Evaluation of my role as a Director during preproduction (First term)

At the beginning of the first term when we were allocated our script, my first instinct was to identify exactly where the advantages and challenges for us as directors would be.  In terms of the advantages, the script had a limited number of characters (3) and a relatively simple premise.  Our main challenge would be to make sure the acting and tone during the park bench conversation in scene two would be just right.  It was clear to me from the very beginning that the success of the film truly relied on the successful implementation of this.

Once each of the above factors where clearly identified we designated ourselves the various necessary tasks.  My personal contribution to the director preproduction paperwork was composing the shot list, drawing the floor plans and marking out our script changes.  We conducted the majority on the script treatment and style notes work together in class.

In the end our first term phase of preproduction went very badly and almost all of our documentation was declared inadmissible.  Looking back to find out where we went wrong, I can identify a number of reasons.  Personally, I found that compiling my portion of the paperwork was becoming difficult.  Some methods I had used in first year such as how to create a shot list differed from how we were to supposed do them now in second year and I didn't find it to be an easy adjustment.

I also found drawing a floor plan hard to do correctly as we had not used them previously.  I think my main problem here had to do with the lighting set up.  I had never used lights until the production of the minor film and I don't fully understand where they should be placed when sketching out a floor plan.  

In fact although I am now beginning to understand how a lighting set up works, I would still need to be on set and physically placing them in order to understand whether or not they are where they should be. 

Another factor was that our communication towards the end of the term was poor when it came to the final paperwork.  We worked separately on our designated documents and hadn't seen each other's paperwork until the submission date which turned out to be a mistake.  On top of this, the clip that held all our documents together broke after submission leading them to separate.  But these things happen. 

In conclusion, I think we started out well in our preparations to make our film.  We made a good analysis of the primary advantages and disadvantages of the script and I feel I did a good job of imagining it visually both in terms of structural narrative and through the compilation of my shot list.  

However our efforts fell down considerably at the end of the term through poor communication and not fully understanding exactly what was required in terms of the final preproduction paperwork.

So it became clear to me that in order to move onwards in the right direction throughout the second term, we would need to approach each remaining step of the production process with careful and methodical planning that was to the best of our ability.  In addition I decided that from now we would  hold regular and thorough meetings to ensure we were on the right track in achieving this.