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[flowthemovie]

Flow Milestone 4

As we are getting close to the end of this semester our film will be only wait to be shot when all our preparation will be finished.  

Since the milestone 3 as a director of photography Hazal and I finished working on the shotlist of foyer scene and I finished the framelist. Hazal and I will check them one more time before it will be ready to be drawn. Also I need to prepare a lighting scheme for 3 different setup. I decided to do it for our showtime scene as we have various of setups in that scene. Hazal and I are going to gather the location photographs for our final project submission.

As a sound designer I decided to give my most attention on the parts that we have footage. The rehearsal scene sound design is almost finished but I’m still working on its some parts. I will work on the other scenes as well when the animatic parts are completely finished and all will be ready to go for the sound design part. I think it is a great opportunity that I have the chance to do sound effects for the scenes that we didn’t shot yet. It will help when we are shooting that Hazal can give better directions to our actress because we would be made our decisions on which sounds our character is going to hear and what would the atmosphere be like, feel like. 

That is all for now. We will wait and see what opportunities the future will bring and how this film’s journey end. We are looking forward to it. 

[flowthemovie]

F! - M4 x h.y

The end has almost come. No, I don’t say it as a bad thing at all.

As the director, I have finished creating and revising the shotlist in these past couple of weeks. I finally finished them. I wish I could express how happy I am. Şafak is working on the frame list of the Foyer Scene. When she is done, we will take a look at it together and make the essential adjustments if there are any. Then, we are basically done. The shotlist (not including the frame list) is 93 pages long right now. Yes, 93. I know I won’t regret using tons of still images from the choreographies. I hope I can manage to merge them into a single document without hurting my PC too much.

Right now I am working on my Screenwriter duties. I am just translating the screenplay into English and correcting some narrative errors. Also, adding some details for dance descriptions will come in handy for the readers. 

I guess that’s about it for the Milestone 4. I’d like to save my emotional “farewell” speech to a relatively more dramatic occasion. 

[flowthemovie]

Milestone 4 / The Final

Here we are, almost finalizing our VCP project. First of all, this journey has taught me a lot in temrs of how to cope with such life crisis and still be passionate about what we have accomplished. Just to keep it brief, I would like to talk about my last milestones.

As a producer, I have been collecting missing documents such as Music Cue Sheet and Deal Memos with our dance crew members. I have completed my Contact Info documents. For the upcoming documents that are needed to be provided, I am in contact with the people who helped us. In addition, I am going to be responsible the website of our project.

As an editor, we are having some problems with the Internet connection because our Production Designer, Berfin cannot send me the finished scenes right now. On the other hand, we have found a new way to deliver the materials which is via an Internet cafe hopefully. We will make it someway somehow!

Let’s wrap things up and finish this semester with a happ face!

[flowthemovie]

#Milestone 3

As we have to stay at home during the Corona virus outbreak we are working on doing animatics of our film. Hazal creates new and revised shotlists and we are discussing them every week on camera. After the discussion is finished I work on the frame lists. Until now we are done with backstage scene, street scene and house scene frame list finished and Berfin is done with doing the drawings of backstage scene. We will discuss further about our house scene frame list with Hazal then Berfin can draw them. 

I am also working on creating sound library for our film. I roughly did the street scene sound and now mostly working on explosion sound effects when our character Nil is inside. It is the most tricky and hard part for me to do a realistic sound effect for that. I try to combine different sounds like dropping keys, hitting on the table and so on. I am using Adobe Audition to edit sounds and put them together on Premiere with the footage. I think it is better to start with the hard parts so that later it will be finished easier. 

For this course our final product won’t seem coherent because we are using a lot of different parts like drawings, rehearsal footages and actual scenes that we shoot. Our goal is to make people understand that what kind of a film it will be as a final product and also help ourselves better when we are actually shooting the film also doing and trying the sound effects before hand will be very helpful in the future.

[flowthemovie]

3rd Milestone / Almost Coming to an End

Since we have been working on our animatics, we have been deciding on the modifications that may ease our process of finalizing the project. We have decided to draw the scenes that have never been shot. Also, it is really time consuming to draw the dance scenes so we are planning to use our rehearsal videos as well. To give a brief summary of the dance pieces, we are planning to use some descriptive parts within our script. If needed, extra information is expected to be added as well. We have such a limited time that causes some concerns for our end product but we are trying our best. 

