Overall I felt like I made a successful AD for my group and our piece. This was due to number of things I did during pre-production as well as the actual shoot days.
I feel during pre-production I had a lot of mine own paper work which I worked on with the Director such as the Treatment and the Synopsis. I also as well as doing my own paperwork was involved in helping others with their role and their paperwork. For example I arranged a meeting for the camera team and our Storyboard artist in order to help her know exactly what se needed to do for the storyboard. I also found I was the main communicator between members of our group. There was a few struggles in communication between th Producer and the Director and times which was soon resolved by myself making sure everyone was on the same page. Also any decisions that were made by the Director I made it my job to make all members of the group aware of this by linking them to my blog posts about meeting they missed etc and sending them messages with all the information in. I found as this pre-production process went on I began to get more involved in the decision making as the Director didn't always know what to do. For example I worked very hard with the camera team alone to make sure the shot list was finalised and match the new routine. I also was involved in a lot of the physical work such as the auditions. I did learn from this work that time management was key as AD because a lot of what I was doing was organising the Director and the remembers of the group as well as myself. Before I got my time mamnagement sorted I was finding the process stressful but as soon as I found a good workflow my stress levels reduce and everyone in the group was a lot happier too.
I then felt doing shooting that even though I was meant to take a much more backseat role and just keep everyone on schedule etc I actually had to step up to Directing as the Director wasn't sure what he was meant to be doing on set specifically. He also made the group and myself aware that he wasn't comfortable at talking to actors which I was so I volunteer to Direct the actors but in turn this led on to me needing taking a much bigger role and co-directing the piece as well as just directing the actors. I did try my best to also be the person checking the shots and schedule which I did but I found that because I was now doing a lot more jobs than just AD it was beginning to get a little but stressful. This meant our Producer stepped in and began being the time keeper and telling us what shots and set ups were coming next etc. This helped a lot as it meant I could just aim my focus on the actors. I felt I director well because I knew how to talk to them in a professional manor after our Directing Actors Workshop. However I also bonded with them and had really good working chemistry with both of them which meant as well as getting the job done good we also had fun while doing it. This kept the actors happy and in tern meant their results got a lot better as well because they were enjoying themselves. I felt like once we got the flow of the group on sorted during the first dy of shooting it meant the second day of shooting went so much smoother because we all knew what we were doing. I would say this shoot process has actually taught me a lot more about how to be a Director as well as just an Assistant Director and this has left me knowing Directing is a future pathway for me. I feel I succeeded not only as an individual with this project but also as a member working with in the group to help others as well. As much as I have loved this project my main regret is not putting myself forward to be the Director in the beginning because I doubted how capable I would be but now having worked in such a professional way I feel like in the future I could do this. I felt my strongest point was my communication with everyone in my group on set but also in pre-production. I was constantly checking on what everyone was doing making sure they were happy and therefore helping them achieve the best results they could.
At the end of the day this project and shoot has been a lot of fun but also a lot of hard work which I feel has paid off. I have learnt so much about how the dynamics of film groups work and how roles work together. Now I am very much looking forward to the editing stage of this piece.
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