Ifaz Chowdhury

Directors Journal
The overall experience:

I believe that the role of the director was best suited for me due to the fact that I am
confident and organised. I allocated jobs within the group systematically and took
charge when it was necessary; I couldnt have chosen a better role for myself. Not
only did I have to keep an eye on all of my work and ensure that everything was
being done to a god standard, I also had to ensure that the editor and the
cameraman were on task and asked for help when necessary. It was tough role
however the outcome was worth it and I absolutely loved being o set for shooting, it
was an extremely enjoyable experience.

Whilst shooting, I realised it was not easy to be able to do all the things that a
director is to do for example, position the characters, ensure that all crew members
as well as cast members are punctual and also, ensure that everyone is comfortable
and if they are not, this is to be fixed. It was tough but very much worth the outcome.

First filming session:

Today we had our first filming session and it proved that many things could go wrong
whilst filming such as the lighting not being as good as we want, the location in which
we used meant that we could only film for a certain time and days also practice is
always needed. We had filmed the first scene and in my opinion, it was to a good
standard however, after receiving feedback, were told that there was not enough
variety of shots, it was too long for the first scene, we had also broke the 180 degree
rule and finally, the sound was not good enough as we were aiming for high
standards. This criticism did not bring down however it did motivate much more, I am
determined to re-film and this time, take all the feedback that was given and work
much closer with the camera man as well as the editor so they I can ensure that they
are producing what he had visualised to life. Filming required a lot of concentration,
minimal breaks and for each member of the cast and group to engage with each
other which hopefully increases the quality of their work.

During the filming sessions we had many interruptions such as members of our cast
would back out from filming last minute or that they would get distracted as there
was lot of member involved with the production.

Second filming session:

This filming session was set on a different day any time from the previous filming
session as the location was based at a family home so the date for filming was
unpredictable. This session was much better, we used a variety of shots, and we did
most scenes apart from the last scenes apart from the last scene which was the
ending and teamwork was excellent. Our time management could not have been
better and most importantly, everyone had been happy with the outcome, we all left
Ifaz Chowdhury

this filming session satisfied with our work. However, the day after when we had
come to log and capture our footage, we had realised the footage came out horribly
due to the lightning. We had not expected this due to the fact that we had looked
over the footage but we came to realise that when it came to editing on the computer
it turned out to be different. We had then decided to reshoot the exact scenes over
again.

Third filming session:

The third filming sessions was by far our most successful filming session yet. At this
point we know as a group, what mistakes not to make like in our previous filming
sessions. The mise-en-scene was set out how it should be, the time we had used
efficiently, extra batteries were brought and everything just went really smoothly in
general. The one bad thing about this session however was that the time in which we
had to film was very tight due to the fact we had to keep reshooting but in the end we
had gotten all our footage to a good standard.

Extra filming session:

This filming session were used just for extra shots to make our footage much better
such as shots of the guns in different angles etc.
I believe that these extra filming sessions were very much worth it as the we took
time in our production so we so we could produce a film to a really high standard.
We polished and make everything be as smooth as it could be possibly have been
and consequently, we worked extremely well as a group as we had many filming
sessions together which helped us bond.
It was a very enjoyable experience over all and I, as the director am very much
pleased with the outcome of our film and proud to be part of this group.