1.What is your role / contribution to the film in the production phase?
As the director of the project, I am in charge of over seeing the quality of the output of the final product. As the editing phase involve very little people directly, i try my best to get team members not involved to view the rough cut and comment on it as they are least attached to the cut (where the editor and director will tend to get attached to the edit after working days and nights on it). My role is also to approve and agree on what the editor suggest to be better than what I originally visualised. As the sound design is always changing, I need to decide on which is the better version of it.
2.What have you learnt in the production phase?
Every shots’ tail is very important. It is important for the DP to cut after the director shout cut, or even better, to understand to leave tail for the perfect shots with editing in mind. Saving film is important, but ensuring the shot is sustained for maximum impact is important as well. Most shots turn out to have too little tail and the editor has problem playing around with them.
Cropping the film from 16:9 to a 4:3 no doubt is painful. But at the very least, 4:3 still work rather good for a nostalgic film.
Locking off the picture early is important for the sound design and I believe this has been the first project that we made the effort to lock it early enough for proper sound design to be done. With the edition of enhanced ambience, the whole film feels so much better.
In every production team, there will be people who complain about people not doing enough. I on the other hand have another theory, if you are able to do it, just do more and do not complain. It is always about getting the things done for production and not about fair and equal treatment. If one is to uphold equal treatment, where everyone do the same load of work, then something will be sacrificed. In this case, production efficiency will be sacrificed. It is therefore of utmost importance to make completion of work as the main objective for everything.
The world is not fair after all.
A dedicated team is what is required to get the production till the end and till completion. When people begins to doubt one another, the complex filmmaking process gets even more complicated. People jumping out to claim credits for this and denies other people for that credit is a horrible sight to see. The process of filmmaking itself make a good literary work as it uncover human nature and serves as a good platform for character study. People’s true nature are seen on set and only for those who truly reflect will improve on their skills and most importantly, to be a better person.
