My short film 'Auteur' is finally up on youtube to view!
This experience overall has taught me a variety of different things about myself and film production.
I think that my film has successfully portrayed a variety of themes by Baz Luhrmann in a way that fills the scenes with vibrant colours Designing these characters has been so enjoyable and I feel that I have successfully created each character with the aesthetic of Baz Luhrmann combined with exaggerate design but still kept in a film genre.
As a makeup artist I feel that my confidence is slowly building and I am only becoming more creative within my work. I still feel like I have a long journey ahead of me to help progress my confidence though, but this project has helped me communicate much better with other people and I am much more self-assured with the decisions I make throughout the process. I think my makeup skills have improved by the fact I taught myself how to be less controlling when applying certain aesthetics of makeup. I also recreated Design 6 (Moulin Rouge) with confidence in understanding the difference between the first model and myself and what would better suit my face but still portray this character just the same. I think that I still lack in being organised but I have definitely improved by handling the delayed schedule and still finishing the film before deadline. I understand that to keep myself organised the best solution is to write checklists in preparations for shoots and this will help me look professional on set too.
Within directing I think overall my skills in this developed very rapidly because I was able to adapt to the repeated process of each shoot. I do have a couple issues with how I speak to someone but I think if I continued to pursue in direction this will improve. Reflecting back on my film I think that if I could change anything within my direction it would be to do with the use of props, specifically the cigarette because I was not able to use smoke and could not find an effect when editing. I would have changed the direction by shooting in a different studio where this is possible. Of course I had a budget so this is a conflict. Even so, I don't think my not including of smoke is a terrible thing as it may have taken the attention away from the rest of the scene.
As a cinematographer it has been intriguing to take on this role as it was not part of my original plan. Filming every scene myself in comparison to the test shoots was a much better solution to speeding up the process. Each shot was done using simple techniques which I knew I was capable of doing. As one shoot went to the next I could tell that my skills in filming cinematography were improving as I was coming up with different and better ways of recording each scene. I think this part of the project showed my experimentation and that I wanted to see the possibilities of pushing limits within filming but still keeping it simple.
Editing was the most difficult part of this process, specifically finding a song but I was able to resolve this by getting advice from my mentor and the outcome is much better than the first song I chose. I am relieved to have formed my film in a way that smoothly goes from one genre of reactions to the next. Being an editor has given me access to being experimental with how I want my film to look but at the same time there was too much of a choice which left me confused. I needed people with better experience in this to help me structure the film and I am glad I asked for advice because this has really benefited the outcome. I know that it would not have looked as professional if I had not asked for help.
