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Final Year Project - INTRODUCTION

For the final year film project I worked on 5 GRAD films – and worked in the Camera Department on all 5 films. I was a HOD on Pickled Fish, as Director of Photography.

I was 1stAC on both Cernunnos and Bless You, Camera Operator on Bowl and 2nd AC on BNN. The majority of this blog focusses on my HOD role on Pickled Fish, with some detail on Cernunnos, and shorter summaries on the other films. I also worked on a third year film Six Degrees of Separation, which offered some very useful insights for the summary of my learning, so I’ve also included that.

I feel that I’ve learned so much, both technically and in making creative decisions which I hope this blog captures in some detail.  This year has been a great learning curve regarding teamwork on all the films I worked on, which again I have tried to capture and analyse to identify some of the ingredients that help build this.

My extensive experience across the camera departments, and all of the training I’ve received, and especially my on-set experience, has helped my understanding of the mechanics of how things are put together- the interfaces of the cameras, lighting and how to light, workflow on set, and from pre-production planning to postproduction decision making -all of this has been invaluable experience in learning how to tell a story.

Re-reading this blog I am reminded of the things that we all collectively achieved together, on each project  - that sense of how we clicked. And that sense of developing a shorthand, with different teams, across projects, which became so important in terms of being able to make creative decisions and being able to act and react quickly. I now feel that I’ve gathered a breadth of knowledge and skills that will allow me to incubate my own projects.

In my heart of hearts, I’m a screenwriter, and my dream is eventually to be a writer-director - my role models and inspiration include Paul Thomas Anderson, the Cohen Brothers and Ari Aster, to name a few. But it's been quite remarkable to have learned through intensive work in the camera department, so much about the way that you look at things through the camera, and therefore to be able to write for things that can be filmed.

All of it has allowed for a more practical and technical foundation to support who I am, and will, I hope, empower me to be a more confident, creative, conceptual, and imaginative person. All of the work on the GRAD films, particularly in the camera department, and indeed the lighting department, is such a solid grounding for going forward. For me, film is about the look of things and the sound of things and the attention to detail. It’s also about the type of work that I want to make, essentially poetic films. That's high up on my list of what I value and is what I want to do.

The blog is structured in broadly chronological order, with headings and sub-headings.

As a guide the main headings are listed below:

PICKLED FISH – DOP

PRE-PRODUCTION

THE SHOOT

A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF PICKLED FISH AND MY ROLE AS DOP

MY ROLES ON 4 OTHER GRAD FILMS: CERNUNNOS – 1st  AC; BLESS YOU – 1st AC;

BOWL – Camera Operator: BNN – 2nd AC

HELPING OUT ON A THIRD YEAR FILM - SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION – 2nd AC: 

ON SCREENWRITING

CONCLUSION

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Final Year Project - Pickled Fish (DOP)

Marketing, Social Media and the Crowdfunder

The last days of December 2024 and the early days of January 2025 were very much about marketing and fundraising for  Pickled Fish -  via social media and a Crowdfunder.  In December 2024, before we parted ways for the Christmas holiday, we all got together as a crew to shoot photos for our Instagram bios - staging the photos using the aesthetic of old sailors photos. The photos and bios in themselves were a great way to kickstart the marketing for Pickled Fish. We’d done a little bit on social media before this, but we discussed a sort of a road map ahead, in terms of what was to come after the holidays.

In January we then got together to film the video for the Crowdfunder campaign. I filmed this in the main, using an FX6 camera, which in itself was a good thing to do, just to get more experience in handheld filming. And I think the Crowdfunder video turned out really well. It took quite a bit of practise because each HOD had lines for the video and whilst we did attempt to learn our lines by heart, we eventually resorted to title cards / flashcards to help us all remember what it was we wanted to say!  So we then filmed the Crowdfunder and Krisztian edited it.

In parallel with the marketing and the Crowdfunding campaign we were also starting to plan the shoot. From my point of view, in my HOD role as Director of Photography, this included thinking about the shot list, thinking about storyboards, thinking about mood boards, all of which I was working on, in very close collaboration with Lucca and Ariel.

Simultaneously, we were getting our bios together, getting the Crowdfunder ready for a launch date, and from then it was about everyone on the crew promoting it to our families and friends. In fact we promoted the Crowdfunder to our family and friends before it went live, just to avoid beginning the live campaign at £0 - I remember Lucca saying that £0 is a deathly number! We wanted to secure some funding, get some money in the bag before it went live, so I reached out to my network, who all ended up being generous contributors, as were everybody’s family & friends.

The Crowdfunder was a massive success -  it raised around £1.5k on the first day. We received so much support from family and friends, and it does show you the advantage of having a wide social network, especially for going into the film industry and making films, because realistically films cost money! Our initial target was £4.5k and we reached that in around four days. We then stretched the target to £6k, and we made that and a little extra. The morale of the team after that was really sky high! Everyone was so ecstatic and so excited - not only did we feel proud of ourselves, but we also felt that we now owed it to ourselves and our donors to make an excellent film, an excellent piece of work.

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LINK to the Crowdfunder

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https://www.instagram.com/pickledfishfilm?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

LINK to the Pickled Fish Instagram

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PICKLED FISH - PRE PRODUCTION

Recruiting a Producer

At this point, we had just secured a Producer, Egle Cibulskyte, who’d just graduated from the MA screenwriting course at Napier and who ended up being an incredible asset to the film in terms of preparation and organisation. Egle sourced most of the locations that we ended up using for the film, and she also very much united the crew. Lucca and Ariel had been doing a great job up until that point but it still felt like we needed a Producer. And once we actually had a fully-fledged Producer, I think at that point, as a team, we felt very secure and that things were really starting to pick up.

What was also very important was that Egle had so many connections, which in turn eventually led to our crew expanding - we went from effectively six HODs, to having an additional crew of around 25 people, most of whom were sourced by Egle, so that was amazing.

Location recce to the old cottage in North Berwick

Egle had secured a location, an old cottage, in North Berwick. As a crew we went on a recce to the cottage to meet the owner of the cottage, Kitty, who was so lovely and helpful in showing us round. The cottage was right on the North Berwick coast. And it was pretty much the most perfect location for the environment in which the brothers, the main characters in Pickled Fish, might live.

I was taking aesthetic photos and little textures that I found interesting in the cottage, and looking at details, as well as starting to then think about how we would actually light the cottage as this was going to be where all the interior scenes would be shot.

I was thinking about both the daytime sequences, and also the early evening to night-time sequences and there was a lot of back and forth with Lucca and Ariel about how we would like that to look. We discussed for example, at this stage, the idea of augmenting natural light by pushing lights through the windows, which we did eventually do for the film shoot.

