filmmakingwithgg

[filmmakingwithgg]

Festival Synopsis

I made 3 versions of the film's synopsis to enter to Festivals with. 30 words, 100 words and 150 words:

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Memory Box- Script Supervisor/Writer

During Memory Box I was the Script Supervisor on set. In our test shoot, I was also our script supervisor which meant that I learned the work flow of the role ahead of time and learned how best work with the director when communicating.

We had a few particularly difficult scenes. Since most of the film took place in Caleb's subconscious, it was important that the choices that were made to follow or not continuity were intentional. There was also the worry during the scene that used shadows. Since the shadows movement's of the parents had to match in the other shots to the muffled argument they were improvising. Therefore, as the days progressed I began taking photos and videos of every single shot in the Memory Scenes, so that I could compare hairstyles, hand positions, movements, prop placement and more to previous shots, to ensure as much freedom in the edit as possible.

As well as Script Supervisor, I was also the writer of the project. There were a couple of instances where there had to be changes made to the script or details had to be clarified in the story due to the use of props and in those circumstances the director would approach me and I would offer him real time solutions to those problems. There were a few lines that were changed in the script during the shooting of the film, due to changes in scenes. For example we had a scene at a bus stop, however our bus stop FELL DOWN a couple days before. Baffling. Anyways, I had to think of a plausible way to rewrite the scene to maintain the same effect and flow that the bus gave. I decided on continuing having them walk, changing a few lines to establish that they were going to the bus and gave the Dad a watch to keep the same hurried momentum of an imminent bus arriving.

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BNN News- 1st AC/Camera Operator

I worked with the BNN Crew on their Test Shoot as their 1st AC, so we well familiar with working with each other. I was there for all 5 days of the shoot. We were filming in the tv studio and my job was to be Ina's right hand man. There were multiple set ups depending on the days of filming, there were single camera set ups and 3 camera set ups. As we were trying to simulate a news room, there was a lot of element involved that I hadn't considered in previous productions. I had never filmed with 3 camera set ups before, so getting the cameras to mirror each other during the et up phase even though they were two different cameras with different settings, was particularly challenging.

I was the camera operator during most of the set ups that required more than one camera, as well as all the moving shots. I also was the person in charge of the focus, since I was the 1st AC, therefore there were a couple of very tricky shots that involved moving a camera on wheels, while tilting and paning and focusing and zooming. We had to do a couple of takes for those ones, but I was confident I could make it work according to the director and cinematographer's vision and we ended up getting a few takes they were happy with. Since we were on the TV studios, the room next door had a live feed of what was happening and they were able to communicate with me via headset about where I should be positioned.

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Argument Script

During the muffled argument scene, I made a mock argument for the actors to use if they wanted. The argument wasn't going to be heard, but it needed to be consistent, so I did this in order to minimize confusion on set and having a set direction in which to go.

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Draft 13- 25/2

I had a call with the Director and Producer. The director said there was a few ideas he had while building up the shot list that he wanted to change in the film. This was particularly late in the process and he apologized for that. This was our most difficult communication period, as I believed he wanted to change a part of the story about the Dad dropping off the box and I disagreed with him and thought it was important. However, it turned out to be a miscommunication and we were able to figure it out and talk about the changes he wanted and I implemented them in this final draft of the film.

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WUTHERED: Lighting Assistant/Script Supervisor/Grip

On February 19th and 20th, I was on the production of Wuthered as a Lighting Assistant. On day 1, I was the main lighting person, when we were shooting in a dance studio, for the first couple of hours, as the other lighting person was in charge of driving equipment. I set up the lights needed and checked what else was necessary. A few lights in the equipment I hadn't dealt with before, as they had been acquired by the uni this year, so I had to adapt and learn on the fly how to set up the lights. Halfway through the shoot, the producer Saskia asked me if I was comfortable with being their Script Supervisor for the day as well. She explained to me the situation and how it wasn't ideal, but that they had lost their Script Supervisor in an emergency and heard that I was Memory Box's Script Sup, so they figured they'd ask me. I agreed and began doing the job of both Lighting Assistant and Script Supervisor. During the takes I would leave Duncan near the lights in case some needed changing and I would focus on contiuity, whilst after the take I would put down my continuity sheet, quickly inform the director of anything needed, like refilling the cups of water on screen that the actors had drank from, and I would go back to the lighting corner to receive any feedback on what needs changing in lights. Later on, when the dolly was set, I also acted as grip for the dolly, as I had done the proper training. It was a rather difficult day, as I was covering two important roles on set, however I understood that they weren't normal circumstances and Saskia had been very apologetic about the trouble. At the end of the day, it was a lot of energy, but I was happy to help.

