positions that we are and at this stage in the course it's very easy to forget. Sometimes I find it hard to remind myself where I was two years ago.The writing of this blog has came much later than expected but in my defence, as I said earlier, I have been really busy. This means that the entire blog will be from a reflective point with many of my thoughts and feelings no doubt having changed.
When I heard that I was producing and DP-ing I was excited. Excited that I would be getting to flex my muscles in both of my chosen specialisms. The first being camera, the second in production. The reason for production as a second choice came from my general dislike of the lack of respect any sound person gets on seemingly every set and that I can't stand being stuck with a computer and someone nagging me for days and weeks on end. I also wanted to know what a producer went through so that in the future I know exactly what they have to do.
My first issue came when I saw that both films were going back to back. This meant that I would have to manage my time meticulously. As always, this is easier said than done.
I initially started out quite well. Since the producer seems to have most of their work in pre-production, I spent the majority of my time on "Sole Mates", mostly recce'ing and spending time on setting our production assistants tasks as well as taking my time with casting and the chasing up of locations. Since Gavin and Charlotte knew how heavy my workload would be with working on both films, they helped me greatly in the pre-production phase, which benefitted all of us. Gavin naturally gravitates to production so he was often thinking of things I wouldn't be which would inform me in my quest to successfully produce the film. The only problem was that for the first week or two, it didn't feel like
I was producing at all, it felt like I was merely a pair of hands to do Gavin's work. I raised this to Gavin after the shoot and I meant nothing mean-spirited about it but looking back, I realise I couldn't have done it without his support. Charlotte did a great job at chasing up casting but sadly, old people are very hard to find and when agents say "they are no longer with us" it doesn't mean that they are no longer with the agency.While I imagine that everyone will say the same about themselves, I genuinely believe that the three of us worked together better than most, mostly since we all get on very well and each of us find it easy to stay dedicated to whatever is thrown at us. Our communication was awesome and each of our experiences and interests seemed to inform the other. I'd love for us to be forced together again in the future.
As we got close to shooting, delegating became a key element of producing. Me and Graeme were trying to meet once a week and even then, it was far from enough and Sole Mates was taking over. Sometimes I felt really bad having to leave Gavin to do things he wouldn't be if I was only producing but it felt necessary to make sure that Breathing Room didn't fall apart because of me.
What I did learn more than anything when producing Sole Mates, was that you can't rely on people who aren't used to the environment. I don't want to publicly slate them but the art department didn't quite meet the expectations we had of them or get close to the early promise that was shown. Any time I spoke to them, Broken Bubbles would come up in conversation, which made me feel that they were all much more focussed on that film rather than both Sole Mates and Breathing Room. Broken Bubbles is much more art department heavy but I feel that
Sole Mates especially suffered from their lack of total dedication. Matt did a great job as our art department head but soon, the cracks showed when no props were turning up on-set.Once we secured a shop, for the reasonable £100 fee, we could then focus more on casting and matching Eaglesham as our village to the shop on Duke Street. Anyone who knows both of those locations will know how different they are in every way but I believe that our DP and director did their darndest to make them match. The cast issue was a great concern in the final week of pre-production since Gavin had to accomodate an actor into the script when there wasn't a part there for him originally, mere days before we turned over and Gavin also didn't get his first, second, third or fourth choice of actresses for his lead. If it weren't for the fact that Gavin has worked with Helen Macfarlane several times over the past year or so, the miniscule rehearsal time would have been close to pointless.
I was quite strict with the budget, some tight-fisted-ness was employed and in the end, has worked in our favour...
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