Production Roles - Miss Miller

Group: Amber-Louise Reed-Johnson, Jazz Chrystie and Lily Badcock

Specific roles were necessary for each group member to have to ensure the easiest and smoothest filming process. It helps keep the filming organised, and speeds up the process if people are doing all different jobs at once. There are several roles that are necessary for creating a film: producers (in charge of generally everyone and everything), directors (guides technical crew to create their vision for the film), actors, director of photography (cameraman), sound producers/music, screenplay writer, mise-en-scene co-ordinators, and editors.

Jazz, Lily and I allocated ourselves 3-4 important production roles each. This was an easy way to organise ourselves, as it saves time because we are all doing many jobs at once. Firstly, we all had acting roles within the film. We needed many characters, so we each had one role. It was necessary to have other actors outside of our group due to our narrative, and so extra roles were played by 3 other boys. Lily played the main character, I played her friend/bridesmaid who ran away with her ex-fiancé, and Jazz played the ex-fiancé. The extra roles were Jazz's character's friends/best man/ushers. We all acted in the film as we all have at least some acting experience from previous education (secondary school). All acting roles were performed well and there were no issues in this area. Furthermore, filming was made easier by the fact that we had extra actors readily available.

I was the director of photography/cameraman for most of the film, therefore I am being credited in the film as director of photography. Also, I have experience with using a camera, and it was therefore decided that I should be appointed director of photography for the majority of the film. This made filming easier as I was only in the film for two/three short scene and so was available to be the director of photography for the rest of the sequence. I feel that I carried out my role well and nothing went wrong in relation to camerawork. I was also the sound producer for the film - deciding which sound techniques to use, which sounds and music to use and where they go. I am primarily responsible for the sound effects that take place during production and post-production of the film. Again, I am not in most of the film, so making me the sound producer was the easiest option. I had more time to finalise how the film should sound and what sound techniques it should include, and to find the appropriate sounds for the sequence. This makes filming and editing easier because I have the most time available. I also feel as if this role was carried out well, which made the pre and post production of the film easier, as there were no problems with sound.

Lastly, all group members (including myself) will edit the film. However, I am lead editor, and my name will appear in the credits for editing. I also have the most experience out of all group members with using editing software, so to make editing easier and quicker, I was appointed lead editor. I will do the majority - but not all - of the editing on the film. All group members will be consulted whenever the film is edited to make sure that the final product turns out to be what we all envisioned in our group storyboard. This speeds the process of editing up, as we all know exactly who is doing what and what is happening.

Jazz is the producer of the film. His role is to make sure everyone is doing their job, and well. This makes filming and editing easier as it ensures that everyone is focused all of the time. This speeds the film-making and editing processes on further as it ensures that all production roles are being carried out up to a good standard. Jazz was also only in the film for a short period, which means that he was able to manage everyone with his free time. Jazz is also the mise-en-scene co-ordinator. While we all contributed, in the planning stage and filming stage, to the mise-en-scene of all shots, Jazz was appointed lead mise-en-scene co-ordinator. He understands the group storyboard well and helped 'bring it to life' on camera. This ensures that our film is up to the best possible standard, as our ideas are portrayed well on camera.

A film director leads the artistic and dramatic aspects of a film, guiding the technical crew and actors to help create the director's vision. Lily was the director of our film, as she had good ideas to create our script and storyboard on camera. While Jazz and I did contribute to 'directing', Lily was main director. Lily was a very good choice for this role as she is very creative and artistic, and understands how she wants the scenes to look. Lily was also lead screenplay writer, as she knew exactly what she wanted to happen, and Jazz and I agreed with her plans for the film. This in particular made the process smooth as well as enjoyable because we were all completely aware of what the film is going to be.

Overall, we all did well in our production roles, and the filming process was relatively smooth. This is because we all knew exactly what we were doing in regards to our production roles, and this prevented trying last-minute to fix things etc. However, we did not film all that we wanted to exactly on time. This is simply due to underestimating the amount of time needed and the immediate unavailability of extra actors. We could have avoided this with better planning and more communication within the group.