Over the past year, I have learned a fair bit - some skills have been improved upon, and some skills are fresh and new to me, never done before.
First and foremost, a skill that I've had ever growing since the first year of university is learning to work both collaboratively as a team, but also the skill to work alone. Filmmaking can allow you to wind up in either situation. For myself, this year was heavily about learning to work alone on the course. Whilst I did receive help from friends outside my course, it was an adjustment going from having at least two others on the course to rely on, to nobody but myself. It's been quite stressful, as I've delved into new jobs that I've never really fully been involved in before. For example, one of the biggest roles I took upon myself was producing. I feel producing is often overlooked in filmmaking, and so I had never really fully thrown myself into it. There was always someone else on the course who wanted to do producing, and so I allowed that, ultimately avoiding the role fully until now. However, I've actually really enjoyed producing. The satisfaction of increasing my skills in organisation - researching venues, setting up and sticking to budgets; these are not only skills that will benefit me in filmmaking, but ultimately they will benefit me in life, too. In the future, I would most definitely consider taking on a producer role again - it may be stressful, but the rewards of helping bring a project to a great finish, thanks to your organisational skills, calm front and willingness to lead is all worth it once you see a final product.
Working mainly alone has helped me engage in tasks and skills that I will welcome in general day to day life. Working alone does lead you to become entirely self motivated. There's nobody there to tell you when shoot days should be, or what exactly I should be planning or doing. This was quite an adjustment, but this reason alone makes me quite glad that I decided to work alone, as this is something I'd need to become adapted to sooner or later. As well as being self motivated, I needed to become resilient and self assured. When problems arose, which they always would and always will, I needed to know that I could rely on myself to form a solution.
One of the big issues that I needed to overcome was how I had arranged one of my shoots with my cast and crew, and had agreed on it with the venue. Everything was organised, and I had arranged shots in a particular way (I had planned to have an image on a television in shot, the image being a shot from what I had filmed the day before) to work with my film, on these days. The venue got back in touch, and explained they could no longer do this date, only the day before. I then needed to decide what to do - stick with the idea I had been married to and thus choose an entirely new venue, or adjust my narrative slightly so that I could stick with the venue. I decided to do the latter, and instead opted for a blue screen, the message "NO SIGNAL" bouncing on screen instead. In hindsight, I do actually prefer this idea - I think it disconnects the two shots even more, which is exactly what I was going for. From here, I've learned that resilience, self assurance and having the confidence in your own decisions is so important. This skill is so vital for filmmaking, especially in instances like these. This is also relevant to time management - the need to be self assured and self motivated is essential here - having actors, crew and a venue to stick within time frames before is so important. There's nothing as unprofessional as disorganisation, and in order to stick to the correct time frames, I had to ensure I had fully organised my shoot days. I've also had to organise editing in advance - booking edit suites over a month in advance to ensure that I would definitely be able to edit, undisturbed, without a hitch. These are all skills I might've had to a small extent, however have now massively increased and I'm almost thankful for the problems that have arisen over the year, as it's left me much more organised than before.
Working with people who are not on the course has also been a welcome change and challenge. I have become adapted to working with those who are on the same page as me - those who have seen the same industry from the same angle, and know the same techniques and equipment as me. However, working with others who don't study my course has been very interesting.
For example, I have been working alongside a composer, who studies Musical Composition at The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. This individual is also composing the music for my documentary, as well as having the role as Sound Recordist on set. Having him on set was great - it took away one of the worries I'd had - instead of worrying about recording the sound whilst on set, potentially doubling my shooting time, I was able to let him do the sound recordings whilst I did the cinematography and directing.
This was also the first time that I'd had a Runner on set. This fully allowed me to embrace a more Directorial role - he was there exclusively to help me out, in preparing sets and ensuring the Actor was ready for when we needed her.
For most of third year, I have been working with MOVE Collective - the third year company that plans to hold a Film Festival and later, Awards Show, in early June 2019. My roles within the company mainly come under Social Media, however I have been slightly involved in fundraising ideas and messaging industry professionals.
