Written by Katherine Chang, (American University), Student Correspondent for CET Film Production at FAMU, Fall 2023
Between this post and the last, I am glad to report that pre-production and now post-production are completed. It is a bit uncanny to realize that we’ve made a real short film (on 16mm film), but from start to finish. It’s been an overall positive experience. I’ve learned a lot about the process of filmmaking, and I feel like I’ve gained more during this semester than I have in the last two years at my home university. I went into pre-production during my last post, so this time, I’ll focus primarily on the production and editing.
Additionally, this is from the perspective of the AD and editor of the group, so I never actually held the camera or did any of the directing. Most of my work was done on a computer. My role on set was mostly keeping other people on time and slating at the beginning of shots. I helped move around the equipment and grabbed things when the gaffers or DP needed something, but that’s what anyone with a free hand ought to do.
Despite taking a less physically intense role on set, I learned that filming is an exhausting process. The days are long, the equipment is heavy and expensive, and you’re usually on a tight schedule. All of this is doubly so if you’re shooting on film instead of digital. And if by chance, the AD lets things fall behind, she’ll be stuck in the irritating situation of having to pressure a crew to finish up a difficult shot while not necessarily knowing how to make their jobs easier or faster. Whoops. Even this role, which I assumed to be boring and managerial, requires a certain level of attention and skill to do well. People who are actual ADs, on actual shoots, most definitely have years of dealing with people under their belts and actually know how to resolve situations on set to make shooting go faster.
We filmed in three different locations, and the bulk of our shoot was outdoors at night at a faraway bus stop. It took a bit getting used to, as we had to be mindful of a bus that would show up every 10 minutes, and we couldn’t be bothersome to the people who were actually using the bus stop for normal bus things. It was cold, and we had some complicated shots to pull off with limited time to do so. Our location was, thankfully, perfect. There were amenities nearby, it was well-lit, and it was less busy than other roads. The fact that we had longer nights meant we could start earlier in the day and return before it became an ungodly hour.
Our crew was exceptional as well. They were remarkably chipper for being outside in the cold all day, and they all did their jobs excellently. The non-student members of the crew, like our camera advisor, sound recordist, and production manager were life savers in my eyes, especially since I didn’t know how to do a lot of things. I’m eternally grateful for them and their help. As far as shoots went, and especially as far as night shoots outside with a student crew went, it was great. The fun thing about being on set is that it’s real work. You’re recording footage, you’re watching the vision that was only a plan or a script just a few weeks ago be made into picture and sound. Regardless of how hard or stressful the work is, it doesn’t really matter in the face of how rewarding that final product is.
(Left Image) I never got to look into the camera’s eyepiece myself, but we could see what the shot generally looked like from the monitor. Other productions had larger monitors hooked up into the walls, but we couldn’t use those on account of shooting outside. (Right image) Between some of the shooting days, we had to store the equipment in my apartment. You can’t tell from the angle, but the Kino Flos are tucked into bed.
Post-production is where the bulk of my work happened. During pre-production and production, my role was rather inconsequential, but in post-production the ball was officially in my court. It was my job to sync the sound to the footage, put all that footage together, and then refine it to create a movie that didn’t suck. As far as raw material went, what I had to work with was pretty fantastic, though maybe that’s my bias speaking. There were, of course, a few times when I realized that we didn’t necessarily have enough of that material to fix all the problems we wanted to. When a line was delivered weirdly, we didn’t always have another take that we could use or footage to cut out to. We sometimes didn’t have the b-roll to smoothly transition from one shot to another. In these kinds of situations, the group had to spend a lot of time thinking of creative workarounds. It was really interesting to see the cut go from a slapped-together rough draft to a refined final product. Considering my comparative lack of editing experience, I think I did an alright job.
In the future though, I’d like to try sound mixing and color grading as well. We were present for the process, but the work itself was done by the sound recordist and one of our professors respectively. I was particularly amazed at the work our sound guy did. By the end of our 9 hours in the studio, we left with a well-mixed soundtrack, and I left with a newfound will to actually pay attention in my audio technology classes. As for color grading, it really made the film feel complete and polished. It reminded me a lot of how I would mess around with tone curves and gradient maps when I would do digital illustration, so I’d love to learn it properly one day. I’ve learned a lot during this semester, including how little I know compared to the professionals.
(Left image) Very early on in the editing, when things were still being put together. This was as neat as my timeline was ever going to get. (Right image) A picture I took of some of the extras on location. I really loved how the shots in here turned out.
It saddens me to be finally done. It feels simultaneously like it’s been forever and only a few weeks since I got here. In a perfect situation, I’d stay here for the rest of my time as a college student, but I’ll be back at my home university by next year. I’ll be filming on digital and attending classes of reasonable length and while I’ll be grateful for it this time, I’ll miss being here.
For a long time, I was worried that going into film would be a waste of a degree. I initially applied to my home university with plans of being a computer science major. When I later declared my major as film and media arts, I had a lot of doubts. I “settled” for a major that sounded better on a resume than studio art but didn’t feel like a real career. The work I did at my home university felt less like building a repertoire of skills and more like walking down a straight path to getting a degree and a job with that degree, at which point I would start actually learning. It wasn’t so bad, but it felt futile.
In high school, I wanted to be an animator. If you asked me “why?” back then, I’d say, “because drawing is fun.” Animators are underpaid, overworked, and mistreated. The medium is consistently overlooked and disregarded. None of that factored into why I would or wouldn’t want to work in it. I just thought drawing was fun—fun enough to dedicate my career to.
But if you asked me earlier this year why I got into film, I’d say all sorts of things. “I wanted to be in a creative field, but I wanted to do technical work. I used to want to be an animator, but it’s easier to live when art is art and work is work. I’d rather get a job that relies on technical skills rather than creative talent. It’s cooler than majoring in business.” And, to be honest, I just don’t care about films as much as a film student should.
I go to a theater about once a year, less for the movies and more for the theater. I think if you’re interested in movies, you should stick to watching them instead of making them. Being beholden to other people’s creative vision is a pain. Taking responsibility for your own creative vision is even more of a pain. Writing is a chore, filming is tiring, and editing is a job for people who never want to leave their house. Surprisingly, in my long list of reasons for wanting to do this job, there was nothing like “because making movies is fun.”
Except it is fun. I won’t act like being on this program has completely eliminated my career anxiety. When I get back to the USA, I’ll still feel like my first two years of college were wasted on core curriculum and lazing around. I need to get an internship. I need to participate in more extracurriculars. I need to keep working if I want to get to a level that others would consider even average. But this program has made me feel like that’s all a bit more enjoyable. I have a sort of ambition now. I might not want to be number one, but I want to do more things like this—I want to be on a hundred more sets and screw over my eyesight with however many more hours of staring at Adobe Premiere. I want to try every role on set and off of it eventually and complete many more projects.
I look forward to the kind of things I’ll do in the future. If it’s anything like this semester, I probably won’t regret studying film. Thanks for reading all of these blog posts, and especially this post. It’s been fun! Na Shledanou!
