I’ve been enjoying the last couple weeks. At my school everybody’s been taking seminars and I took one on scenario writing and one on making a short fiction film. Both of them were really interesting and have managed to open my eyes and make me see things I never saw before. I have always been writing, and it’s a great passion of mine, but after taking the seminar on scenario writing, I learned about what it is that makes a story exciting, and what makes the reader, or the watcher in the case of film, quit before they get to the end.
It forced me to look at the things I had previously written and re-evaluate wether or not it was a good story including the basic narrative elements. A famous writer also came by and told us stories of times when he was working on films with the late Theo van Gogh. It made me think of the future, and wonder if it will maybe be me sitting in the same chair in fourty years time, telling students about my adventures and the films I made. I can only dream about it, still being such a beginner in so many ways…
The second seminar I took was one where a team of 10 people had to make a short fiction film. Everybody had a certain role ‘to play’ and mine was that of the producer. Even though I said earlier that my first and second choice were the roles of director or 1st A.D., I was curious to see how I would do in a job as a producer. And after two weeks I can now say that it turned out I was really good at it! I enjoyed taking care of everything. Managing the money, finding locations, casting the actors, hiring the equipment, doing the catering and just being the one that has to say ‘I’ll take care of it’ to everything that needs to be done. Although it was very strange not to have any creative influence on how the film would turn out, it was refreshing to get to know this part of the film industry. Having such a strong responsibility was something I felt really comfortable with and it only made my wish to become a documentary filmmaker stronger, seeing that documentary filmmakers usually are the director, producer and editor all at once. I used to think it was bad that I wanted to do everything myself, but now I realize that in a profession like that, it’s all the more reason to be happy about it. However I still don’t want to write off the whole fiction element of filmmaking just yet. I still have a passion for storytelling and I also loved the whole process of ‘staging’ everything. (Although I had to get used to the fact that everything took so long to set up on set, but I guess that’s just an impatient part of me that I need to work on). I think I will just explore both territories a lot more before I really pin myself down on just one part of the whole business. After all, that’s what I’m still young for.
For now some pictures with some added text:
I went to see my friend who had a horse jumping contest. She’s a member of the horse-riding centre at the Overtoom in Amsterdam and it’s just one of the most beautiful locations in the city. The building was built in 1882 and is a monument until this day. It has a sense of history added to it, just walking around the building makes you go back to a time where people still rode in carriages. I would love to use this location as a set for a film one day.
I also went to see a friend/classmate who was shooting a music video for a young singer. I witnessed them prepare as she was recording the live version of the song, which would later be added to the video. I had to leave before they started the actual shooting though, but it was nice to get a small insiders view of how she was making the music video and I got to see the nice piano bar that they shot it in. Apparently it hasn’t been open for that long in Amsterdam, but I will definitely come back sometime in the future because I love live jazz.
And these are some of the pictures of the set of the short fiction film I was producing for the two-week seminar. Being a producer I was extremely busy before we started shooting, but during the shoot I was just mainly responsible for the catering, the actors and some smaller things, so I wasn’t really busy. I just took my camera along and made some behind-the-scenes shots.
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