My main roles with MOVE have been; creating and hosting and posting on the MOVE Twitter account, hosting and creating the Instagram Takeovers, posting on Instagram, posting on Facebook, and creating MOVE Facebook Events. I have thoroughly enjoyed this job, and would actually be very interested in possibly doing this as a future career. I think many of my strengths lie in creative outlets like these - I enjoy formulating paragraphs for posts, as well as photographing and editing images to post. I also enjoy the idea of editing short pieces to be uploaded onto these. I feel I can make a good online presence, and would really love to continue to pursue this in the future.
MOVE has really helped me in learning to speak up. Though I have ways to go, as later mentioned in this post, I have definitely recognised that I have learnt to speak up in meetings, both with my group (mainly consisting of myself and Victoria Dahl) and as a full collective. At the beginning of our meetings near the start of third year, I couldn't have even dreamt of speaking up and giving my opinions. However, during the year, my confidence in both myself and the project has sky rocketed, and now I feel comfortable enough to speak up and give my opinions. I would definitely love to be able to speak up more, and be more confident in the future, however for now I am very happy with how it is looking, and I owe many of my thanks to MOVE - it has been, in my opinion, one of the most exciting projects I've engaged in in university.
I feel all these skills I have learnt over the year, and actually the past three years will help me out for my lifetime, and especially in future careers. Organisation is key, and the ability to remain calm in stressful situations marries perfectly into this. All employers seek out candidates who are organised, and self motivated; somebody that doesn't require constant hand-holding through every job and process. Through my time at MMU, I have realised that I definitely want to spend my working life within the creative career paths. Ideally, I would love to work in media - editing for perhaps short films, television or even social media pages, or YouTube channels would be a dream for me. Most of these roles are most often freelance, and the self motivation and organisational skills are essential here - so I'd definitely like to develop these more.
I know that when considering skills that I am perhaps weaker in, I need to think about how to improve these, as without them I may struggle in the world of freelance. I know that I perhaps lack confidence in both myself and my work. I tend to sell myself short, and I don't speak up in meetings. There are times where, in MOVE Collective Meetings for example, where it comes across that I do much less than I actually do - when as it turns out, I am often the one to post to Instagram, to advertise students' projects through stills and fundraisers. I know I need to work on my confidence, as it may come across as that I do less, or care less than I really do. I know that self confidence is absolutely vital in careers, especially in freelance, so this is something I'll work hard to improve on throughout my life.
First and foremost, a skill that I've had ever growing since the first year of university is learning to work both collaboratively as a team, but also the skill to work alone. Filmmaking can allow you to wind up in either situation. For myself, this year was heavily about learning to work alone on the course. Whilst I did receive help from friends outside my course, it was an adjustment going from having at least two others on the course to rely on, to nobody but myself. It's been quite stressful, as I've delved into new jobs that I've never really fully been involved in before. For example, one of the biggest roles I took upon myself was producing. I feel producing is often overlooked in filmmaking, and so I had never really fully thrown myself into it. There was always someone else on the course who wanted to do producing, and so I allowed that, ultimately avoiding the role fully until now. However, I've actually really enjoyed producing. The satisfaction of increasing my skills in organisation - researching venues, setting up and sticking to budgets; these are not only skills that will benefit me in filmmaking, but ultimately they will benefit me in life, too. In the future, I would most definitely consider taking on a producer role again - it may be stressful, but the rewards of helping bring a project to a great finish, thanks to your organisational skills, calm front and willingness to lead is all worth it once you see a final product.
Working mainly alone has helped me engage in tasks and skills that I will welcome in general day to day life. Working alone does lead you to become entirely self motivated. There's nobody there to tell you when shoot days should be, or what exactly I should be planning or doing. This was quite an adjustment, but this reason alone makes me quite glad that I decided to work alone, as this is something I'd need to become adapted to sooner or later. As well as being self motivated, I needed to become resilient and self assured. When problems arose, which they always would and always will, I needed to know that I could rely on myself to form a solution.
