BLOG 3 - FLM215 (SAE STUDIO)

Considering that at the beginning of this trimester I barely had any idea of how to function as a producer I feel as though I have developed tremendously not only as a filmmaker, but also in many other aspects of my life. I believe I'm seen as a bit of an introvert and this whole experience has really helped me come out of my shell a bit more and let me discover a bit more about who I am and where I want to take my career as a filmmaker.

I feel like having taken on the role of Producer was a great challenge for me, as it forced me to better organize myself and challenged my leadership abilities. Before taking on the role I always saw it as being the "big bad man that tells everyone what to do", and while in some aspects of producing this can be true, I have learned that to be a successful producer you need to be able to adapt and read the situation utilizing that sternness when necessary. This is something that I have only been able to learn how to do in the last few weeks of the trimester. In the beginning I hated giving people deadlines and delegating tasks. Then through multiple obstacles throughout the trimester I became more comfortable with the process and now we have a film to be shown at exhibition.

Taking on extra responsibilities throughout the production to cover for other crew members was one of the main obstacles and bigger challengers. As it allowed for little to no breathing room and pushed me further as a filmmaker. My co-producer that only came on to the production part way in, initially seemed driven and ready to work. It was only when I started to give him appropriate tasks to do as a producer that he started slacking. He taught me how important is to be contactable at all times during a production as it seemed I could never get into contact with him. This led me to picking up the slack and performing where he was not.

On top of this mishap I had another important crew member drop out of the production. Our first assistant director, while also initially driven, unfortunately fell ill and did not come to class or meetings. This in an addition to a lack of communication lead to our schedules and call sheets to be done last minute by myself and our Director. I then took on the responsibilities as first assistant director for the remainder of the trimester.

In retrospect, there are a couple things I possibly could have done to lessen the stress and lighten the load. Such as immediately trying every form of communication when I first lost contact with either party, which would possibly give me an extra day or two to sort things out. However despite this I am grateful for the experience.

I am also happy to point out that I do believe I have been heavily involved in every aspect of this production on top of my duties as a producer. I immediately sorted out all crew forms and agreements and readied the task allocation sheet. I went out location and props scouting and sat down with the director on multiple occasions and thoroughly went through the script and gave all the help I could give when asked. I took over management of our quarantined email account and sorted and scheduled all of our actors and casting calls after I had previously delegated the task. In addition to gaining access to last minute location swaps as well as organize ESTA's and catering which I had also previously delegated.

Clearly, I fell short in a couple of areas during all of this otherwise we would have had a large crowd of extras and a much more planned schedule for shooting. However now that the shoot is over, everyone is happy including the actors which I had paid immediately.

I believe that the reasoning behind why everyone is content at the moment is because of our cohesive communication and work ethic. On set especially, everyone worked incredibly well with each other and no drama's arose that we couldn't immediately deal with. The only real problems I had in terms of communication and working together was mentioned previously which resulted in the loss of both a co-producer and a first assistant director. The solution to these problems was simply that I took over and assumed their responsibilities and we continued the production.

After everybody's hard work and determination we have formed a film that, while being significantly shorter than expected, does stay true to the script and forms a cohesive narrative that hopefully everyone will enjoy. So far it has sparked the interest of many people here at SAE who are eager to see it and in some cases eager to offer their own services to help enhance what we already have.

At this current point in time the film is not yet complete, I am overseeing the edit and making sure everything runs smoothly for both our Editor and Director. I have organised and completed ADR sessions and our audio team is hard at work on the score and will be mixing together our locked off cut in the next few days.

This has been a great experienced that I have enjoyed and stressed about throughout. I am glad that the film is finally come together and it has been amazing to have watched this story come to life and now hopefully continue to grow into next year as we continue to have it festival worthy next year. I am ready for the next project to come and will utilize all the knowledge I have gained from this so the quality of my work will only get better.

Written by Aedan Bruitzman