This must be the biggest project that I have ever undertaken in my life. After our studies on the Shakespearean play “Macbeth”, the teachers assigned the entire class to make a movie based on “Macbeth” that would be set in World War II. Full of doubts and pessimism, we began our production. To this day, the movie is still being produced and filmed.
Scene with a main actor and his supporting actor on a great day.
Pre Planning
One of our teachers Mr. Hughes laid out a production structure that was similar to a real movie production crew. There would be a producer, director, their assistants, and all the other departments needed for a movie. Roles were assigned and I got the producer role. I had to lay out the general direction of where the movie was going to go and cast roles. The script writers promptly got to work and wrote. Props and costumes were given a rough idea of what ideas were needed so they could be prepared to make them. My director (Marley Harman) cast the actors. This process went on for several days which had deadly consequences for the production of the movie. The process did not go over well with the director as respect dropped off when her suggestions were sometimes not taken into account.
Filming.
Production
After at least 2 weeks of planning while the script writers wrote the script, a production schedule was written up by Marley and I. Production started with many glitches which included figuring out camera angles, plot holes in script, unconventional language in the dialogue of the script, and respect for leadership during the filming process dropped off. Numerous scheduling conflicts with the actors and crew made filming impossible during some days. Around an act was filmed on the first day of filming but the production rate dropped hard on the next filming day. It was a severely under crewed production day nothing got done in which I was not present for. Eager to find what the problem was excluding the reason of being under crewed, I went on the next day of filming when I was available. Production went very roughly but achieved a many scenes were filmed. After that, there was one more productive day where I went to which was a good day. Soon, we fell behind too much for the movie to be completed on time so the teachers stepped see if we wanted to scrap the project. The group decided to persevere with the movie so we cut down on details and are now trying to film all the main ideas to piece the movie together.
Scene captured using multiple camera angles of an actor inside of a tent.
My Opinion
The Bad (The Venting)
Never before have I experienced such a dismal performance by all the people in any project (including me). There were many contributing factors to this that I want to say in order for people to learn from in the future. As a producer, I had a lot of the deciding authority but found that authority meant really nothing as I had not earned the respect from many of the existing PLP students. Requests and orders were issued and followed tentatively at best. Some of these decisions may have not been the best for the group in which I was to blame but things like simple plot adjustments and equipment acquisition were not carried out. Many of the special equipment that Marley brought in did not make an appearance in the filming process. Another major key point that I found that is key to success of a production is authority. At many points of shooting where I was present, most of the crew and cast simply stood talked while others did most of the labor. Even when a scene was being filmed, they were still loud. Between scenes, there seemed to be a great rest break for everyone as it takes nearly an hour to get the next scene set p when it could have been much quicker if everyone concentrated on what they were doing. Repeated direction from Marley and I were ignored most of the time and filming took place a very slow pace which destroyed the production schedule. At some points, I tried to arrange a quick film shoot that involved an actual pub which Spencer had acquired some time from so that we could film. In the end what really sank our precarious boat that is our movie was the endless scheduling conflicts between actors and scenes. It was extremely difficult to schedule some scenes where maybe we had only one day to shoot and some were impossible to shoot which required me to recast the a character so that the movie can move on.
The director and associates look on as the props department set up ever present tent.
The Good
I have to say, the acting of all PLP students in the production was excellent and beyond my expectations. The crew drew from their experience some excellent filming ideas and camera angle ideas as well. If not for them, the film would look very boring with many static shots. Some of the crew were willing to work on the project and accept direction without hesitation albeit with lack of effort.
The End Result
The movie is still being filmed but it has become a much more streamlined process thanks to Maria. In reflection to this project, I should have enforced and updated a production schedule much more. I felt that some of the the crews enthusiasm showed before filming but it disappeared as they waited for a scene to be set up for filming. If this project were to be assigned again, the class would probably give up immediately. This was a great learning experience for coordination and leadership. It really gave me an insight on how things work in a big team and I would hope to do this again with big changes made.
I still think Ms. Willemse should savage and roast whoever was not there for the first BBQing of the unlucky few who didn’t take the math contest.