I was also thinking about orange tones -  a blend of like an orange and teal as a colour palette. There was a fire in the cottage, which Kitty was absolutely fine with us lighting for the shoot, and which proved to be an effective practical lamp, which we then used in the film as the fire. But we also augmented that slightly with artificial lighting, for example using  small aperture EMC lights, small LEDs and, and also the Amaran. At one point we used it to elevate/ augment the firelight.

I was also thinking about the compositions and the framing that we could achieve. I took photos of the crew, Lucca, Ariel, Cat & Jack as stand-ins for the main characters of the two brothers. I was just starting to think early doors, as to how we were going to frame the brothers in this space. I think a stills camera and photography is incredibly useful in that situation, it’s a useful skill to have as a DOP. It was very important to have those photos when we left the space/cottage to return to Edinburgh. Those photos help to draft your ideas, make drafts of shots, to help you think about where you'd place the camera but also where, logistically, you can actually place the camera and what looks good in the shot for both composition and lighting. 

So I found that looking through the lens of a stills camera was a real help. I could then start to visualise how we would set up the shots, and as I’ve said the logistical issues of what we could and couldn't do – I realised very quickly that there was no way that we could fit a dolly in there, as the space was way too small / claustrophobic. This eventually led to us getting a Tango slider, which essentially acts as a dolly, is much more compact/narrow and perfect for tight spaces.

We were also all thinking logistically about both the safety of the crew and how we would fit the equipment in. In addition, Kitty, who owned the cottage, was making us very aware of how delicate the cottage was- she was just making sure that we would brief our whole team beforehand, so that everyone on the crew would be aware of how delicate the cottage was and would take care when working in and around it.

It is logistically quite difficult when you're carefully having to move a lot of heavy equipment into a small space – and you're having to build the camera in quite a tight, claustrophobic environment. So we were effectively mapping where would the green room be? Where would video village be? Where would we keep the equipment that was idle or on standby in case we needed it? Where. Luckily there was a room parallel to the room we were shooting in – a sort of basement area which had windows that were on a  level with the sand, which was perfect because it then it allowed us to set lights up right outside and push light right through

We ended up visiting the cottage five times prior to the actual Pickled Fish shoot, both to be able to make creative and logistical decisions about the shoot, but it was also important in helping to establishing a relationship, a connection with Kitty who definitely did trust that we would be careful when filming in and around her cottage / her home.

You can’t plan for everything

I want to say at this point that, even with all the visits that we did, and with everything that we prepared for, I also learned the lesson that despite the best preparation in the world and even with the full team's brains on it that there are things that can still be missed. A case in point was that the floor was very uneven, which was something we didn't really consider. I have to confess that I'd never used a Tango slider before, I only received my training for it in the lead up to the shoot, which consisted of a half day in learning how to build it. So then I wasn't fully aware of how unstable it would be because it's effectively on a tripod with two drop poles on either side, and it's a really sensitive bit of equipment.

The fluid head with the ALEXA Mini LF on it is so heavy that if the floor is not perfectly even and flat then as you're pulling back or pushing forward, the entire rail will move and shift -  which is obviously not ideal because you want to smooth the shot. But we problem solved on the day, I got my two AC’s  to  hold on to the rail as tightly as possible and I cued them when to push and pull. In the end we had two slider shots. One shot ended up being cut, but one stayed in – so it was 50/50 and I was happy with that. Plus it’s a good shot, it looks fluid.

In terms of a learning curve for the future I think attention to detail is everything – in future for myself, I might pay more attention to the floor! But I don’t think we would have ruled out the cottage as a location because of the floor.

On each of the visits as HOD’s we were all carrying out our respective work/research. I was doing shot listing and general mood board aesthetics and thinking very much about lighting and colour and all things that the Director of Photography is supposed to be thinking about as well as researching different films. Jack was researching sound, and Kat was working on research for gathering props

Additional location recces

We started doing recce to other locations that we eventually used in the film. This included Canty Bay, which looks out to Bass Rock, which was an absolutely gorgeous location. We met with Brian, who is the owner of a Scout Hut, which we. We reached out to him, established a relationship with him and eventually that led to us being able to use the Scout Hut as a base on the day of the Canty Bay shoot. So, that again, is just to emphasise the importance of establishing relationships and not being afraid to ask people, because what I’ve learned on the Pickled Fish shoot is just how willing people are to help you out - people are genuinely interested in what you're doing and often it’s inspiring for them, to see a group of young people who are and doing all of this themselves and embarking on a creative endeavour to make their own actual film.

Myself, Lucca and Ariel also did a few of what I’d call skeleton recces where it was just the three of us visiting a series of different locations to explore where we might shoot different exterior scenes.  For example a big difficulty for us was finding the correct dirt road for the tandem bike sequence at the end of the film. We really struggled with finding the right location – there was something wrong with each of the locations we visited,  too busy with  cars or too many people around, or a permit was required.

Creative alignment as opposed to creative differences – the Walter Mitty example

What was important in making those recces, and it being the three of us, was that all of the time I was working very collaboratively with Lucca and Ariel on the visual of the film. We had time to discuss for example, ideas around the contrast between the exterior and interior, with the thought that we always wanted the interior to be warmer / cosier and the and exterior to be harsh / colder  - weathered and eroded. 

In addition we discussed the contrast between day and night, where I was very much an advocate for this use of oil lamp lighting to create  a more dramatic chiaroscuro effect, which Lucca and Ariel initially liked the idea of. But as we talked it through I think they felt that it maybe b would maybe too dramatic for the film, which looking back on, I really do agree with. I think the aesthetic we were trying to achieve with this film was really pure, like naturalism, a realistic aesthetic – and not being over dramatic with the lighting.

And when we were discussing the evening scenes, there was a bit of confusion in my mind because I thought that was actually going to be at night. But it’s written as evening light pooling through the window, but then it's written as day. So I pitched the idea of trying create moonlight, and we discussed in great depth how we might do it. But eventually we all felt it would be difficult to realistically create moonlight and make it look real.

I was worried that there wouldn't be enough difference between the scenes and that would confuse the audience. In the end we met halfway because I found useful references from Walter Mitty, one scene which uses a pale blue light for the general space but the faces are lit with orange light. there were a few specific scenes from Walter Mitty that I thought would maybe represent what Lucca and Ariel were thinking. And when I showed these to them it was exactly what they were looking for. I really felt we started to align our visions then at that point. And I was starting to understand exactly what it was that Lucca and Ariel wanted, whilst they were starting to understand what I was getting at. I really think of this as a good example of creative alignment as opposed to creative differences. I do think that it can be so hard to communicate what we’ve all got in your heads.