The rest of my job for the project is based on editing so I am going to start our first edit of backstage scene within this week. Unfortunately, the change of the whole format has brought difficult times for our Animatics Artist, Berfin, so within this limited time I am going to work fast as much as I can so Şafak can work on the sound design aspect of the film as much as she can. 

We are working in an extraordinary situation so whatever the outcome is going to be, I just want to make sure that we have tried our best and it is nonsense to be hard on ourselves. In addition, we have been challenging ourselves with an unconventional genre so the working discipline is pretty different from a familiar genre. I am also going to keep these aspects in my mind while working on my tasks.

[flowthemovie]

Milestone III of Flow

“If only we could teleport to the end of year screening and watch the film.” 

This was something me and my friends said months ago, before the unexpected “guest” arrived. Since we were pretty nervous and excited about it, we just wanted to see the final result. At that point, we all were certain that there was going to be a film, a 20 minute live action to be precise. Well... Who could have guessed? COVID-19 changed a few things. Firstly, the film cannot be a film anymore, just yet. We will tell our story via animatics. The fact that we had the stop filming was annoying at first. Nevertheless, as an optimistic person who tries to embrace the positive side of not-to-positive happenings, I am kind of content that 1) all of us are safe and healthy 2) we have shot a crucial percentage of the film already 3) we have more time to work on the project regarding creative and financial matters. We can do this. We will do this.  As the director and screenwriter, I’m continuing to work on the shotlist which is 90% done right now. To be fair, I feel less anxious since we are not going to shoot the film soon. That means I don’t have to worry about cinematography related concerns (e.g: “Are we going to be able to capture this shot the way I imagine?”), background extras (e.g: “Can we find 50 people to helps us? What are we going to give them in return?”), and acting (e.g: “Can our actors and dancers convey the emotion that is essential to push the narrative forward?”) So yes. Such stressful thoughts are postponed for now. Still, we have other things to do. 

After preparing the shotlist for a scene, me and Şafak (the DOP of our film) have video calls. We discuss each and every shot. I describe practical and technical components that she needs to know as the DOP. If Şafak has any suggestions regarding a shot, she tells me. Later, Şafak creates a “frame list” where she describes the frames that Berfin will draw for the animatics. When she is done with the “frame list”, I go through that to check if eveything works. Then, the scene is ready to be drawn by Berfin.  After watching the rough cut of our showtime scene, our choreographer Ecem said there should be more close-ups and shots of details in the scene. Because of this, I asked her to give me some suggestions for dance scenes. What happens is that I create the shotlist. When I’m done checking and correcting it, I take a look at the documents Ecem sent to me. If one of her suggestions for a specific shot works better, I use it. Even though we will not draw the choreography, I am paying extra attention to dance shots as if we are about to shoot them. 

Ecem and Şafak are kind enough to provide me shot suggestions. As the director, I get to say the final word but hearing other comments from different perspectives often comes in handy.

I realized that writing and directing a film go hand in hand. If we liken the script/story to a cake, the shotlist would be the plates. How many plates should there be? How much cake should each of them get? I am here to answer these questions. Cypher Productions will hopefully bake this cake and serve it someday. 

The overall situation of the shotlist is given below.

Done: Stuck at home scene, Post-explosion flashbacks, Following Glam Nil scene, Backstage scene, Showtime scene Needs Revision: Last rehearsal scene Work in progress: Foyer scene

[flowthemovie]

Trying to find our “flow” back

(This will be an emotional post)

We are probably at the most monumental phase of not only our film but of our lives. Because of COVID-19, not only we cannot gather people in a single environment but we as the main crew members of this film can’t even go outside as individuals. Since self isolation, we were feeling a bit lost about the project, whether we can complete it or not. At first, we have decided to stop the shootings for 3 weeks. Unfortunately, it seems that the situation is getting worse so we had to put shootings aside until the situation gets better. Our challenge is to put our plan B at work *immediately*.

Today we have met our instructor through zoom  and talked about how we can complete this project. At the end, we have decided to do an animatics version of our film. This is all we can do for now. The updated version of Gannt Chart will be uploaded to this page soon. 

