HORROR WEEK EVALUATION

HORROR WEEK REVIEW BY MICHAEL C. BUNGAY

 

We were required to shoot and edit our own short Horror Film for Horror Week, and we had from Monday October 19th to Thursday October 22nd to do that so that and then send our completed Final Edit off to Mark Garvey so that it could be shown along with all the other completed Films on Friday October 23rd. My team consisted of me as the Director, Zhane Alcide as the Primary Editor and also playing the parts of Queenie and Demon Queenie, Donovan Vickery as the Creative Director, Robyn Hall as the Producer, Samuel Marchetti as the Cinematographer and Scott McClachlan as the Sound and Lighting Supervisor. Our film was called Queenie: The Demon Within focusing on a teenage girl named Queenie who suddenly starts seeing visions of a demon version of herself that no one else can see. We waited very patiently for Tina Khatri to complete Zhane’s Demon Queenie make up before going down to the woods just off Campus East to start our filming. Once we had finished filming in the woods, we spent the rest of filming within the confines of the Media Department and the rest of F Block. During my brief unintentional stint on Adam Thurston’s team, I just followed his team’s instructions and tried to do what they required me to do as best I could.

Communication was by far the biggest problem for us. No one exchanged their phone numbers with me or asked me for mine and I was all too often excluded from conversations and discussions during pre-production and the actual production process. This led to me turning up at Oaklands, not knowing when the rest of the group was going to show up and with no way of contacting them. This led to me having no one to work with until Adam Thurston from Level 3 asked me to help his team film scenes for their Horror Film at the Howard Centre by operating their clapper board for them and also to act as crowd control. This break down in communications led to such a massive argument between me, Zhane and Donovan that I felt like quitting the entire course on the spot and I even stormed up to Ollie Samuel, stating my intention to leave. I actually felt like storming out of the building and off campus altogether and going straight home to Stevenage but I knew that would only cause further trouble and cast me in a bad light. Ollie immediately wrote a note of concern to the other tutors while I went home at the end of the day and told all whom I could speak to about how upset I was at the way things were going between me and the rest of the group. I spoke to my mum, my gran, my support workers, my key worker and even Jo Prior and I also enquired about seeing a Counsellor at Oaklands. On my mum’s advice, I refused to speak to the rest of my group until they realised they could not start filming until the Director said so which meant they had to wait for me to say ‘Action’ and only then did they start to treat me more like a valued member of the team. Even then, I still kept my distance once we had started editing and doing things my way despite attempts by the rest of my group to advise me otherwise when I started designing a poster for our film. When I was helping Adam Thurston’s group, the only real communication problems was giving clear instructions as Adam could have explained more clearly how to act as crowd control without coming across as rude to the public and keeping track of the scenes and shots so that I could update the inscriptions on the clapper board.

Although it delayed the start of filming by a few hours because it was so complicated, Zhane’s make up for her Demon Queenie appearance provided by Tina turned out very well indeed and looked proper menacing for a demon alter-ego. The filming, once we actually got on with it instead of wasting time arguing over it, also went generally well and especially when it came to filming the interior scenes. The only downside was having to look out for other people coming down the corridors in case of Continuity Errors and also trying and not always managing to keep the equipment, especially the Boom Mic, out of shot. There was one instance in the Final Cut in which the boom mic was briefly in shot and another in which the corridor in the Media department goes from crowded to empty in the next shot. The external scenes also generally went well as long as we kept each other informed of potential continuity errors such as possessions and in equipment being in shot but were held up only by inclement weather, particularly on Wednesday when we intended to finish filming. This meant the last bit of filming was postponed until Thursday and even then Zhane and Robyn went filming without the rest of the team even they did manage to finish filming. 