Shot Lists and Lighting Plans

You can never plan too much! The shot lists in particular were so useful. I think this was  something that we carried over from the test shoot where we tried to get as close to on camera using the Cadrage App, which basically allows you to mimic the cameras and lenses that you will be using, trying to get as close as possible to the shots we're thinking about. So effectively I'm shooting Lucca and Ariel standing-in as the actors. And we ended up doing this for every single location that we went to. We mapped out every single scene in the previs when we went on location recces. And that was just invaluable for me particularly, and incredibly useful when we were actually shooting because it meant that I knew roughly where I'm going to put the camera on the tripod. It liberated me to the point where I could then make changes, and think, I know we have this as a starting point, but how about we do it like this instead. I felt it allowed me to be creative, make creative decisions.

Lighting Plans

The lighting plans that I made were definitely very useful. Once I’d completed them and shown them to Ariel and Lucca, we pretty much agreed on everything related to the lighting.  For example, for all of the exterior scenes we used very little lighting – it was mostly like a little bit of light shaping using the black flag. I booked a polarizer filter as part of the kit and literally just tested it on the day, slotting it into the camera. When we set up our first exterior scene, I thought I’d slot it into the matte box to look at the camera, and it looked incredible. So, that combined with a little bit of light shaping and just the backdrop of the environment, and obviously the compositional framing that was based on our shot list, that was literally everything we needed.

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Link To Pre-Prodcution Materials - Shot lists, Lighting Plans, Moodboards, etc...

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PICKLED FISH - THE SHOOT

The Camera

I have to say at this point that the ALEXA Mini LF as a camera, it's just extraordinary, it just makes anything look good. In a way, that's where a lot of my doubting myself has come from because I'm thinking, is it me getting the shots or is it the camera? And I think it's a bit of both.

Interior scenes compared to exterior scenes

The interior scenes were very different from the exterior scenes because we were using three or four lights at a time for most of the shots. I definitely did a lot more thinking about lighting for the interior scenes than I did for the exterior -  which makes sense, because interior scenes are, just more lighting dependent whereas exterior scenes you're more dependent on just the natural like daylight.

A good example of lighting the interior was how we pushed the light through the windows. I think in the final film that effect looks great. And that goes back to the recce when we were thinking about how to push light through window and match our levels but also keep the windows – and thinking through how would we achieve this lighting setup whilst not having the windows blown out? That was actually difficult as there are quite a few shots where we were looking straight on at the window. And when it's blown out, unless that’s a definite aesthetic choice, then you lose all the detail which isn't what you want. I had a meeting with Andrew and we talked that through. I eventually went with his suggestion to use sheets to defract the light, which worked up to a point, although I think it’s still ended up looking a bit blown out. I think that I possibly could have done more research into that aspect of how to properly match the levels of your lights to the light outside, and to the light inside, so that the windows don't look blown out.

I had quite a few meetings with Guy, our gaffer, who was great. He was a brilliant gaffer, who had both lighting and camera experience, and he alerted me to a couple of things that I hadn’t thought of.  For example we had a meeting a week before the shoot, and Guy asked if there was a circuit breaker in the house, because it's a very old cottage. I hadn't thought of that, in fact none of us had thought about this! And if it’s a really old circuit breaker and we are running the lights through mains, (we didn’t use batteries as the lights would have eaten through them), then we needed to now how many watts it could take. So we had to take photos of the circuit breakers and add up the watts. And it was absolutely fine. But it was something that we hadn’t thought of. And it is the gaffer's job, as in the film industry gaffers have to be like qualified electricians. But it was important and it felt like Guy was at my side.

There was one shot that we shot at T22 – a narrow, tight aperture which makes everything look darker because you're letting less light in through the camera. And all the shots prior to that we'd shot at T2 which is a very wide aperture, so between T2 and T22 we somehow managed to match the shots through the lighting levels. And that's a big no go but we made it work. It was that issue of the windows being blown out again because that was a shot where we were shooting right on the window and it was too blown out. So we had to shoot at the highest T stop to make it look good. And I think that shot got cut a bit in the end. But it was interesting.

It's just important to know that a great gaffer is important as are great sparks Guy was Ariel's friend from London. Egle recruited the rest of the, G and E team, the Grip and Electric team. Our sparks were called the Spark Brothers, and they were just excellent as well -  anytime I needed anything, they were absolutely on it. Can we dim it? Can we dim the intensity? Can we turn up the colour temperature? You name it they were on it. They had a wealth of experience, they'd set the lights up 100’s of times before and knew how to do everything.

The Camera Crew

I was DOP.  Joseph, who was my 1st AC, pulling focus was absolutely brilliant! He really understands the art of focus pulling. I'd explain what I’d want in focus and the focus of the scene and what’s important to keep in focus. But then there were moments where he would be focus pulling and he would do something, I hadn’t told him to do, and it would work. For example, near the start of the film, there was a shot on the boat with the two brothers and I'm shooting camera on shoulder, through the window of the cabin. So Fergus, one of the brothers, is close to us and Melvin the other brother, is further back in the depth of the image - and they're talking and looking at one another. I think that all I’d said was to keep Fergus in focus because he was the closest. Joseph was racking focus between the characters and it was so smoothly done and so natural. It was just really impressive actually. He was such a great help in the handling of equipment, setting up the camera and monitors, as was as my 2nd AC, AJ who again, Egle had brought in. AJ was great with slating and helping set up the camera and doing the camera reports and battery changes.

There were a few times where the battery died, thankfully never mid-shot, but as we were about to go for a take – which is on me because I'm operating the camera and I’m supposed to be checking the batteries, but once in a while it’s those little things that you forget about. I have to say that was on the first day and it never happened again. So, yes it, it was a great camera team.

I should also say that we did a tech rehearsal at Craiglockhart which was really useful in terms of all of us getting adjusted to, and used to, the equipment that we were going to be using.

Production Design

A big shout out to Catherine Paterson! Cat's production design was stunning. Half the reason the film looks so good is because of the brilliant set dressing, the production design and all the props. And Cat was basically a department of one. She had an assistant, assistant on the shoot days but all of the materials she'd herself. A large part of our budget from the Crowdfunder went towards production design which allowed Kat to gather what she needed – everything from rows of jars to brilliant maps to family photos and she made a journal full of notes and had even done drawings of the mythical fish, (which we ended up cutting). Her work was so important for the interior scenes – in making the space feel lived in and making it really feel that, for these two brothers, as if their lives extended to this cottage and it was so important for the story because that's their father's legacy. Cat definitely made my job so much easier because it meant that again, that anywhere I pointed the camera it just looked great because of the set dressing. So huge credit to Cat.