Not only as a producer but as a person, I will keep reminding myself this experience when people start to talk about obstacles in life and how to cope with them. This phase truly evolved me as an individual, taught me a new lesson about my place in this community and also being a creative being. What I would like to do for the further times is to keep myself away from paranoia and stay calm because I want to believe that this is the extremist situation that we may have. 

As a choreographer, I truly felt lucky because of the dancers that I had the chance to work with. Their patience ,beliefs, enthusiasm, a slight piece of their smiles, sweats on their faces during our rehearsals... all of them are gifts to me. The last time I was in a crowded place is our rehersal time for the foyer scene. It was my first experience choreographing for a group of people, the moment of my dream coming true. I will never forget the piece that I created come into life. Through this post, I want to thank all of them. I especially want to thank Nesli, our main dancer and lead actress for her effort. She embodied the character in a way that her experiences felt so familiar with ours. The times we felt unsure, she was always present with her patience and humbleness. What a great partner to work with. 

Last but not the least, I want to give Hazal, Şafak, and Berfin a shoutout and a big virtual hug. We have met countless times to open ourselves, had our catharsis moments together, and have found the most candid story that we can tell. Even though we cannot meet in person right now, we have come so far for this project. From the first time we recorded ourselves saying “I think we found an idea” until today, we have evolved so much that I can’t be nothing but damn proud of ourselves. We are still not done yet. Let’s do the best we can in these circumstances! As a last sentence, I hope the days we can come together and shoot the film is nothing more than soon.

Thank you. Stay healthy. Stay hydrated. STAY HOME.

[flowthemovie]

second milestone / what happened so far

Since our first shoot in the MSSF building, I’ve been extremely neglectful of this place and my progress. As my friends have mentioned earlier, we’ve finished shooting almost 40% of the entire movie. Pretty exciting news, since we accomplished this in only one day.

As production designer and art director, I’ve had to deal with Nesli/Nil’s outfit, makeup (to be honest, I feel like I’ve done a terrific job with her makeup) the lights on the stage and everything that was to appear on the frame of the camera. Two things happened that affected me negatively: the clock we borrowed from the Theatre Department broke (it fell from the wall that I hung it to, but nobody was hurt) and Nesli’s “Glam Nil” outfit started sagging and affected her dancing abililty. I had to find a new clock (thanks to Mozart Cafe below the main stage) and Yılmaz Abi (lighting and prop technician for the main stage/aka my hero) covered the broken clock for us - and we started trimming the extra saggy tulle with the help of my mom and Habibe tezye (who happened to be a tailor), who came to the stage to be extras as the audience members. As production designer/overall prop master for this movie, I feel extremely bad about not taking the necessary precautions about both the clock and the outfit. Lesson learned - even though I feel like I always prepare for the worst, I should prepare even harder because it’s not enough.

(Special shout-out to Yılmaz Abi -and his immense patience-, Habibe teyze, my mom, Sevdenur -3rd year COMD student who came to help as assistant producer- and Amina -from the AIA film crew, who came to help as extra cameraperson- because without them, we wouldn’t have finished the whole shoot in one day. It really takes a village.)

Since the MSSF shoot, we met up with Ufuk hoca and Aydan hoca (who are our advisors) and they gave us pretty good insight about what we should do and what we should be concerned about as our schedule progressed forward. The feedback that affects me the most is their critique about the lighting and how it looks either too yellow or too lackluster for the mood, and I’ll work on fixing them in both the re-shoots and during post while working with Ecem about color correcting.

And we’re up to speed, in week 5, getting ready for the street scene that will be shot this weekend, March 8th. To be perfectly honest, I don’t have much to do, except researching and resourcing which lights to use for an outside shoot. I’m helping Hazal and Şafak with the storyboards, thanks to their extremely detailed shotlist, it’s really easy. I should be done with them within this week, and I’m already asking around for help with wireless lighting equipment. It’s a resourcing-kinda week. I’m pretty excited about this weekend’s shoot, because it will be the first time we’ll see Glam Nil’s oufit in action in natural lighting, and I feel like it’s going to be a magical moment.

TL;DR (back at it again) : second milestone edition

MSSF shoot - everything went okay, I broke a clock and the outfit started sagging, but they were fixed

We met up with our advisors to show them the footage and I got some good critique about the lighting

Upcoming shoot on March 8th - resourcing for lights and helping with the storyboards

[flowthemovie]

Moving Forward to Second Milestone

As we are moving forward in our journey, seeing our tasks being done step by step is a relief! We have used the spare time between the first milestone and the second one by discussing about our street scene which Nil faces the affects of the attack.

