Lessons Learned

This past week was one of the most stressful weeks ever & this week isn't going to be any better. I've never been the person in control of a big project, and writing, directing, managing, and acting all in one big project has proven to be...frustrating, to say the least. First day of shooting was Sunday, and while it was a lot of fun, it was frustrating in more ways then one. I am incredibly thankful for all the people helping me on this project, my only problem with them is that they don't have ESP and know exactly what I'm trying to tell them I want. I kept wanting to take the cameras and frame it myself, but didn't want to offend my friends that were kind enough to help me out and run camera. I was frustrated with my performance, too. My mind was in a million places: shots, timing, no extras showed up...I feel my performance suffered a bit. Hopefully, editing magic will help. I love editing, so much. It changes how I feel about everything. We have one more day to shoot the big scene of the film at the location and we have SO SO SO much to cover...&recover. I'm worried we won't get everything & I don't know what to compromise. I'll be spending the rest of the week going through footage and rescheduling the shot list and paying people to come be extras...apparently free cake isn't enough incentive.

My short project for this class is going to be completely different than what I have been working on the past few weeks. I will film that project eventually this semester, but I waited until the last three weeks to try to get people to help & be extras. I never got anyone to agree to be extras, weather wouldn't cooperate, no one was available to film...After everything fell through before, I finally had a plan for shooting Monday (yesterday) with Brittany Paul and of course, it rained. SO, I spent the day figuring out what I can do. It's not the best quality, but I guess it will have to do for now. I'm more concerned with my narrative being in the middle of shooting. I know it's no excuse...but I've learned to give myself more time, don't wait till last minute, don't wait until everything happens at once, and don't feel bad about asking people to help.