Sound Design

And Jack Maclean’s sound design -  you can really hear it in the final product of the film on set. When we were recording on set, he actually had two booms, and had two boom assistants. He was dual booming and I’ve never seen that. For me, booming is an absolute art form to catch the sound of the vocals of your actors.

The Video Village

The room next door to where we were shooting the interior scenes was our Video Village.  That was where Lucca and Ariel had their Director's monitor set up. That was also where we stored all of the equipment that we were using, or that was on standby to be used. Joseph, 1st AC, would be next to me, or sometimes he would go into the room as I had a camera monitor rigged onto the camera. Joseph had his own monitor. But the SDI cables can be a bit dodgy, so on occasion, when they were being faulty we'd have to ditch Joseph’s monitor and he would have to use the monitor that was rigged to my camera, which means, that even though it has a wireless follow focus, he still has to see the picture – so he would be by my shoulder.

I’d agreed in advance with Krisztian (Kajtar), that at lunch and at the end of the day, I would hand him the Cfast cards, (as opposed to SD cards – we used Cfast as that was what was required for the ALEXA camera).  We’d wanted to originally shoot in 4K, but we were advised against that – se we were shooting in Apple ProRes 444, which is a high quality but very large format, a large codec, that takes up a lot of footage. So we were shooting in 2K. We had 44 minutes pe card. The rotation that Krisztian  and I had agreed on worked perfectly. I gave him the used Cfast card at lunch. He would hand me the second Cfast card, I would put it in, format it, and I would give him that second card at the end of the day, and he’d transfer all the footage. I didn't get sent any of the dailies, any of the rushes. Krisztian would show them to Lucca and Ariel, and they’d ok them. So that was like a confidence booster.

The Actors

The actors were absolutely brilliant to work with. They were great. They both had really heavy faces. They were great in their roles. Unlike the previous two actors that we were using for the test shoot they both had Scottish accents and they just delivered. The delivering of every line just felt like it had so much weight to it. And you see that in the film. It's partly because of the pacing of the end it. But partly just their performance. It makes you hang on every word they are speaking. And they were lovely guys, Ian, and Gordon. I was trying to avoid talking to them too much because it's not really my job. You don't really want to be distracting them from their role. It’s actually kind of discouraged for the Camera Department to engage with the actors too much. I can call things out to them like framing or something just to like cut. But I must have had made an effect on them because they sent a really lovely email through after saying about how brilliant we all were as a crew, especially ...and a few people got mentioned and I was really pleased that I was one of those people. At the very end of the shoot I said to them, “it was a pleasure to shoot you”. Ian’s reply was, “It was a pleasure being shot by you”.

Shooting on the boat

Kyle (Craig) was 1st AD and he was brilliant in that role. There was a funny moment when we were shooting on the boat at the harbour. We were a skeleton crew down on the boat, with the rest of the crew up on the pier. At one point Kyle calls down to me, “Fionntán, you've got two minutes for the shot” To which I said, “I think we're going to need more like 15 minutes”. And from up on the pier, Kyle just gave me a look, a pretty scary look because the 1st AD's job is to make sure that everyone and everything sticks to schedule, you can't be lax or relaxed!

Getting to shoot on the boat was quite extraordinary, and dates back to the previs, when it so happened we bumped into Eddie Dougal, who Lucca and Ariel charmed to such an extent that a week later he let them onto his boat and took them out lobster catching. Yet again they developed a really strong relationship Eddie, and we so we were able to shoot on his boat – Fiddler’s Green. The last location recce that we did was on the boat. In Lucca, Ariel and I had to squeeze that recce in the day after the Cernunnos finished in Peebles, and before I was on the shoot for Bless You. And again that recce was incredibly useful, just to be on the boat and to be aware in advance of what the difficulties of shooting on the boat were going to be. For one thing there was very limited space -  it's not a big boat and so it was a case of minimal amount of equipment and people. And there was no real opportunity to like do anything lighting wise. In the end we had a black flag, but we didn’t use it. So it was definitely challenging – there was a lot of bobbing in the water, which looks great on camera, but it's quite scary when you're holding a £50k camera on your shoulders and the boat is swaying back and forth. Also, the boat was parked up against the harbour wall - and there were tyres in between the boat and the wall to prevent damage to the boat, and intermittently that was making a loud squeaking noise, which was just like not useful at all in terms of sound at all but Jack got enough sound to work with. It was an experience!

The Canty Bay Shoot

That was such a day of two halves. It was the third day of shooting and for the first half of the day we were absolutely on it, things running like clockwork - getting through all the shots, everything tight, running really smoothly. Then we broke for lunch and after lunch we were shooting the tandem bike from a moving car. Up until that point, I think Gordon and Ian, our actors, were impressed with how professional we were as a team. But then the second half of that day, it was basically guerrilla style camera work. Lucca's dad was driving and trying to match the pace of the car to the tandem bike, but he would be speeding up and slowing down and the tandem would be speeding up and slowing down, and the car was shaking and the camera was shaking, even though it was strapped in on the tripod, and I was strapped into a harness. I was centred on framing the two actors on the tandem on this narrow road where the car didn't have any room to move to the side. And so we really struggled to get any depth in the shot of the tandem bike and we also couldn't really see Gordon. It would have been better if it had been a wider road and we could have filmed off to the side, rather than just shooting the characters on the tandem straight on. So there are a lot of reasons why that shot didn't actually end up working in the way we'd imagined it, but it was still great to do it. And I feel that it’s good to know in myself, that I have an appetite for that type of shooting, because there will always be shoots that you can never prepare for enough.

We had to return to Canty Bay to get a particular shot - the cliff-side shot, where one of the brothers is looking over the edge of the cliff. There was something so thrilling about getting that shot. There were so many moving parts, including a convoy of vehicles. It was always meant to be a static shot, so we carried the tripod up the hill, we brought the camera up the hill, and as we were setting up, I realised that we were missing the fluid head because we've taken it off and it was in someone's car at the bottom of the hill, with no time to get it. So I basically had the camera, without any fluid head, balanced on the tripod so there was a bit of shake in it -  but the shot still looked good in the end.