As a producer, I had to make sure that the crew members are on progress with effective communication with each other. In order to justify it, I have organized a brief meeting and it was a chance for us to talk about the happenings in our first shoot day so we could analyze them for the future. From that time, we know how to treat each other better. In terms of communication, I believe that it is really needed. 

My other duty for the second milestone is to finalize the location scouting. Unfortunately, because of the busy schedule I had with musical, I could not take the full responsibility of it but thanks to Hazal, Şafak, and Berfin, they knew how to handle the situation so they used this chance to do the location scouting together so they can come up with a more developed scene. 

As a choreographer, I am now working on our foyer scene’s choreography. It is going to be a group dance which Nil confronts the crowd which is her audience. I am expecting to finish the whole choreography by Sunday so I can arrange meeting times with dancers for next week. After I finish this choreography, the dance part is going to be completed. The only thing left is going to be doing the checking to make sure that the dancers are revealing the narrative we want.

Overall, we are mostly moving according to our timeline which is super nice because even though somethings might go wrong, we still have time to fix them. We want to use the time for our own advantage! Let’s keep up the good work and stay focused! 

[flowthemovie]

First Shooting Day and Meeting with our Advisor

On 23rd February, Sunday we have shot our first three scenes. The last rehearsal scene, the showtime scene and the backstage scene. We used the stage lights and also an extra light which is taken from Özcan abi for the lighting and I used a small gimbal which I borrowed from Şükrü, our friend. I practiced shooting with gimbal the two days before our shoot and figured it out however it was a little bit hard to use it when there is so much pan and tilt movements and I did my best to get smooth shots. Unfortunately there were some shots I couldn’t manage to capture with gimbal so Hazal and I did some of those hand-held. 

The stage light controls were upstairs so Berfin, Ecem and Yılmaz abi worked with them to create the lights that we want and we got some good results. However, as I and my team mates don’t have a lot of experiences with the lighting, it was a really big challenge. Even though I have read books about lighting and watched videos, practicing it is much more different. So we have some issues like when the light changes, we had to change our camera settings everytime so when we shoot one takes, some parts of the shots have been overexposed or underexposed but we arranged ourselves according to that and we have a lot of partial shots as well, according to the lighting. Because our subject is dancing and moving all the time it was again a really big challenge for us to think about the continuity. Even though we worked a lot on the shotlist Hazal and I noticed some little details that didn’t came to our minds before but I think we have dealt with that too and we learned a lot of lessons from our little mistakes and will work not to do them again in our following shoots.

Today on 28th February Friday we met with our advisor Ufuk hoca and also Aycan abla. We show bits and pieces from our shoot which Ecem editted and they gave critic to our footage and we talked about the importance of the sound design. They said we should have been made more precise decisions about our sound design so that we can give better directions to our actress. I will start working on the sounds with the footage we have. I don’t have any sound editing software on my computer right now but I made a little research today and also considered the ones I have used before and I made my decision on Adobe Audition to edit the sounds. I will setup it in the weekend and watch some tutorials about the software and some scenes from films by giving all my attention to the sound design. We have much more work to do ahead of us. 

[flowthemovie]

What a Bold Start

On the last Sunday, we have shot three sequences of our film. It feels so surreal that we have started our recordings. The night before the recording session, I tried to stay calm and reminded myself to take a breath when an unexpected situation happens. It really worked.

What was nerveracking for me was whether the extras would show up for the showtime scene because we were not sure about how many people would come for support. The total number amazed me when I was signing their contracts one by one. It was 35! (Hell yeah!) Even if we aimed 50 people at most, it is still a great number. 

Not only they showed up as “audience” but also helped us when we had problems with Nesli’s costume. Her skirt got longer due to a reason I don’t know but thanks to Habibe Teyze, she has done a quick helping with cutting the skirt. It was amazing to see how people supported us in our hard times. 

Our time management was better than I expected. When I arranged the sessions of recordings, the deadline was 10 pm. Even though we had some free time for taking a fresh air, food, (and dancing as extra haha), we were done when it was 9:30 pm. We are so thankful that Yılmaz Abi’s collaboration with us in patience. 

