Despair For Dummies

the challenge i previously accepted of completing the entire prelim task within a week was successfully achieved. Although, we were humbled by our lack of preparation but handled it smoothly (none of the actors knew things weren’t going our way).

if you’re a media studies student planning your first project here is what you can learn from our mistakes:

1. unfortunately, our actor who by the way, was our theatre coach was not in city hence, we went out finding other options, we finally found another guy but weren’t sure of his experience in acting and we didn’t want to take risks with such a serious role. You know, the benefit of being really optimistic when it comes to work is… you learn to make it happen. just say “karlain gai (we’ll do it)” and trust me, it’ll happen. I had faith and last moment, we got us an actor who suited the role and had the perfect accent for the dialogues.
2. Now, on the day of the shoot. we had decided to meet at a local cafe and shoot earlier in the day. things aren’t as simple when you’re making art. none of the locations we had wanted were letting us shoot without payment 😦 We took a rickshaw and started going around the entire city looking for any space that’ll let us shoot. This, ladies and gentlemen is exactly why you go for a recce (along with your camera) before shooting. Anyhow, after a while we got a location and the staff was kind enough to let us shoot there.
3. Me and Mirab weren’t aware of the blessings that come along with post shooting…. we had to edit. I completely let the pros handle it but thee perfectionist in me hated the idea of sitting idle and not contributing into the art. I decided to colour grade and edit since Mirab had a few issues with her laptop. We collectively decided for her to do the captions and art direction whilst, I edited. Mind you, i didn’t even know how to copy and paste clips. premium advice: Make sure you have an SD card reader that actually works and doesn’t clip. secondly, watch tutorials on da vinci resolve first.

4. Budgeting should always be a priority. Getting the props, lights and food during filming is always a hassle especially when there is no check and balance.