We had our F1 screening Thursday night at the film school, in the glamor lacking Mix A theater (the space wasn’t designed to be a theater, so the rows are tightly layered, creating one of the most horrible places to sit for prolonged periods of time). The program was well designed and had a summary that might explain the F1s better than I have:
“Every year, 30 new students enter the Film School to hone their craft. In their first semester they are assigned into production groups of five students and then given weekly filmmaking assignments. These weekend projects culminate in one five-day shooting period in which every student is given the challenge of writing, directing, and editing their own film. On display tonight are the collaborative efforts of all 30 students in the BFA Class of 2008.”
The screening itself went off quite well. Most were pleased with the way their films were received, especially those that did comedies. Even mine got a few laughs, but my blunder in production really shone through.
While filming, there was a line of dialogue that I just completely forgot to shoot. As noted above, it was a crew of five which is pretty small, and in this case the responsibility of making sure the entire script is shot would fall into my lap, but I just overlooked it. Poor planning or a mental lapse.
Fortunately the script was short enough where the first setups ((A setup is a shot. It changes when the camera moves or the lens changes.)) were master ((This is a classical way to approach a scene. Traditionally you get all the action in a wide master, and then go on for medium and close-ups)) shots of all the action. As this dialogue was at the end of the script, I managed to catch it in these takes, though the audio wasn’t optimal. I took the audio from it and raised its volume all the way up, and it semi-worked. Hooray, lesson learned, so I thought.
But in the screening, the audio was less than optimal. For some reason, during the mysterious process between exporting our films and assembling them for one master screening reel, audio clips got messed up. Some people’s films had random sounds while others (or maybe just mine) had clips completely omitted, such as that important piece of dialogue. Whoops. Now the lesson is really learned.