I’d say that towards the end of the shooting, a few small mistakes crept in because people are tired, we were working long days, flat out. And it is worth saying that the shoot was a couple of days less than planned because we had to give the camera back as it was required for a training day for the MA students – it meant that we had to return all of the equipment by the 19th February  - allowing us only a four day shoot. If it had been possible it might have been good to have one extra day just to split up the Canty Bay shoot, to get the two shots we needed because that day did feel a bit chaotic.

It's a very quiet film and an absolute credit to Ariel and Lucca and the way they'd written it. The film is so tight and there is very little fluff in it. And that is because Lucca and Ariel  both have a background in camera as well. So the entire time they were thinking about it very visually and thinking about how the shots would fit into the space of 10 minutes, I think like in the end we only had 42 different slates, compared to Cernunnos, which I think had around 70 slates.

The Weather

We were very lucky with the weather. It's kind of funny but there was one day where we planned to get a sunrise shot for the cliffside shot that I mentioned above. Our original plan was that we'd all get up at 4am to get to the location to film the sunrise - but we had no idea if it was going to be a good sunrise. And on that basis Lucca, Ariel and Egle decided to push back the call sheet for the day from the original 4am – 6am, and they did a bit of rearranging of the schedule so that we'd film the cliffside later on. I remember getting into Lucca and Ariel's car that morning, at 6am and we hit the road for North Berwick – and as we were driving the sun started coming up, and it was genuinely the most beautiful sunrise and at the time it felt a shame to have missed filming it. But actually for the film, the cliffside shot that we did get, it’s a much bluer palette and more gritty, and in fact we all agree that it works better with the tone of the story because it's a moment of serious contemplation for the character, it’s the moment where he decides to go with his brother and leave his home behind. If the alternative had been the most beautiful sunrise ever, I don't think it would have worked because that was a melancholic moment and I think the blue palette was the right tone. And whilst it’s not like we had to choose between shots because we’d missed filming the beautiful sunrise, it would have been interesting to have had to make that choice – to reject a really beautiful shot for the shot that works better in the story. I think that would be quite hard for somebody like me who's motivated by aesthetics.

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CRITICAL EVALUATION OF PICKLED FISH AND MY ROLE AS DOP

An Appraisal of the overall film

The overall film is really solid. I think that it works. It hits the emotional beats. With the music at the end, I found it's genuinely very moving, but in such a quiet way, nothing is overstated or feels forced. The pacing is definitely slow and there's a lot of it that is the two brothers sitting at a table talking. But I think it works really well just because of the actors performances, and as a family drama at the end of the day. And like any good drama, it is really reliant on the actor’s performance. There is nothing overly flashy but every element is well delivered, and I think that because everyone on the team delivered.

I would say the only flaw I find with the storytelling is the point at which the tandem bike is established- for me it needs to be established earlier. There was a shot of our two characters moving the tandem bike down the hill, and that was originally supposed to happen earlier on in the story but apparently the team couldn’t find anywhere that felt right for it. So, it goes in right at the end, before the last tandem bike shot. I think it comes in too suddenly. I think it would have been nice to have established that a lot earlier on, so that it would have been a sort of foreshadow of the last shot. It’s a related thought that I don't know if it's made clear enough why it actually is that they're leaving again. But then again, I understand that nothing is forced on the viewer- it's all implied, and room is left for the audience to interpret.

The Camera Work- (My Own Work) my critical appraisal

From the point of view of the camera work, I think it actually is a really good-looking film. I think the lighting is lovely. All the practical lamps work as well. I think all of the characters are framed very well. There are one or two shots that feel slightly artificial. For example, there is a shot where the brothers are sitting by the fire having a drink and Fergus goes up to get the whiskey, and as he is walking away from the camera there's a light that's hitting a wooden cabinet and it just looks slightly like it's coming from a light source rather than just the natural daylight. But to be fair that's a pretty minor observation.

I think the cinematography for Pickled Fish is my best work on the course - the least like a ‘student-looking’ work. I'm very happy and very proud of how it looks. There was a very positive response to the camera work- everyone was praising the cinematography. Apparently the first thing people would always say when they were overseeing the edit was just how beautiful the film looks. So, that's pretty fantastic. I'm pretty chuffed with that obviously. But I’d emphasise that's not just on me- there are so many factors involved in that - like Cat’s production design, the guys gaffing, all of the collaboration. The colour grading! This guy did a great job grading. I also understand from Lucca that I'd given them a bit of difficulty with that cliffside shot, because I accidentally had it on a quarter ND filter. We'd originally spotted that on the day of the shoot when we are looking at the cliffside - that it looked really dark. And I realised the ND was on, so I brought it down, but I must not have brought it down enough. It must have been on a half ND and then I brought it down by  a quarter- which was apparently a bit of a  in the grade - so well done to our Colour Grader for sorting that! But other than that, very pleased with it.

The Edit

Krisztian is a great editor. He's got a very good understanding of how shots can string together natural pacing and he's very technically professional. I didn't really get to see much of the editing process- I went in once or twice to the Screen Academy, but I wasn't really involved in post-production. We actually outsourced / hired, our colour grader using the Crowdfunder budget. There are definitely some shots missing in there that I was sad to see go. The shot of the empty fishbowl at the end that was always meant to be the last shot. There was a really lovely shot of the actor Ian, who plays Melvin, where he enters the cottage near the end of the scene. It's meant to be a sunrise and the way the light is hitting his face ….was just gorgeous, and a decision was made to cut that, I think, for pacing reasons. But overall, I'm really happy with the cut. I think the whole team is really proud of it and proud of everyone's individual achievement.

How I worked as a member of the team

I think I was a very solid HOD. When you’re the head of a department, you obviously have a lot of responsibility and that can be very stressful at times. I have had to work on my work ethic and understand how important it is to be a good and regular communicator. But Ihad challenges to deal with and I’ve come through those. I think there were moments during the early stages of the shoot where my communication could have definitely been better with my team, with my ACs. Like the example I gave earlier of checking batteries, and things like that, while I'm operating the camera.

It’s quite a lot to deal with being head of the department, operating the camera and also dealing with the lights. I am in charge of photography, the actual light drawing - and that said, I obviously had a lot of help, as I mentioned earlier, the gaffer, the sparks, they were all great. And my ACs were also great. I think really that I did a great job, and it only got better towards the end of the shoot – we got faster at everything, faster at building the camera and just faster setting up. And I was always on top of what shot we were doing and where we were putting the camera, which are two pretty important things, and which I'd established with Lucca and Ariel because we’d had such great exchanges on the location visits and in various pre-production discussions. On the day, I wasn't talking to them at all because they didn't have time for that- they were focused on the actors and the performance. So, it was all on me to direct the camera and camera team. And I think ultimately, that went really well, and the film looks good.

