4/2/09 - 4/8/09

We filmed on the second of April in the auditorium's Grimm's Tales set when at the same time primary students assembled to watch a presentation. There was no way of contacting Paul because he wasn't at school, so the lighting could not be in anyway altered. Filming was quite difficult because the space was limited as the projector screen was down and also walking around the set was extremely noisy due to the creaking. A teacher complained but we got the three shots filmed in the end.

We followed the schedule on the fourth of April and filmed in Kowloon Tong, Kai Tak and Shau Kei Wan. The schedule that I made stated that filming would begin at 7.45, but I actually intended filming to begin at 8.00, for I expected my group members to be at least 10-15 minutes late. Other members arrived on time and I was five minutes late myself according to the schedule. Even worse, Alec - the actor - was half an hour late: he arrived at 8.15, very much to our disappointment. We managed to catch up with the schedule anyway... until we wasted nearly an hour trying to find the abandoned school in Shau Kei Wan because I wasn't sure of which way to go from the MTR station.

I was the cameraman during filming and I felt that I had assumed the role of the director, which I was not supposed to. Louise was the director and I was supposed to be receiving instructions and direction from her, but she was reduced from directing to writing down the timecodes of each shot (the shot log sheet was not even used in post-production, unfortunately). I knew of this problem halfway through filming and I told her about it. I told her about how I was stealing the job from her. I continued to direct even after telling her about this problem, but she still managed to give advice.

I ended up directing because I knew the screenplay well and I knew what was going on. If Louise were to direct then she must get to know the screenplay and storyboard better. But I don't think she had a chance to know them better so I unfortunately stole her role during production, despite knowing what the problem was during filming and actually telling her about it.

We were lucky to have everything filmed in a day. We had to overcome some obstacles during importing and there was time wasted, but still, we managed to start editing on Monday. By Tuesday after school, all the shots were cut and placed together. By Wednesday, special effects and color correction were added to the first half of the chase scene. I was there to help the editor out by looking at whether the cuts were smooth or not. Whenever necessary, I taught the editor about Final Cut Pro. I shouldn't have had to teach her about it because (not as a producer, but just as a film student generally) I could have easily given her a couple links to editing tutorials.

As a producer, I sometimes wondered why I was hanging around in the multimedia lab, as it was not my job but the director's to inject her vision into the chase scene by guiding the editor during the editing sessions. But as stated earlier, I had inadvertently assumed the role of the director, so it was logical for me to hang around in the lab. I shouldn't be doing this. Instead, I should give the director a chance to "redeem" her role by guiding the editor and the sound editor (that's me, by the way) throughout post-production. But it was hard to give her a chance, because Louise (director) and Ella (editor) were unavailable most of the time. Ultimately and inevitably, I pieced most of the footage together and edited them. Ella did come during the editing sessions, but usually towards the end of them. When she did, we went over what I did and she gave feedback and we worked together to improve on what I originally did to the footage.

Over the Easter holiday, I will be scrounging for free sound effects on the Internet, which really means that I will not be receiving any direction from the director. It's a shame really, because I always end up unwittingly "stealing" all the roles from my group members, and even when there is room for them to "redeem" themselves, I don't give them any. Perhaps I should be more passive. Perhaps I shouldn't even visit the editing room when the editor is unavailable so progress won't be made; because if it is, then I would be stealing roles from my peers. Wait, that didn't sound right.

I think the director shouldn't be too passive. But if she weren't, I am afraid that there would be a lot of disagreements between me and the director, as that was occasionally the case. During the one editing session in which the director, editor and producer were present (class time, of course), I would say something along the lines of "why didn't you say something earlier?", and the director would reply by saying something along the lines of "I didn't say it because my opinion is probably going to be rejected by you and your strong vision". This was problematic not in the sense that it was impeding our progress on the chase scene, but our progress on teamwork and communication. No one was "right" in this situation. I had cultivated a strong vision due to heavy involvement in the film and as a result, I came to be quite stubborn and unwilling to listen to people's opinions. On the other hand, the director processed things with a defeatist mindset, thus, the passive direction. Teamwork-wise, this was unhealthy. Our resulting chase scene may be testament to this observation, but in my opinion, we've been improving as a team. I was less stubborn during the last editing session before the holiday, which was a sign of change for good.