March 4, 2018*Today marks the one year anniversary for when I signed up for AN Subject of the week: Screen Business 1February 28, 2018 to March 2, 2018It felt good going back to uni on the 27th knowing that I knew a lot more people in my degree. The degree I'm doing is the ONLY bachelor degree at my film school, so there's a good chance of bumping into someone I know in my workshops.
[Tuesday]Our Screen Business lecturer made us do an activity where we had to write our dream film/TV idea on a sheet paper. She collected our papers back and placed them in a plastic bag that was placed on a chair. I thought she was going to pick random ones and read them out loud. She grabbed the plastic bag from the chair and all the slips of papers just fell out! At first I was just like wtf. Turns out it was a metaphor that having a great idea will not get you into the industry. Without having screen business knowledge, your ideas will 'fall out'. I thought that was clever. At the end of the lecture, she gave us a dollar each. It's her way of investing in us and our idea. Whatever idea we wrote on the slip of paper, she wants us to use the dollar when we get it pitched in the future. I thought that was really nice of her.
Afterwards I had workshop and my tutor is a producer from an independent film company which is really cool! We immediately got our first uni assignment of the year and it's a group task. We have to pitch a short film concept in two minutes and also submit a 1000 word group portfolio. The concept is based on one of the stimuli given to us. My chosen stimuli was Logan Paul's apology video... Hope things go well with this group task.
I'm not too keen on Screen Business as a subject so far just because it has a lot of emphasis on pre-production stuff and it's definitely a subject that appeals to those who wants to become a producer or a director in the future. As someone who desperately wants to become a TV editor, I don't learn editing (Rhythm and Juxtaposition) until semester two. Though I need to get over my dislike for Screen Business because in order to enter the industry, you need to learn it. It's probably the most important subject in my degree.
[Wednesday]Pretty much for the rest of the week, we had the same old Screen Business lecture for 1.5 hours followed by a workshop that went on for WAY TOO LONG (4 hours). I learnt each parts of pre-production and the significance of the producer.
Fun fact: soap operas are called soap operas because tv shows back in the past were sponsored by soap companies.[Thursday]Every Thursdays, we have a thing called SDL Day (Student Directed Learning Day) where you have to study independently and attendance on campus isn't compulsory. However, I still did end up going because my group members were really keen to get the task started. (Spoiler alert: we only got the short film idea done ahaha. Budgeting, casting and all the other components are yet to be done.)
[Friday]We had our 'Visual Storytelling' check in where the course leader gave us our end of semester project. He said that we can pick whatever role we wanted and we'll get assessed on it. I was determined to get assessed on editing because I felt that was my strongest area within film. However, this was the brief given to us:
- 90 to 120 seconds film (including 5 second end credits)
- Only pan and tilt, fixed tripod position, camera can't be hand held
- Film has to be recorded all in one shot,
- No editing allowed, no dialogue, no music
(*Since editing is banned from this production, I'll try to get assessed on being production designer)
The whole point of the Visual Storytelling project is to create a film that focuses on the visuals to present a story. For my film (so far), I'm thinking of having death trying to seduce life into his world by giving her gifts. I will take most of my inspiration from 'Memento Mori'/'Vanitas Still Life' paintings for my props. I would love to have a dance scene in the film BUT we're not allowed to hire actors outside the school. So it's either I find two people in my degree who can dance or drop the dance scene altogether.
I've got a lookbook/moodboard on what I want the film look like in the attachment below:
At the end of Friday's workshop, some of us headed to a local bar to celebrate surviving the first week of AFTRS.
Upcoming subject for this week: Story 1