In terms of the conviviality of the team, and the spirit of the team, I feel that I helped with that – I think I make a lot of people laugh, and it was really very harmonious on the set. There was a really great energy between the crew, and an incredible sense of teamwork -  25 people working together to achieve what's been achieved.

A few stylistic differences- things I would have done differently

In pre-production I was a real champion of the landscape as a third character- Lucca and Ariel didn't quite see eye to eye with me on this. I was very keen to echo the forces of entropy on the men and the rocks and all the materials and equipment - because I think that's interesting from the eye of the camera, but also as a writer. I'd maybe like to see the film with some more textures of the environment slotted in there. The gathering of cut-always actually saved the edit a few times, where inserts that I thought had been cut, had to be put in to help the edit work - that's what Krisztian said.

Lucca and Ariel’s approach was more subtle. The landscape is there in the film, but it's not highlighted - it’s very much in the background, you do see all this detail, but we never really pay too much attention to it, or give too much focus to it, which I think is a bit of a loss. I also felt it would have been nice to highlight more of Cat's production design, like pick up on little details. But they were wary of camera motivation, what motivates a shot, and wary of not forcing anything for the audience. These differences are a great learning point, but it is ultimately really clear to me the strength and coherency that Lucca and Ariel’s vision has delivered.  I think their gift is that they make these very pared down, quite ‘ordinary’ films, that manage to be extraordinary because they're almost so quiet. I really respect that.

If I were to cut the film – maybe I’d cut it to make it experimental or magic realist or something. Slightly more absurd. Maybe slightly more poetic, and quirky. So, there's more variety in the shots, as well more interesting little things that you're highlighting.  90% of this film is shot, reverse shot of the two characters, but they would argue that, you know, that at the core that's really the main importance of the story. I mean I really love both styles. My ideal kind of narrative, if I'm thinking of my all-time favourite filmmaker (Paul Thomas Anderson,) is also very minimalist, very subtle, both with camera work and, and storytelling. But his characters are so unusual and so strange that it adds this whole other element.  So, while on the surface you might look at them and think,  these characterisations are naturalist, they become something else entirely-through the character. And then there are the very subtle things that Paul Thomas Anderson  does throughout that make it more like, magical realist... like the scene in The Master, the shot between Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams where she's demanding that “Turn my eyes black” and we see it, ever so slightly (probably done in the grade). They just brought the blacks of her eyes up and they go from blue to black and it's very subtle but so strange. And the whole film is shot with natural lighting but It's much more.  Pickled Fish is very minimalist, and it pared away the magical thing. So, it may not be as weird as I would gravitate to, but it really works on its own terms.

I really do love those boys, Lucca and Ariel -  they are very talented, and they will be going far. We don't quite align when it comes to writing.  When it comes to telling stories they have a complete shared alignment and a shared vision of how they want to go about telling a story and what kind of stories they want to tell. I haven’t found that on the course. It's quite hard to identify anybody on the course necessarily that I feel would be an exact fit as a co-writer/co-director. Perhaps I can search for them in myself - maybe I don't want to go into any kind of co-directing relationship.

A final overview of Pickled Fish

I’m very aware that if my AWSH script had been green lit I would never have had the depth of experience behind the camera- but I would have made my own film. I have asked myself - how do I feel this year has been, the exchange- all the films that I’ve worked on, all the skill gathered, the confidence and all the relationships. Is that a fair trade versus the making a film of your own script?  And the answer is definitely, yes!  Of course, it would have been great to have walked away from Uni with a full short film under my belt, that I'd written and directed with a film crew at this level. But when I look at how much work Lucca and Ariel put in as both writers and directors, I do feel kind of lucky in a way to have achieved what I have. I think, actually, I've gotten the best of all worlds. This film has turned out very well and, and I'm happy. And I have so much more experience of so many different parts of filmmaking that will help ground my writing going forward. And I’d like to think that I’ve made great working relationships and friends for life.

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MY ROLES ON 4 OTHER GRAD FILMS

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Final Year Project - Cernunnos (1st AC)

The first film where I was on the set was Cernunnos, which was before the Pickled Fish shoot. My role was 1st AC, working under the leadership of Owen (Neil), who was the Director of Photography. Alongside being a general assistant to Owen, providing anything that he needed help with, my responsibilities included helping to build the camera, load the camera, get the batteries, also helping to set up lights when needed.

The 1st AC’s main job on set is focus pulling, I was using the Tilta-M wireless follow focus, which is just an amazing piece of equipment. I was by the DOP’s side, with my own monitor set up and we're rigged to the camera through B and C cables, and I'm pulling focus. I was also by Owen's side to be there if he needed advice, if he needed someone to help him to think through certain shots. Obviously, in the main he was talking through shots with Kyle (Craig) the Director.  

Key moments / challenges on Cernunnos

The first day

On the first day, bar the test shoot, we hadn’t probably been on set in a full shoot environment in a while, so we were all a wee bit rusty. So the first day was our biggest day in terms of just getting to grips with installing the equipment, and just finding the workflow of being on set, where everyone was getting up to speed as quickly as possible and trying to sync up with one another. The Tilta-nucleus wasn’t actually working on the first day and we didn't have the time to fix it on set, so I was actually just pulling the barrel, whilst Lucca was operating the camera. We also had issues with the monitors. I think that was probably the most challenging day on set for the camera crew. We were working out how we work together. Then by the second day, it was literally like night and day.

The second day

The second day was one of the biggest shoots, actually, because it involved the fight scene. But by that point, it felt like we’d like we’d scraped off the rust, and we were all in the flow.  And as well as the other members of the Cernunnos crew, it was also brilliant to be working with Lucca and Ariel, in advance of the Pickled Fish shoot. As I said, Lucca was camera Operator and Ariel was 1st AD.

So Lucca and I were working very closely because I was literally right by his side, I was hooked up for the camera - with the nucleus and the monitor. It was a brilliant opportunity to be able to do that because we developed a very close bond and also a way of communicating with each other because it's the first day seeing the cam-ops job. I'd tell him if I’d spotted something was off with framing, and he'd tell me if he’d spotted something off with focus. There's that total streamline of communication between camera operator and 1st AC. It was fantatsic to get to do that prior to the Pickled Fish shoot, obviously. Then Ariel was 1st Assistant Director. God love him because that was definitely quite a hefty shoot to have to keep to schedule. There was such a lot going on, a lot of moving parts. I was looking in awe at Ariel - his ability to communicate was so impressive.