As a choreographer watching our lead actress doing a great job with the dance made me feel so proud of Nesli and also myself. I only had two days to choreograph and teach Nesli. Her consciousness is amazing! I’m so glad to work with her. She also had a nice chemistry with the crew, telling that we are working such an organized way :)

All in all, we have collected bold memories on the first day. I am super excited to see the rest of our journey. Even though we have many many unexpected situations which our crew members would probably explain it in their posts happened to us (hint: red shadow <3 and a broken clock), we still need to bring it on! 

A Special Thanks List

- Sevdenur. She is a great production assistant. She made everything a lot easier for us.

-Habibe Teye (Habiş). She is a superheroine with her quick tailoring skills.

- Yılmaz Abi. He is not only a legend of lights and decor but also an amazing person who inspired us with his practical thinking skills.

Lastly, just a quick note to myself (a tap on the shoulder):

That anger management was not bad at all. Keep working on it!

[flowthemovie]

“The show must go on!”

Last Sunday, on the 23rd of February to be precise, we have shot three scenes which consist of the 40% of the film. Those scenes include the last rehearsal where the inciting incident takes place, the backstage scene where the protagonist gets ready to defeat the conflict, and the showtime sequence where she literally and figuratively stages a dramatic comeback. 

I’d like to talk about them in detail and share my ideas about the overall experience.  First things first, the backstage scene where our protagonist mentally and physically got ready was shot. It was the moment of “The show must go on!” Our actress Nesli managed to portray Nil and her feelings. When I watched the footage, I could feel the butterflies in her stomach. While our production manager Berfin was putting Nesli’s make-up on, me and Şafak managed to capture Yılmaz Abi and other crew members’ natural moments as they were setting the scene up. I’m sure those clips and/or their sound will come in handy.  Around 12 o’clock, the extras aka “the audiences” came for the showtime scene. Surprisingly, around 35 people showed up. I'm happy with the number considering that we do not pay them anything and it is hard to enter our campus. It was very sweet of them to spend money and energy to help us on a Sunday when they could chill at home instead. 

Moreover, the cinematography and choreography of the showtime scene is really nice. It will be an amazing climax moment for our film.  At last but not least, we shot the rehearsal scene. It is basically a dry take for the upcoming show called “Kafes”. The choreographer, a couple of fellow dancers, and a few crew members are present in the scene. Honestly, I got really nervous while directing the scene. Following the shot list and telling people what to at the same time was not an easy job due to the stress you feel at that moment. Actually, I’m relatively good with stress management yet directing a film is a foreign thing for me. From now on, I’ll have somebody to arrange the technical stuff according to the shot list I make while I solely use my focus and energy to the acting, mood and feelings. Nevertheless, I am super satisfied with the part where the explosion takes place. Nesli’s acting was natural and genuine. Can’t wait to see that scene with a soundtrack! Also, Sevde and Amina helped us out. It was so kind of them... Overall, it was a productive and satisfactory day despite some problems. Here are some notes for myself for the upcoming days: - get an assistant director to keep track of the shot list - get a second camera person to record back-up footage in case of an emergengy (e.g: shot list errors, out of focus videos, etc.) - give a break, get out, and get some fresh air sometimes :)) - try to find the actors earlier - try to visit the locations more than one time - communicate more openly with the crew EDIT: On the 28th, we had a casual meeting with Ufuk Hoca and Aycan Abla. We showed them the non-edited footage to get some feedback. All in all, they are concerned about the lighting. We need to work more on that and improve some dark scenes. Also, they were not a big fan of handheld scenes. Finding another alternative for that will be challenging for me since I cannot imagine our film without that. Also, we decided to create a sound library right now instead of waiting for the post-production phase. As Aycan Abla said, Flow is a film of sound. Sound in our film is a narrative element, as Ufuk Hoca stressed on. Feedback sessions like that make me more enthusiastic. Cannot wait to see the final product!

[flowthemovie]

Showtime!

Even though our showtime music arrived late, we finished our choreography. I am so relieved that no matter what happens, we can still find alternative ways to keep our track. I hope this sunday is going to be a beautiful start for our film. Glam Nil, let's get it! ✨

[flowthemovie]

First Milestone already? We are on track despite everything.

