My project is ambitious in scale and so good time management will be essential. For each film I will need to write a script, find the actors, produce, edit, and colour grade the film. This is a lot, and the first film of the three Will be my guide as to whether I am able to make another two or if I should stick to just the one or only make one more. Last week, I skipped uni to work as a in-house Runner at a large London production company. I did this because I need money to make my films and because I want to work in this industry after university. However, the long hours made me realise that producing of films while working a job Will be far more difficult than it is now. As such, this feels like my last chance to really make art that is entirely mine and on this scale, as once I leave university and enter the real world and get a job I will no longer have the luxury of a lot of free time. All I really want to do in life it’s make my art. It is the activity that makes time slip away and my mind to race with ideas and excitement. I fear what life will become if I no longer have a time to make it.
My reasons for wanting to be a director is not that I love film, I do like film but not nearly to the extent others do, and I far prefer Music and reading. It just so happens that my creative ideas materialise as moving images and narratives and this is where I feel I have a lot to say. As such, I would very much like to earn my living as a director. In an ideal world I would direct films, what are for the moment it is more likely to be music videos and adverts. My chances of being given money to make films relies directly on the quality of my films and ideas. No production company will give me money to make a film because I told them I’ll make a good one, they need solid proof, and this is what I’m going to create.
For the last several years I have been making films. However, they are of a very abstract and experimental nature and however good I feel they may be, they do not yet prove that I can successfully direct a story with narrative and actors. The next three films I will make for this unit, therefore, Will be narrative films made in respect of classic film conventions, albeit with my own style. I will definitively prove, one way or the other, that I can create and direct engaging an interesting stories and that my own style of filmmaking is successful.
Back to time management … because of the reasons stated above it is essential my final project demonstrates my ability to create a narrative and explore interesting Visual techniques, and so three films is necessary. This means my time management needs to be spot-on, and I don’t let the weeks slip-by without either producing, filming, or editing one of my films. I intend to spend six weeks on the first two films and six weeks on the third film as the third one will be by far the largest in scale.
To make this possible, the first two films Will use only the barest of crew and equipment, and everything needed will be sourced from what I already own or can be borrow for free. The actors will be my friends and I will make compromises when necessary. This will mean I can make them quickly and cheaply and so will have some time and money saved to spend on the final film.