew members and tutors. Section 2: Production work A checklist of all the equipment we used during the shoots Release forms for our participants to fill out Shot lists for each of the series and a camera floor plan Section 3: Post production work Transcripts of all the dialogue in series 1 and 2 Details regarding color correction and audition editing Copyright forms. All our music and images were copy right free An edit decision list detailing what sort of fonts and transitions our film entailed Section 4: Distribution and Beyond The last section of our production folder was information on different festivals (such as: Screen Test Fest and the London Short Film Festival) that were currently going on that we could send our film in for. We also wrote up a little section on social media strategies and opportunities for us to get our film out to the public and build a community of individuals who can share their experiences with reduced screen usage
In December of 2017, we had an industry guest lecturer, who gave us key tips of how we should get our films into festivals, advised us on publicity, self marketing as well as how to create the perfect application form. This was extremely handy for us to hear and learn about so that Jin and I could get a better understanding of what to do and where to go if we want our film to be part of any short film festivals. Jin and I wanted our video to have the potential to go “viral” on social media, and therefore we integrated the “#” into our film multiple times so that it could engage our viewers to come up with their own content and take a selfie and post it online using our film’s name: #offscreen
Scroll down to read about the pre production stage of our project...