One of the big issues that I needed to overcome was how I had arranged one of my shoots with my cast and crew, and had agreed on it with the venue. Everything was organised, and I had arranged shots in a particular way (I had planned to have an image on a television in shot, the image being a shot from what I had filmed the day before) to work with my film, on these days. The venue got back in touch, and explained they could no longer do this date, only the day before. I then needed to decide what to do - stick with the idea I had been married to and thus choose an entirely new venue, or adjust my narrative slightly so that I could stick with the venue. I decided to do the latter, and instead opted for a blue screen, the message "NO SIGNAL" bouncing on screen instead. In hindsight, I do actually prefer this idea - I think it disconnects the two shots even more, which is exactly what I was going for. From here, I've learned that resilience, self assurance and having the confidence in your own decisions is so important. This skill is so vital for filmmaking, especially in instances like these. This is also relevant to time management - the need to be self assured and self motivated is essential here - having actors, crew and a venue to stick within time frames before is so important. There's nothing as unprofessional as disorganisation, and in order to stick to the correct time frames, I had to ensure I had fully organised my shoot days. I've also had to organise editing in advance - booking edit suites over a month in advance to ensure that I would definitely be able to edit, undisturbed, without a hitch. These are all skills I might've had to a small extent, however have now massively increased and I'm almost thankful for the problems that have arisen over the year, as it's left me much more organised than before.
Working with people who are not on the course has also been a welcome change and challenge. I have become adapted to working with those who are on the same page as me - those who have seen the same industry from the same angle, and know the same techniques and equipment as me. However, working with others who don't study my course has been very interesting.
For example, I have been working alongside a composer, who studies Musical Composition at The Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. This individual is also composing the music for my documentary, as well as having the role as Sound Recordist on set. Having him on set was great - it took away one of the worries I'd had - instead of worrying about recording the sound whilst on set, potentially doubling my shooting time, I was able to let him do the sound recordings whilst I did the cinematography and directing.
This was also the first time that I'd had a Runner on set. This fully allowed me to embrace a more Directorial role - he was there exclusively to help me out, in preparing sets and ensuring the Actor was ready for when we needed her.
For most of third year, I have been working with MOVE Collective - the third year company that plans to hold a Film Festival and later, Awards Show, in early June 2019. My roles within the company mainly come under Social Media, however I have been slightly involved in fundraising ideas and messaging industry professionals.
My main roles with MOVE have been; creating and hosting and posting on the MOVE Twitter account, hosting and creating the Instagram Takeovers, posting on Instagram, posting on Facebook, and creating MOVE Facebook Events. I have thoroughly enjoyed this job, and would actually be very interested in possibly doing this as a future career. I think many of my strengths lie in creative outlets like these - I enjoy formulating paragraphs for posts, as well as photographing and editing images to post. I also enjoy the idea of editing short pieces to be uploaded onto these. I feel I can make a good online presence, and would really love to continue to pursue this in the future.
MOVE has really helped me in learning to speak up. Though I have ways to go, as later mentioned in this post, I have definitely recognised that I have learnt to speak up in meetings, both with my group (mainly consisting of myself and Victoria Dahl) and as a full collective. At the beginning of our meetings near the start of third year, I couldn't have even dreamt of speaking up and giving my opinions. However, during the year, my confidence in both myself and the project has sky rocketed, and now I feel comfortable enough to speak up and give my opinions. I would definitely love to be able to speak up more, and be more confident in the future, however for now I am very happy with how it is looking, and I owe many of my thanks to MOVE - it has been, in my opinion, one of the most exciting projects I've engaged in in university.
I feel all these skills I have learnt over the year, and actually the past three years will help me out for my lifetime, and especially in future careers. Organisation is key, and the ability to remain calm in stressful situations marries perfectly into this. All employers seek out candidates who are organised, and self motivated; somebody that doesn't require constant hand-holding through every job and process. Through my time at MMU, I have realised that I definitely want to spend my working life within the creative career paths. Ideally, I would love to work in media - editing for perhaps short films, television or even social media pages, or YouTube channels would be a dream for me. Most of these roles are most often freelance, and the self motivation and organisational skills are essential here - so I'd definitely like to develop these more.
I know that when considering skills that I am perhaps weaker in, I need to think about how to improve these, as without them I may struggle in the world of freelance. I know that I perhaps lack confidence in both myself and my work. I tend to sell myself short, and I don't speak up in meetings. There are times where, in MOVE Collective Meetings for example, where it comes across that I do much less than I actually do - when as it turns out, I am often the one to post to Instagram, to advertise students' projects through stills and fundraisers. I know I need to work on my confidence, as it may come across as that I do less, or care less than I really do. I know that self confidence is absolutely vital in careers, especially in freelance, so this is something I'll work hard to improve on throughout my life.
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