The last day

There was one moment on the last day of the shoot where there were three different teams splitting off in different areas. We were the ground team at the bottom of a hillside side because we were working to get a hillside shot – in the film it’s an incredible shot. But basically, we're down at the ground level. We're shooting on a long lens, but it's a hillside shot of the two characters when they're on the hill. Then there was the hill team, who went up onto the hill with the actors, but then that team splits into two teams, so that there's people at the top of the hill and there’s people at the bottom of the hill, to get the actors their blankets. Ariel was at the bottom of the hill with us, the camera crew, but was on a walkie talkie, communicating between all three teams and having to organise. It was just very impressive - he was just so quick at articulating what needed to be done and in a way that made sense to everyone. Communication was really key.

Teamwork and getting the balance right on set

On the second night of the shoot, at the very end of the night, Ariel texted me just to say that he was really impressed with how I was working on set. That meant a lot to me. I think it reflected a mix of everything -  me working under pressure and knowing when to step in, when not to step in, and just the speed at which, as a camera crew, that we got things done. Honestly, everyone was saying to me was how fast last I was at lens changes. I was designated lens loader and apparently I took half as much time as everyone else. For me, there's always that fear when putting in the lens, just because of my history with dropping the lens on the Pickled Fish test shoot, as well knowing that you're dealing with such a costly and important part of the camera. But everyone said it was impressive watching me getting the lens change done so quickly. But it really is just a case of practice - the more you do it, the more you just get a feeling for what is right and you just know exactly the angle at which the lens goes in, you feel when it's properly secured, and then you can lock it. It seems like it should be a simple thing, but it can be awkward for people to get the hang of it.

But that example of Ariel’s text, reflects on him having that knowledge and wisdom of being able to create that good feeling. I felt really good after I received that communication.  And in fact across all the projects I worked on, but particularly Pickled Fish and Cernunnos, mainly because they were the longest shoots I worked on, there was an incredible level of camaraderie across all the teams. It’s about morale. I believe that when you're making a film you need to have the feeling that you're part of a greater whole. You can't think too selfishly. You have to be a bit selfless. But the reward for that, if you're lucky enough, is you're working with a great team of people that just keep your morale and your energy high. I think everyone just works so much better when they're enjoying what they're doing and you're enjoying what you're doing and finding that balance between having a great laugh, but also knowing when to absolutely lock in and work flat out. I would say both Cernunnos and Pickled Fish struck that balance perfectly.

It just worked. Everyone just meshed together. And for Cernunnos we all stayed over for the entire shoot. It felt a bit like one big sleepover with really good friends. It genuinely hammered home a sense of feeling part of a greater whole, part of a family, almost. I think that's what film sets should strive for - that's what I’ve mentioned before with Paul Thomas Anderson's films or Christopher Nolan’s films.

Building Camaraderie

I want to credit a number of decisions that the Directors/Producers on Pickled Fish and Cernunnos made, that I believe, particularly with hindsight, really helped to build the vital team spirit and elan that are so important on set. This is sometimes put down to chemistry or luck, but I now realise there is as much work in this as any other part of production. Both film sets were very happy sets- with crews of around 25 per film that is some achievement. Both films had an amazing level of organisation that helped everyone work together with purpose and a keen sense when we encountered problems that we could overcome them -  reviewing the work and building camaraderie. I feel I’ve learned a huge amount about how to build that process and the standards you'd need in terms of organisation.

I’ve spoken about the lift that the Crowdfunder gave the whole Pickled Fish team- and I want to address catering on set in both Pickled Fish and Cernunnos. If I get hungry, I run out of energy quickly so for me that’s been vital across what became a month of early starts and long days. On Pickled Fish Lucca's mum and dad came up for and did all of the catering. They made all of the food for everyone, for breakfast and lunch. Production sorted out snacks. It's the Producer's job to basically be the mum/dad on set and Egle had a huge bag of snacks! So, you can just keep getting little boosts of energy from eating sweets and savouries.

On Cernunnos Kyle’s (Craig) mum cooked dinner for us every single night and then we all just made sandwiches for the shoot days. As the Producer, Ben, would go out and grab all sorts of ingredients for sandwiches and load the fridge up and then at night we'd all make our sandwiches. I made some really banging salami and hot sauce sandwiches one day and they were so good. Buffalo hot sauce!

In the evenings on location for Cernunnos,  it was relaxed for the people that it could be relaxed for, which included the camera crew. As the camera crew, our job finishes once we check through the equipment every night back at base -  charge all the batteries etc. We significantly leave our jobs on set.  Whereas for Production, the Director and the 1st AD, like Ariel, he was in with Kyle and Ben sorting out the schedule for the next day. On both shoots, the camera footage was handed over each day to allow for the downloading. We didn’t edit on Pickled Fish but on Cernunnos Robbie was on the dailies. He was editing a bit, probably the bare minimum, on the day - putting Cernunnos in black and white. Robbie would see the actual rushes and process them daily. So, it was faithful to what the camera person had shot -  then we could look back over the footage right there and then.  Looking over the footage for Cernunnos was easier because I wasn't in charge of how the film looked. I was in charge of the focus pull, so I wanted to see that the focus pulls looked good. Whereas if you're in charge of the overall look, it’s funny but the HOD often doesn’t look at the footage. I noticed Owen (Neil) who was DOP on Cernunnos was the same.

Short evaluation of Cernunnos

I feel like overall as a story, I think Cernunnos could definitely do with being a bit longer, but we were limited in the time constraint, because we couldn’t go over the 10-minute mark. But I'm wondering if Kyle will release a longer cut after the course is finished. I'm not sure if they feel it sits perfectly at 10 minutes because it’s such an epic - as a film, it was such an ambitious project and it was great to be a part of that and the fact that we  pulled it off. I’m really looking forward to going to the first public screening of the film in Peebles on Sunday 4th May. It’s great that they've arranged their own screening in the locality, which is really exciting.

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Final Year Project - BLESS YOU (1st AC)

I worked on Bless You in between the shoots for Cernunnos and Pickled Fish, which was quite a lot to do. We wrapped Cernunnos in us on the 9th February, and then I was on Bless You from the 10th till the 13th February, and then the Pickled Fish shoot began on the 13th February – with the kit pick-up and tech rehearsal at Craiglockhart. I definitely put myself under pressure but it was great. My role on Bless You was also as 1st AC. It was great and I should say that I wasn't working for the full shoot. They started filming halfway through the Cernunnos production. So I was working on Bless you, nearing the end of the shoot with the crew that had already worked closely together. I felt slightly like an outsider, through nobody’s fault at all, only in terms of coming in at the end. But I was completely committed to my role and all the responsibilities, changing the lens, and setting up the dolly. There was a dolly shot on Bless You that we were super speedy with - we set that dolly up really quickly. I think for the most part I did a good job onBless You, when I was.watching the film there are a few moments where it is a wee bit soft. On that set, I was at that point of burnout, having been working flat out on other films and I was a bit ill and wasn't really functioning as well as I could,and I now realise focus pulling is a bit of an art form. Like drumming or like any other live performance, you've got to be sharp, there is a sense of touch and intuitionand actuallythere’a a lot of pressure on focus pulling because you can single-handedly screw up the whole shot.But ultimately those shots have stayed in the edit. So the editors didn't think it was critical.And, with the scenes involving a drunk character, you kind of get away with it, because like the character's drunkenness, it kind of adds to the effect of like haziness.

