This term, our first cohort of ten Film Studies students have started producing their own 5-minute films for the coursework component of the A-Level course. Over the last few weekends, students have been borrowing specialist filmmaking kits from the school to complete their individual film shoots. We have been so impressed with the professional approach that the students have taken towards their film productions, their excellent teamwork, and the quality of the material that they have captured. Huge thanks to all the parents and friends of our students who have provided support and have appeared in these films! Here, one of our students (Bert) reflects on his experiences of shooting his film:
“I had been planning this film since the beginning of the academic year, when we were first told about the practical assessment. Leading up to the shoot, I had planned to do countless ideas. The one I finally settled on was about a group of teenagers in the 1980s who believe that they are the reincarnation of the romans who killed Jesus. They form a suicide cult together, hence the title of the film ‘Reincultnation’.
The film was shot over the coronation bank holiday. 7 of us in total travelled down to Morcomblake (Dorset) where the filming was happening. Seeing as the exam board specified that we had to shoot it all in 2 days, the extra day that we had was really useful for testing equipment, such as how the lights looked up in the forest at night. The first day of filming was easy, because more people were arriving in the evening, so there were only so many shots that we could film, and it also helped that we were all full of energy because it was day 1. We got all the shots that we needed in extremely good time, so that meant that we had time to watch a film, shower off all the dirt, and prepare ourselves for the first of the night shoots which I was not expecting to enjoy. We had to do a 20-minute to get to the shooting location, which doesn’t seem that bad, until you take into account that we are walking through a forest, up a hill, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, with only one torch, after it had been raining for the past 7 hours. There was a sense of release when we got to the spot, and we set down all our equipment and had a 5-minute break. In the film, the characters are all huddled around a fire. We created this fire by putting down 4 LED bar lights on the ground, with an orange tint. This was our only light source for the entire night, and so we brought with us an army of portable chargers to keep them alive. We began to head back from the forest by around 1AM, and repeated this the next night.
I was so relieved to get everything done and I am currently in the editing process, which is taking a while, but it is incredibly rewarding as you see all your hard work finally coming together. At the time of writing this, I have just taken a break from working on the official soundtrack of the film, composed by myself.
All of the songs have been recorded apart from one which I am just about to continue working on.”
Bert, Year 12
