My absolute favourite movies are the one with extra footage showing the filming bloopers. Do you remember this one?

And this one?

I am tempted to fill this blog post with rush hour blooper GIFs because they stir up so many fun memories from back in the day. As a family we watched this movie so many times, that we memorized the actors lines and talked over the movie as it played. It was this rather queer love for the same movie that brought us siblings of very different personalities and interests together. Bloopers are hilarious and they show that filmmaking is not necessarily simple or perfect. A lot of effort accompanied by mistakes goes into production of what we later see as a perfect film. Shooting the film for my vodcast assessment helped me practically appreciate the effort that goes into filming and the desire to perfectly recreate what you envision. You have to be willing to make all the possible mistakes to become comfortable in front of the camera.

The submission date for vodcast assessment was drawing closer, I knew it was time to shoot my section of the group film project. As a group, we assigned each other sections to research about, shoot individually which would then be merged to make the final film. Of course this all came into play because we could not physically meet to work on the project due to the public health restrictions on group gatherings. To prepare for my shoot, I followed the key aspects from Leon’s lecture on film making i.e. Idea, preparation, shoot, edit and output. The idea was to create a short narration of the consequences of climate change on the planet. With my draft script in place, choice of locations, I had to secure equipment (either an iphone or iPad) as I did not own any. Luckily I had housemates willing to lend me their gadgets, they are really nice individuals that I am grateful for.

The most memorable time for me while shooting was the fact that my friend/housemate volunteered to be my cameraman for the entire shoot. We went through my lines together, agreed on the type of shots to take and she never once complained about me messing up my lines, which I did a lot. It amazing that I had such a support system around me because it really was not as easy task. For this, I am indebted to them. The major challenge I faced was during the editing and sharing of the final output file with my team. The video and audio fell out of sync each time I exported the film from iMovie application. None of my group mates faced this challenge which led me to believe I must have done something wrong. We tried troubleshooting but nothing worked. I started to panic and that did not get me anywhere either. So we agreed to cut-out all the desynchronised clips and improvise with voice-over shots. But this meant most of the raw footage I laboured so hard to shoot was not going to appear in the final film. I was heartbroken and stressed. I am certain there was away to resolve the issue if only I had time to do it. My team needed to finalise the film and move on to other aspects of their studies, my kind housemate needed his iPad back. I felt the pressure and finally had to pull the plug, it was either that or inconvenience everyone.

I anticipated this assessment would be my biggest challenge based on my limited creative skills but it all came down to technology. From the film making and TV production lectures, I remembered the lecturers assuring us to expect to face all kinds of challenges. It is to be expected that sometimes things do not work out the way we wish for them to and by accepting that, it allows us to be more creative and explore other solutions. Its was an amazing experience that challenged me all through but indeed it is true, you can do anything as long as you set your mind to it.