Days 5, 6, & 7 - Chaos or (the Unexpected Virtue of Not Being Happy With Your Work)

I believe I now know what it is like to be an actual film producer. Let me tell you my thought process and what happened this weekend that changed everything.


All of last week, I was kind of unhappy with how the film was turning out.
I wasn't happy with the script, it felt unnatural and not necessarily true to who I am.
I wasn't happy with the camera shots, stylistically, and also because it didn't match the theme that I wanted to go with.
I wasn't happy with the editing, mainly because the shots weren't actually good, and also because the cuts weren't falling correctly.
I just really wasn't happy with what I had produced, because it did not reflect who I was.


What did I do to fix this? I scrapped the whole thing.


I just counted from my daily log, and I basically threw out 17 hours of work. But I certainly learned a lot from those 17 hours.


Script Writing: This is honestly the most important part of a film. No matter how good the shots are, or how perfect the editing is, if the script is cheesy, lacks depth, or isn't true to the author, there is no point. At the beginning of the week, I thought I would be able to change the script throughout the week, and I did, but it didn't end up helping. In the end, I rewrote the script a total of seven times. Three of those seven times were completely new concepts and ideas. This is super time consuming, but it will also save oodles of time down the line, which is important.


Shooting: Being the actor, director of photography, sound man, director, and lights manager is impossible. The shots you get will not turn out well, the sound will not be recorded, the theme will be lost in the confusion. You will get frustrated beyond belief, and you will end up with an extremely negative view towards the project. Nothing will go well if you try and do everything. It's impossible. Enlist help, hire actors, get a parter. Do not venture alone.


Editing: Make sure you have the correct tools to edit. I thought I downloaded Premier Pro correctly, but evidently I did not. So instead of the market standard that everyone in Hollywood uses, I used iMovie. The same thing that seven year olds use. The same program I have been using since I was seven. This platform works, obviously, but it is not ideal in the slightest. It is also much easier to edit something if you aren't editing yourself, which leads to self criticism and judgement, which can get pretty degrading. I wasn't a big fan of the editing portion of this project.


FINALLY, on Friday, I decided to try something new. I completely scrapped the entire script, and took the poem Insomnia by Dana Gioia and reflected on it. I rewrote. I rewrote. I said it out loud. I said it to the mirror. I rewrote. And then, I was moderately happy.


I then spent the night and the next night recording some night shots. These were not the shots that I had originally intended for this piece, but it was too late to hire an actor to get those shots, and I wasn't about to try acting and filming again. So I decided to use different methods of shots to get the things I wanted. It turned out okay, but if I had more time, I definitely would have made this much better.


Finally tonight I recorded the soundtrack and voiceover work. I played the piano and performed my piece, then edited and mastered it. It ended up being easier than I expected, and I am moderately happy with it. Then I went home and edited the clips I took and the soundtrack together. I was moderately happy with it. It wasn't the ideal final product, but it was what I had.


Then I clicked upload.