Today on our first milestone I can see our progress clearly, we have gone through so much and we still have much more to do. As the last semester was very busy and fast paced I feel like it is going much faster now but thanks to Ecem we are on schedule and we are perfectly capable of keeping our pace and we are always reminding us to take care of ourselves personally also take care of each other. I feel full confident to my team that if one has a difficulty, we will support each other.

One of my first milestone is to make all the equipment ready for the shoot. We will use Hazal and Berfin’s camera for footage. We will use zoom to record the sounds also will record the sounds of people who set the stage besides our shoot because it might sound more natural and might need those sounds on the post-production. I will get the zoom, a flag, a small led light from Özcan Akar. The extra light and flag are to light Nil’s face additionally when we shoot in a dark setting. We also need a gimball as we have tracking shots. I asked Mina for her gimball but she is still not sure if the gimball will be available on Sunday, so we made a backup plan. We talked Şükrü in our department and we might use his gimball in case we can’t get Mina’s.

One of the most crucial milestone is the shot list as we will make all our plans according to it until Sunday our shoot day. We have shoot everything in that list in our testing day and Berfin requested us to make it more detailed on that day. Yesterday we talked about our test shoot, the footage we have, how we can arrange the lights and how the choreography change according to the song we get from our musicians. So we have decided which lights we will use and talked about what feeling we need to create. Hazal and I worked on the shot list and decided on the details also after speaking to our teacher Fulten Larlar, we learned a very useful way to show the shot plan in a very simplistic way which is floor plan. Even though Berfin doesn’t have enough time to finish the storyboards because of the tight schedule, the floor plan will be very useful for us. Me and Hazal made a floor plan today and combined it with our shot list so now we know how many setups we have and it will be easier to see and follow how many shots is left in the shoot day. Tomorrow I will go to Ecem and Nil’s rehearsal of the dance and work on the shot list further because still we have some missing parts of the dance parts due to unfinished choreography.

So far so good, we work in coordination and I can’t wait for the following milestones. 

[flowthemovie]

outside forces

As time passes and we move closer to this weekend, when the stage-related scenes will be shot, my work increases tenfold. Wait, no, I have the same workload but time is shorter. Yeah, that’s better.

Let’s play a game of good news/bad news.

Good news: thanks to our trial shoot in the MSSF main stage, I have a solid idea of how the lighting will work, what kind of lights I want to use, and when to use them, which I’m pretty excited about. Also, to save money, Yılmaz Abi (the man, the myth, the legend, the savior of MSSF) told me they had a clock they could hang on the wall, so that was amazing! I love not spending money!

Bad news: When we went to MSSF to have our trial shoot, we found out that the stage would be occupied for a play on our shoot day, and the next to set a decor for the theatre students for at least 3 hours, which cuts our time a lot, and we thought the stage would be off-limits due to the redecoration.

Good news: We got clearance for the next day with only 3 hours of missing time for our case. Because of the huge decor, we figured out it would be easier if we bought and hung a giant curtain right in front of the huge decor so it wouldn’t affect our lighting plan. Money, it was nice knowing you.

Bad news: Apparently our seamstress had some health problems to the point that she had to go to the hospital, so she couldn’t really finish Nil/Nesli’s showtime outfit.

Good news(ish): She says she would be done till Thursday. We’ll see. If anything happens, I’ll have multiple pins and hot glue ready.

Unrelated bad(ish) news: When we had our trial shoot, my biggest concern was how the original shot list that Şafak gave to me to do the storyboards wasn’t as detailed as they should be, and I had no authority to draw it the way I imagined it, because it’s not my job. So I asked both Hazal and Şafak to work on a more detailed one so I can draw the storyboards without much revision (I hate re-drawing things 🤡) and it’s amazing how fast they revised the original shot list. However, with our shoot to happen this Sunday, I don’t think I’ll be able to finish the storyboards for stage-related scenes in time. I’ll still draw as much as I can, but I just don’t think it would be possible for me to finish all of them.

Unrelated good news: Nesli, even though she’s not an actress by profession, turned out to be great at taking direction, so it was really easy to practice acting with her. She understands what I’m trying to give to her, and my method so far was to make everything as personal as possible (like relating the Güvenpark bombing to an earthquake that she survived through) and I believe it’s been doing wonders.