Overall, my sense of Bless You suffers a bit in comparison to Pickled Fish and Cernunnos only because, as I’ve said, I was so much more immersed in those films.

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Final Year Project - BOWL (Camera Operator)

Bowl was about the impact of the AIDS crisis in the 80s but set in the now. It follows an older gay man who has lost a lot of his friends over the years to the AIDS crisis and yes- it's also about bowling. It’s set on a bowling green amongst that community, and the elderly. My role on Bowl was camera operator. This gave me the chance for a great comparison to Pickled Fish where I operated the camera and was also DOP. The interesting thing about the camera operating job is that sometimes it doesn't actually exist as a job on its own because the DOP will often just operate themselves. I found myself reflecting on our lecturer David Burn’s words – he actually advised against the DOP operating themselves - his argument was that it's the DOP's job to really be focusing on the light and the consistency, and they should be by the Director's side discussing the visuals and in this case camera operating is again its own job, like its own art form in its own right. For me I can see the point of this but to be honest, I think that's just too separate. The ALEXA camera training and exams had given me the confidence and appetite to operate it - so I was comfortable with that, and I knew some people in the industry, like our lecturer Andrew, does all of his own operating himself, so it’s not unprecedented. I loved it doing my own camera operating on Pickled Fish.

On Bowl Lewis Norton was DOP and Owen (Neil) was 1st AC. So as happened several times across the GRAD films, roles were switched around which was lovely and increased the sense of teamwork and working for each other but there is no denying the experience of Bowl was less intense in terms of my energy, and it was good that these were simpler shoots that had come at the end. And although Bowl for me was fairly straightforward compared to the other shoots, it’s  funny…but maybe there's something to be said for those ambitious projects, where you're forced to really think through all the logistics of how it's going to get done. So strangely Pickled Fish and Cernunnos were ultimately relatively stress free -  perhaps because they were so well planned.

Whereas for what seemed like a simpler shoot, it is sometimes was bit stressful. Bowl was slightly less organised. And it was shot in one place for most of the time, we’d be restricted to one place per day- whereas on Cernunnos, we were at five different locations in a day.

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Final Year Project - BNN (2nd AC)

And then on BNN where I was 2nd AC, doing the clapping, camera reports and helping build the kit, the film was the least formally ‘organised’ of all the shoots and yet the whole film is set in one room. I was quite ill at that point, so that may have affected my judgement, but everything felt a lot looser. I totally understand this, I could imagine myself being the same…you relax because the set-up is relatively simple, and you don’t feel that the planning is so critical- maybe in truth there is more opportunity, in this situation to be less planned and to be more spontaneous… It'll be interesting to see how BNN turns out. It's a satire /parody of the right wing populist media set in a newsroom. BNN is British News Network and it's satirising Fox News or GB News. Ivan's writing was sharp, so It'll be good to see and another education in different styles and approaches.

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HELPING OUT ON A THIRD YEAR FILM - SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION – 2nd AC

The sixth film that I worked on was a stretch. I was asked by third year Tom, who had been amazing and worked on half the GRAD films. He had been 2nd AC for Cernunnos  and had helped as 2nd AC one day on Pickled Fish. So when he asked me if I could then 2nd AC for this film, I mulled it over in my head because at that point I was tired after a month’s shooting, but I felt like I owed it to Tom, because he was just so great. I felt our fourth year owed him, and I was the representative from fourth year who worked on his film. And working on this was a great decision - I felt rewarded and it instilled a certain amount of confidence within me that I really do know what I'm doing.

I was worried, like, in the run up to it because it had been a few weeks since I'd last been on set (on BNN ), and I find you always get the fear that you'll be rusty. But on that third-year film, I was ship shape sharp again and really felt useful to them – and almost like an assistant to Tom. People were coming to me asking me all sorts of questions that I felt confident in answering. It really did feel like I was the older student coming to help out a bit with the camera, with lighting, with light shaping and all sorts. I was 2nd AC for the first two days, and then on the last day I was 1st AC, so I did about both and some of the lighting as well.

It felt great to be a general help to the project, which is really nice to feel you can do that. That I've gotten to the point, at the end of my fourth year, where I can do that. As an overview of the course - of those five films, that one was the reward, where all the learning that I’ve been through, distilled into this experience of feeling prepared, confident, and useful on set. It shows me how much I’ve grown.

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Final Year Project -

It’s interesting that I haven't really been thinking like a writer these past few months. It is strange, but when you take up a certain role, you kind of have to think in that role and it's a bit of a different language. Obviously, it's not like they're mutually exclusive -cinematography and writing, but they are quite different roles. And I just haven't really been thinking like a writer as I've been thinking like a cinematographer and that's been lovely because I've been really able to sink my teeth into the technical and the practical side of things. My only fear would be that I would lose the writing side of me, which is something I never want to do. But I am always coming up with like my own mad wee ideas for things, so I don't think I'll ever lose that- it’s just that I just haven’t been writing at all-but I definitely want to.

I think I'll probably start back into writing with setting out to write a longer version of Mr. Balloonhead Man at some point. I’ve arranged a meet with Saskia and Duncan, the Producer, and Director on Mr. Balloonhead Man just to make sure that we're all on the same page, to discuss with them my plan for Mr. Balloonhead Man going forward. I believe the story rights are mine, so I’m within my rights to take this forward.  I brought the story to them. It was my idea. I was the originator and the writer of the script. We did make the film and we made it a certain way, in a short film format and that's okay. And the result was great. But as the originator of the story, my ambition is that I'm going take it and make it into something bigger and something different from what it turned out to be. Potentially with Saskia on board. So I'm mainly meeting with Saskia and Duncan to let them know that, and potentially get that agreement or memorandum of understanding in a written format just so that it's official. That feels like a grown-up conversation. Maybe it will happen over a cup of coffee in Cannes!