Week 10 – “You Cheeky Bugger!”

So it begins… Pre-production that is. We were supposed to have an editing class on Monday morning but Gavin didn’t turn up so we used the time to finalise crews and get going on our three-minute class films. I agreed to position of Producer and First AD on Ross’s film, perhaps foolishly as I really didn’t know if I’d have the time.

On Monday afternoon, while Adam was advising the rest of the class on such exciting things as hiring actors, I was involved in an ELIR Meeting with a panel of people picking apart the teaching system in the Academy. It stood up to the questions admirably and it made me realise, once again, just how lucky I am to be part of this institution.

Gavin, Ross, Graeme and myself nipped down to the office in Queen Street later for a quick location scout. It seems pretty much ideal. How exciting.

We had fun class with Andy on Tuesday morning where we got to plan how we’d shoot a short scene and it took us far longer than it should have. I suppose that’s what comes of having a class-ful of students all wanting to be directors! It was interesting to identify the Hollywood influence and imagine the purely industrial process that filmmaking had once been.

We were all squashed into what was little more than a cupboard for the beginning of what was possibly our last Screenwriting class before we move to tutorials. We waded through some more premises then allowed Richard to heap hordes of holiday homework onto us before our final farewell.

After a quick tutorial with Andy, where I was assured that my ‘Moodling’ was quite acceptable, we had a programme meeting where Adam used his powerful influence to soothe our growing fear at the approaching shoots. Although, I can’t say I was actually that worried; except at my own lack of concern for the whole situation.

Cathy Come Home was a particularly impressive piece of filmmaking. Had I been told it was a documentary, rather than a drama, I would have believed it and this realism made it all the more moving. My only qualm would be that it could be seen to be abusing the power of storytelling, as many dramas do, by creating a problem, asking a question, then neither solving it nor providing a possible answer. What is the point of raising an issue, and going to lengths to display how terrible it is, if there is no attempt to suggest a solution? It is actually wasting a great opportunity to inspire people to do something about the issue. This is sort of what I felt at the end of Cathy Come Home because it was such a hopeless situation but I think in this case it was almost acting as a news bulletin for society at that time where no-one actually knew what the answer to the situation was and therefore the hopelessness solidified the point it was trying to communicate.

Thursday was spent plodding through the preparations for our class films and in the afternoon we had a class where Ray randomly rambled through different aspects of shooting a film which was ever so slightly overwhelming but at the same time hugely helpful.

A very quiet Open Day for DFTV on Friday; there were only two prospective students for the course. Not so for me though. Somehow I managed to juggle finishing our Moodle task, working on the class film, manning the booth, attending a workshop on track and preparing for shooting Lord of the Rings in 60 seconds in the evening! I would have liked to take a tour, but somehow I couldn’t find the time. The highlight of the day was when I approached Chris Underwood (Head of Vocal Studies, with a striking resemblance to Bilbo) to follow up my email requesting if he’d like to play the part of Bilbo in my remake of Lord of the Rings. He good-naturedly commented that I had a nerve to ask such a thing, that I was “a cheeky bugger” but that yes, he’d be willing to play the part.