What I learnt for the Aesthetica Short Film Festival
- Dan Ellis
- Nov 17, 2015
- 3 min read
Acting for screen lecture.
Some of the things that I learnt from this lecture is the Actor, Director Relationship. I learnt that within the relationship, trust is the key to working well with actors. Also that make sure that, as a director, you should try and involve the actor as much as possible in the creative process as it helps the actor have a better understanding of the film.
In the lecture I learnt more about what to do in the casting process. I leant that to get the best out of your actor, you need to give the actor time before there audition. Also to listen the actors point of view on the character because they might have some really good ideas and changes they could make to the character which you might not have thought of.
I learnt three main things from the lecture:
Is this the person I want to work with?
What ideas does the actor have?
Is the actor relaxed?
I feel that when I am in the casting stage for a film, if I apply all these questions it will help me find the actor I’m looking for.
Lecture for Visual effects.
In this lecture I learnt about all the work that the framestore does in films and adverts. They are responsible for creating monsters and animals in films such as Ratchet from Guardians of the Galaxy, I learnt that one of the hardest things with animating animals in a live action film is fur as you need to program different types of versions for fur in that you need to think about what type of environment that the animal/monster in such as how the fur moves in the wind, also if he fur is wet the fur would looking different.
Framestore is also responsible for gravity. In gravity they talked about how they only filmed that actors face and had to animate around it. To get the right lighting in the film the created a room which the actors would stand in and the lights would move around them.
Lecture on editing.
In this lecture I learnt that when you are working on a short film and are pressed for time you should try not to get stressed and just make sure that the shot you are working on looks the way you want. Being organized is the main thing to bear in mind as when you are in the editing stage you know what you are doing. Get involved in post-production as early as you can so you don’t worry about time. Keep track of dates for shots to make it easier for yourself. Make sure you make room for selected takes. Make sure that you are of the same page as the director so that you can get a clearer understanding of what the film should look like.
When doing the first opening to your film you should bear in mind:
What is your aim?
Be creative and think outside of the box
Make an impact
Make sure you know what you want to do and apply that strait away so that you can apply the genre to your film at the beginning.
Lecture ‘how I got my first break’
Time pope is a director in film and tv. He has done films such as music videos and crow 2. He has also done lingerie videos. He spoke about how that he knew early on that he wanted to be a director and that how he succeeded in his career was by being “true to yourself”