On day 2, I was able to focus on just Lighting Assistant when we were in an old warehouse, then later in the day we moved to a Airbnb flat. This day was harder than the first due to the moving of the locations, which meant we didn't have a lot of time in the first location. We set up a very complicated lighting set up, where we had to set up every kino and nano light we had, behind a loud door that closed from the top. We were trying to give a slit of light effect on the character laying on the ground as the door opened, but we had to change our set up quite a few times to make that work.

I was supposed to be on during the rest of production, however I got sick unfortunately, so I was only able to help out in the first two days.

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Character Sheets

I decided to make Character Sheets to communicate a clearer vision of the characters to the Director and the Actors portraying them. It has a lot of information that cannot be found in the script, but helped me form who they are, as I was writing the story. I finished and distrubuted them to the respective people a couple of weeks before the start of shooting week.

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Draft 12- 18/2

At this point, we are getting close to production and most things are set in stone and we're happy with. This last draft will just be used to adjust some of the dialogue lines between Maya and Caleb and really solidify what we're wanting out of them. The director gave some feedback regarding some lines that the script had evolved and he was right, so I changed those as well. It is important to keep thinking about what the script needs, not what it needed 6 drafts ago and being married to a line you really liked back then. I understood that as he pointed that line out to me. Hopefully this is the last draft and everyone is happy with this.

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Draft 11- 9/2

At this point we were pretty confident as a group that the memory portion of the project worked. We had simplified greatly, removing 6 year old Caleb and sticking with just one Little Caleb and one Adult Caleb. The rest of the things that changed in the memories were to wording in action lines as I was still trying to make the visualization of the scenes as clear and simple as possible.

The one thing we were still struggling with was the present scenes, we still felt the relationship between Maya and Caleb didn't come across as well as it could, so that was a majority of the work put into the next draft.

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Draft 10- 24/1

After the last draft, the director gave me detailed notes on how he wanted the next draft of the script. I explained to him some of choices and we discussed what we both wanted out of the film. This resulted in a very productive chat, which informed this new version of the script, where it now includes a few changes to key memories, as well as having the dialogue in the present change to showcase a bit more of Maya's assertiveness.

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Draft 9- 7/1

This is a draft with very small changes that I made with the feedback of my producer. The director hasn't read it yet, but I told him to read this draft over the last one, for some quality of life improvements that Esther suggested.

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Auditions

As a writer, I wanted to be present during the auditioning process. We had 3 days of auditions and being there and hearing people read the script aloud and making questions about it, really helped me know which direction to go next. I was able to perfect explaining the story to people quickly and together me, the producer and the director were able to agree on a lot of our decisions on who was right for the role.

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Draft 8 4/1/2025

During the holidays, I tried to take some time away from the script. I had been doing a draft every two weeks or more, fairly consistently throughout the semester, which meant I was really close to the project. I thought that if I was that close to the project I could easily miss something, so I decided to not look at the script for the first week and a half, before giving it another read.

This helped immensely when writing this new draft. I was able to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes, which made me able to determine a couple of details I wasn't happy with.

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The Last Writing Tutorial 13/12

Me and Chris talked about the process of writing from the start of the semester. He shared how me being on draft 7 was more drafts than a majority of the other writers and what goes into the redrafting process of a project like this.

We talked about how the project changed and evolved over time and we went over the Mother as a character as our last thing. We also revisited some writing techniques that he suggested I use storyboards to direct my action lines and make sure they are clear with the vision of the film I want.

As person after me didn't make their meeting, I was able to have these last 45 minutes with Chris to put away any doubts in this version of the script.

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Draft 7 11/12

For this draft I mainly wanted to develop the present scenes with Maya and Caleb. They had been left unchanged from last time. I also wanted to take in the feedback I got from the last draft which was rather positive. By rewriting the memories from scratch it let everyone have a fresh view on them, making it easier to see which ones still worked from the old drafts that we wanted back and which ones from the new ones we wanted to implement. So I implemented the small changes of making the best combo between drafts of the memory portion of the script.

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Draft 6 28/11

I completed another draft after our last meeting with the director and producer. I didn't have time to rewrite the present scenes for this draft, but I changed the memory stuff quite significantly.

First, I made the memories chronological which was a big change for the project. Although, I liked getting deeper and deeper by going back into his childhood, structurally the film ended up more confusing that way, so I wanted to simplify things and I think I achieved that. I removed the specific times between memories, just strictly seperated them between 6 year old Caleb and 9 year old Caleb.

Overall I changed a good number of memories, by writing new ones from scratch, because I wanted to see which ones would we want to keep from the old drafts and which ones we would want to keep from the new one. Then, we'd have the strongest collection out of them.

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Writing Tutorial 15/11

This was the tutorial I had with Chris where I focused more on what big changes might still need to be done with the script. I showed him my list of notes and we talked about how we could improve the Dad's neglect to show him be less considerate. I also enquired about reverse chronological order and we reached the conclusion that both would work, so i could try doing a draft without it and seeing how I find it.