Hello, blog readers, current and former students of Media Practice: Film Form. I'm writing about the experiences I had shooting a non-assignment short film using the New School's equipment this fall. In other words, a short film that I wasn't assigned but rather one I just felt like doing. I think that we're given so many resources as students here we need to take advantage of them as much as possible and constantly be creating projects big and small. So, what i'd like to do is write about my experience shooting this film and go over things that workd and some that didn't in the hope that some of this may help someone out there.
I wasn't initially planning to make anything outside of class this semester, but when taking a look at the syllabus for Cinematography I realized that there weren't going to be as many opportunities to make films as there were in MP: Film Form.
Working from an idea I had developed over the summer (in which a recently unemployed man receives a mysterious handwritten letter and discovers he can move through time) I set out in September to figure out what I had to do to make the film. I knew a few things from the start: I wouldn't have much money beyond small expenses; with my day-job schedule it would be difficult to have more than 2 days at a time to shoot; I wanted a smallish crew, as in, just me or me and one other person. Had I been able to shoot in one or two days, a larger crew with more tasks delegated might have been feasible, but given the somewhat larger number of locations or a film this length and with virtually no budget, not having too many people involved seemed like the best way to keep things uncomplicated. I also kept the cast to a minimum, casting my good friend John as the lead, and my friends Ryan (fellow New School filmmaker) and Robyn (roommate and a producer) in bit parts. John is not a trained actor, but as a writer and trained improv comic I knew that he could bring just as much to the production as a conventional actor could and that he would be perhaps more understanding of the filmmaking process than a stage actor.
This proved true, but with complications, which I'll explain next time.
Matt Simon
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