26th of March-
On Tuesday, I accompanied the art team as they scouted out the QUT flats for the house set. Once we saw what we had available we devised a plan of attack for the execution of the construction.
Tuesday evening, we held the auditions for the cast. Casting for documentary was perceived as a little bit strange, but casting for a documentary with no dialogue was even stranger. We had to come up with a process that would allow the actor’s ability to act with their body and their versatility taking direction. I’d had some previous experience with casting auditions but they all followed the stock stand recite-the-script formula, something that we don’t have. For research, I read Directing Actor’s by Judith Weston and found We acknowledged the fact our actors would not be professionals and would probably work best if they were able to bring something prepared to perform. great advice in the audition chapter that explained that casting isn’t looking for the character you seen when you watch the story in your head as you shall become disappointed when you don’t find they exist, but rather a chance to find talent who you are eager to sculpt the character with. This highlighted the fact it did not matter what they prepared but rather how we could build the characters with them. We asked them to come prepared with a short monologue and after they performed it through once for us, we’d ask them to perform it again but this time with a prompt that was the opposite of the way they had prepared it. We didn’t mind what the outcome was but we wanted to see the way they were able to adapt and have fun with it in a direction they weren’t familiar with. I believe it went very successfully as we were then able to pick our cast!
Wednesday, we sat down with an animation student to discuss the creative demands of the project’s animation sections. It was very promising as he was able to confidently come up with some creative solutions to our problem areas of the story. He signed onto the project!
Thursday evening, I sat down with our cinematographer Simon and ironed out the shot list. It was an extremely valuable time talking about the blocking and physicality of each moment. As the project was in development for so long, my brain has been switched into the meaning and over-arching force behind each movement but now I have to move into the mindset of how that is physically convey and why. I also made comprehensive storyboards for the animator so he could begin preparing his brief.
Today (Friday) we held our test shoots for the boat sequence. Leading up the shoot I checked-in with each HOD and their team and asked them what their aim for the shoot was and what they needed to achieve the goals. This gave both myself and the departments a clearer understanding what to specifically look out for and work on. It was a bit of a slow start to the shoot but once sorting out the bumps in gear hire confusion, we were able to bump in our boat rig. With the help of the ELC, some creative problem solving and an all crew brainstorming session, we were able to simplify the rig to get what we need out of it in the safest and least time-consuming way. The ELC were then able to approve the set and we were able to move onto working out the logistics of creating those light sweeps and shooting the scene in a way without the presence of water that is both visually pleasing and authentic to the story. As the director, this was my first taste of overseeing the crew at work.
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