Lesson with film maker

Lesson with film maker

Friday 5th November we were given the opportunity to discuss our films with a professional film maker, Tunji. He began his career as a photographer, and through travelling in Africa he was inspired to create documentaries addressing issues and creating awareness, within the production he dealt with the camera work.

Before the session I had a few questions which I was unable to gain answers to, such as how to manage and control the time length of a film within a script and storyboard?, would people want to watch a film about depression?, whether the ending was powerful?. Therefore we were lucky to have the chance to speak to a professional film maker who had so much experience and knowledge about film and film production, and who was able to give me answers to my questions.

Within the lesson he looked through my script, and liked the way I structured it. However he pointed out a flaw within the script, he urged me to remove the camera info from the script, he advised me that it is better to explicitly detail what happens in the script, and remove the cameras shots, angles and movements instead of talking about both, he said that this saves time , he told that this is because every filmmaker only want to know what happens in the script, in the script they don’t care about the camera info he said this info should be put on the storyboard not the script.
We then talked about our ending, and I told him that in my film I create and uncertain ending by not telling the audience what happens. He claims that in a film it is much better to end the film rather then creating uncertainty; this is because audiences are engaged in the character and the film, therefore it is pointless if we were not to end the film, as the audience will be wasting their time. I tried to undermine his claim by suggesting that an uncertain ending will address the theme and issue in the film more powerfully, such as not knowing whether he commits suicide or overcomes depression, during this conversation the film ‘inception’ came about I suggested how that this film is an outstanding example of a successful film with an uncertain ending.

He then began to look at my storyboard, he liked the way I mentioned time, camera movement and shot in storyboard, I was lucky to have a profession film maker look over my storyboard.
I asked him about how to manage the time for the film, i was aware that the film was much longer then 5 minutes. He told me to cut out all the nonsense bit in the film, the ones which aren’t important in the film, for example when he’s school over and he’s walking back home there not point showing all these shots, because the waste time (and in a 5 minute you need to show the most significant parts), and secondly the audiences get no satisfaction for watching it.
The last thing we talked about was how to do a time lapse shot, he told me that it was a really difficult shot. He also told me that there two ways to do it, to either shoot normally and do the time lapse in post production, or do it whilst shooting. Because I lacked editing experience, the second option was the most suitable one. He told me that when shooting it I should just hold the camera, and ask the extras to get off frame and then get back on, I would just have to speed it up in post.
I took he’s advised into consideration, and began to think about my film, the script and whatever it would work