TL;DR (I can understand why, I write a lot), what I have done so far:

Decide on the lighting plan for the stage-related scenes

Cleared Nesli’s acting

What I have to do until our shoot day (this Sunday)

Decide on the choreographer/Bilsen abla and the backup dancers’ outfits

Buy a massive curtain to cover up the decor on the stage

Make sure the showtime costume is finished on time

What I couldn’t do:

The storyboards for the stage-related scenes. But at least we have an extremely detailed shot list.

[flowthemovie]

“Writing is re-writing.”

The time has (almost) come. In less than a week, we will shoot the first and last scene of our film. The fact that we have made test shoot makes the whole process less challenging. Nevertheless, I have one more concern that I cannot stop thinking of. The thing is, we need 50 extras for the role of audiences. Both of these scenes take place in MSSF. My initial idea was to call my friends and friends’ friends from all over Ankara. Then I realized, not everybody can enter our campus. I guess the most efficient and less stressful way to find extras is to write a post on Bilkent Duyuru. It will be more convenient for everybody. People who stay at dorms can (and should) easily help us out. We will see how it all goes. 

Another thing happened this week has to do with the screenplay. The screenplay is always changing. They are not drastic changes but more like small adjustments to make the best out of it. For all this time, I thought it was a negative thing. To be fair, not being satisfied with the product and always re-writing parts of it started to get annoying at some point. However, I learned something amazing on the 11th of Februrary. I was so amazed by it that I had to write the date down. Mr Brewerton, the instructor of my Creative Writing class, told us that writing is re-writing. Yes, just like that. He basically said something along those lines: 

“Your goal is not to be a writer. Your goal is to be a great re-writer. A successful story, novel, screenplay is never written the first time. It requires hard work.”

Thank you. This helped a lot. I surely feel more secure and comfortable right now. 

What else? As I was preparing the shot list of the first scene, I noticed that the way our story unfolds does not fully correspond with my vision for the film. For instance, the first shot consisted of our protagonist doing stretching exercises. The “image” I had in my mind while writing the screenplay was totally different than what the cameras captured in the test shoot. It’s okay, though. By the help of Şafak, the director of photography, we agreed upon a much impactful first shot. I personally believe that the very first and the last shots are the most crucial moments of a film. According to my personal taste, we should see the protagonist of the film in both of these shots. It will be such a pleasure to put these two shots side by side and see the character development. Now, the first scene (as far as I can see on paper) looks like it will work smoothly.

[flowthemovie]

What a Wild Week

Even though we have just started the week, the most important lesson I have learned today is not matter how prepared you think you are, there is always some things that are out of your control. As a person who loves control and planning, the last couple of days have tested me in this aspect.

What I have accomplished so far as a producer and choreographer, I have scheduled our production and post production sessions. I have completed arranging the main cast for the choreographies. I have finalized and finished working with Neslişah (Nil) for "Stuck at home" scene's choreography. Also, to unite the cast to bring an effective communication environment, I have organized a meeting with them. We shared our thoughts about this film. It was really inspiring.

Unfortunately, our “stuck at home” recording sessions have overlapped with my and our lead actress’s musical play. We have tried to create a time management by both doing the play and coming back to the set to continue our shots. We were aware of the stress we will have on those days but we believed that we can manage it somehow. Well, we were wrong. Our lead actress shared her concerns about this situation and kindly asked us to postpone the scene’s days of shots. We tried our best to create an alternative date and we postpone it to end of March. Before we decided on it, we were a bit stressful about whether it might affect our post production session but then we realized that this is a chance for us to get prepared more to the lighting, shots, and acting as well. These aspects will ease our work effort on post production for sure. At the end we all said “let’s use this change as an advantage for us”.

This lesson also applies for the problems about our “showtime” music coming late, the play it has been put by Bilkent University’s Theater Department on the day we agreed to use the stage for “showtime” shot day (even though we had a written contract), and our costume coming late. :). Of course I get pissed when I try to do my job properly but don’t get the same respect from other parties. The aim for me is to calm myself down and focus on the solutions rather than letting anger distract me from what I am doing. It is still a blessing that we can keep ourselves in track.

Update: Our "Showtime" music has arrived and it has reached beyond of our expectations! On Wednesday, I am going to prepare the choreography with our leading actress.

Update 2: We have re-arranged our "Showtime" and "Rehersal" scenes' shoot days. We have postpone it to Sunday.