Macbeth, I mean MacDonald, I mean Everett

We all have our fair share of flight and PLP stories but none are so interesting as that of the production of Macbeth in World War 2. This blog post will not be in the normal style for 2 reasons: I will be doing a full big one at the end of production and secondly it is better to tell the story so far in this manner. 

When I first heard about this project as it was announced in the cold of winter I thought it would be enjoyable something for the whole class to sink their teeth into and to let everyone’s individual characters and strengths shine through. The sad reality is that we acted like the fictional people in the play we were adapting rather than ourselves. We back stabbed lied and procrastinated our way into this mess. I started the project as one of 2 people to get to work right away and while me and Luciano should have been working together we were forced to compete over the votes of our peers. Luciano ended up winning. Next the script writers were let lose on the story so with nothing else to do me and Luciano joined them.

The original script writing crew.

 Funnily enough most of script hadn’t even touched the script until we started shooting with me Luciano and Alanah being the primary writers in the beginning which is understandable Gabi and Cashel couldn’t really add much. It was at this point I was fired by the producer for being unable to connect with the rest of the team as I was sick despite the amount of technology we have but whatever. Then I arrived back at school to be reassigned to the prop department under the lead of Teva. It was on this day I realized the first of 3 major problems that lead to the state of the project as it is today.

Problem the first: The producers. Now while I have no problem with Stanfield and Jackson as people I think that their position has been flawed from the beginning. It boils down to the fact that 20% of the class was in management and refused to do anything except tell people what to do. It ended up where nobody listened to Marley the director and just argued with Jackson and Stan instead of getting stuff done while if Marley was the only one in charge it would have been done a lot quicker. Now this isn’t really Jackson and Stanfields fault as they weren’t 100% clear about their position as most of us were they could have toned it down a little and stuck to suggestions rather than saying their word is law.

After this props spent the next month almost putting up tents. 

I say props I mean Nolan and I with Teva there a lot of the time helping (he spent the rest of the time doing a great job managing). Whoever else was in props which I don’t know who they are either slacked off or didn’t do their job, this sounds harsh but it is true and I will include a quick disclaimer saying a lot the people in props had 1 or 2 other jobs that were a lot more important so I understand why they weren’t giving 100% to it. None of us complained much past jokes despite being judged for every knot and improvised peg by some people. Now I will say that both Micheal S and spencer did help us on a couple of occasions while they weren’t doing their real job which was a massive help but not as much as Nolan, Teva and I which is due to them having other stuff to do. After putting up I would say fifteen tents and me personally being involved in about ten of them and seeing people stand under them for hours filming a thirty second scene I realized the second problem. 

First tent we put up.
Problem the second: To much change/input. Now the producers getting involved in decisions I get (still shouldn’t) but actors and Costume department people (just examples) making massive script changes without even consulting anyone isn’t an amazing idea when your on a timeline. But to be fair people, like the 2 Michaels, had really good ideas and they should be considered but I don’t think they should be automatically added. It got to the point where script had redone large chunks of the script at least 7 times to the point where it was almost unrecognizable. 

This is a scene being reshot.

Now we are almost at the present. And we are in full filming mode which means more tents more hours and a lot more cold and wet students. The result of this is the third problem.

Problem the third: Procrastination. If I had a dollar for every time I heard the words we’ll film it later or let’s get it done another time I wouldn’t be a millionaire but I would be able to buy myself a new shirt or something else like that. Now people complaining isn’t anything new (I do it myself sometimes) but when enough people decide to procrastinate it becomes an issue. Filming has been postponed, scenes cut and added and whole parts needing to be filmed again. It got to the point where we were just running out of time. Our enemie had gone from ourselves to the clock.

Now the project is finally done with a finished movie completed by Zak. The movie was finished by using clever movie tricks such as narration and title cards. Would I say this was a bad experience? No. while we spent a lot of the early stages fighting in the last month we have been working together a lot better and we learned a lot more about movie making.