The teamwork and cooperation went very badly indeed. Clearly out of a combination of not being used to working with a student with Asperger’s Syndrome or a mature student and just not being keen on working with me, my group and particularly Zhane and Donovan, tended to argue with me and exclude me from the work during pre-production and filming. Kelli Watson even had to remind us that we are supposed to be working as a team and that teamwork extends to composing the script and shot list, including any changes that need to be made. This came about because the plot and script were mostly Zhane’s ideas and the other members of the group were reluctant to make any changes even though they needed to so I ended up making some myself and all other changes during pre-production and filming were made without my input. Eventually, we got to a point where we were all just plain being rude to each other and trying to do each other’s job for them. I felt that as the Director, it was my job to give instructions to the cast and crew as well as to say when to start filming and when to cut but Donovan felt that was the Creative Director’s job and openly expressed those feelings to me and the rest of the group. We also had to cope with the fact that one member of the team was not contributing at all as Scott refused to provide the Sound and Lighting like he was supposed to do and indeed refused to even work with us as he just sat around and did nothing and the rest of the time, he tended not to even turn up so Robyn and I had to take it in turns to provide the Sound and Lighting for him. Scott even had the nerve to try and do my job for me and make me do his and then outright tell me that I am not fit to be a director as I am too distracted. I did not mean to be distracted if I was, I was just always taught to follow scripts, I am not used to improvisation. I just wanted to get on with the project, especially given that we only had 4 days to film and edit everything and that we had failed to transfer the footage properly during our last filming exercise prior to Horror Week. Thankfully, I was not the only one who felt this way as Robyn and Samuel also wanted to get everything done sooner rather than later as they hardly talked or argued unless they felt we were wasting time. Our teamwork remained questionable until the end as Zhane and Robyn went to finish filming with only Emily-Rose Higgins to help them without telling me or the rest of our group. Absences was also a recurrent problem as Donovan was not always able to turn up either. My brief stint with Adam Thurston’s group was let down mostly by two members of the group taking a while to turn up and seeking permission from the managers at the Howard Centre and the local coffee shops to film on the premises but the very worst bit was putting me in charge of crowd control. Adam did not give that clear an explanation as to how crowd control works and I ended up being rude to the public so much that they complained at Adam about me and he had to explain what was going on. I felt so embarrassed and especially as I was already going to be at odds with my group for not keeping me informed as to when we were meeting up, I did have my phone on but it never rang or vibrated. 

I inadvertently learned how to use and update a clapper board during filming and how to properly produce a movie script and a shot list and that the script and shot list are subject to change at any time. I also learned that being the director does not always necessarily mean that I am responsible for telling the film crew and actors what to do during filming and that if my film crew is absent, it helps to exchange phone numbers beforehand so I can contact them and that sometimes, I may have to play someone else’s role for them if they do not turn up.   

Next time I would either take on a different role within my filming crew or do some more research into what exactly is the role of the Director during filming so that I can do a better job of being the director. I have also had to put up with Diane Fensom casting doubt on whether I am director material or not and I would like another chance to direct until we all know for certain. 

We used a Canon FX-100 video camera, tripod, boom mic and also an umbrella provided by the Media Department in case it continued to rain. We used the computers in F308 and the Macs in F304 to do our editing and export the footage onto our hard drives. Thankfully we encountered very few problems apart from trying to wire up the boom mic to the camera at the start of the filming process. Adam’s group used a Sony video camera that requires an SD Card as well as a tripod, boom mic and a clapper board.   

Zhane was the Primary Editor so she did the editing and exporting herself with Robyn supervising. The editing took too long for Zhane to transfer the raw footage onto everyone else’s hard drive apart from hers and mine but she managed to get the Final Cut exported to Mark Garvey so that our film could be shown on Friday with all the other completed projects. At the time of writing, I had yet to start my individual edit.  

Next time, I need to exchange phone numbers with the rest of my group and vice versa and to do some better research into the respective roles of the film crew, especially those of the Director and Creative Director. I also genuinely hope to be placed with different students next time. I know I cannot always choose whom I work with and there are always going to be people who do not really want to work with me or me with them but I genuinely felt like an outcast in my group. I felt I had a lot to offer to my group and they just did not want to know and that they were just ignoring me and excluding me at every opportunity only to give me a hard time for not cooperating when they were not giving me a chance to in the first place.