First semster over - my little evaluation

Well it`s been a while since I finished the first semester, but I`ve been pretty busy since then.. met so many nice people down here, so wanted to spend my time with those who are leaving after the first semester + I`ve been on hols :) I think for me the biggest difference between Oz and Norway is the amount of assignment, back home we will have fewer but bigger assignements, while here we had lots of small assignments.

Screen pratictioners was the simplest subject down here.. First assignment was to do two interviews, one had to be face-to-face while you could conduct the second however you wanted.. from the interviews you had to write an essay where you compared and analyzed the different answers. To get full pot you also had to write an self assesment and peer review. The second assignment was to write a split scrip from the interviews for a bio doc, you also had to write a few pages where you reasoned the structure, chose of visuals and audio - this also with self assesment and peer review. Not too much work to do in this unit, we didnt have to attend the classes and got my first High Distinction.

From ide to script - script development. This was probably the unit I hated the most down here, I spent so much time in the beginning trying to get out of it as I dont like script writing. The unit was pretty good tho, with a good teacher and pretty well structured. The semster started with a Self Audit and Case study where you was supposed to find out which episodes from your past had shaped you to who you are, and from that which stories you would be able to tell. From that we had to write pitch and proposal for an idea, before we started to shape out first draft from our story. We also had different editing circle where you had to give feedback on other peoples script and also write a critique. If you wanted you could have your script evaluated by an industry panel who chose the top 10 scripts to be made in the collaborating unit next semester. Me being me said thanks, but no thanks, but the rest of the Norwegians gave it a go and Soheil had his chosen. Others assignment in this class was a script alive presentation (which I never did and therefore just missed out on a Distinction, blah) and final draft of the script.

Documentary development project had the absolut best teacher, Dennis Smith. One of the most well known aussie documentary developers, and he was good. It started with an overlay assignment which was absolutt rubbish, but after everyone had done a pitch about a project we split into groups and I debated myself into the Guerilla filmmaking group which I`m really happy I did. We were gonna make a 5 mins short documentary, and we had enough footage to make probably 10 different ones and were struggeling a bit on what to focus on. In the end we made more a bio doc about the independent filmmaker Mark Bakaitis and how the guerilla filmmaking style has influenced him. This documentary was the main project in this unit, and for the last 10 weeks this was the only thing we were working on together with writing 3xsynopsis (one liner, paragraph and page) proposal and treatment for the documentary and a couple of peer assesments. I`m still waiting for the grad in this unit.. but I think we did pretty good and were in the top 3 of the documentaries that were shown in our screening.

Genre, form and structure. This was the unit where we shot of 16mm for the first time. The unit was alot about team building, but the funny part is with 7 people in a group where you are not allowed to set roles cos everyone are allowed to do everything they want - you are begging for trouble. Alot of different personalities, diffrent views on how to conduct everything and a big group so its easy to hide behind other people working and dont do much. In this unit it also were quite a bit of paper work, you had script development, 2x line producer, risk assesment, filmplan and presentation of the film + all the normal things you had to do before you go into production, script breakdown, shooting list, daysplans, light plans, storyboard etcetcetc. Alot to do in only 12 weeks, especially when you group is not too organized cos we dont have a producer or leader. One ex would be that we finished shooting about 2am in the night with 30mins to drive home, myself and the actor had to get up at 6am to do another interview for the doucmentary unit + some had to go to work so only 3 people were left to rig down the set and hand in the equipment which turned in to not be such a good idea since the equipment were only thrown into their boxes without being cleaned and the lights were packed when they were still hot and left in the car over the night.. all of this made the people of deakin a bit pissed and we got penalised with losing 5% of our project points.. I still haven`t go the grad for this unit, but I think I atleast will get a Distinction (from my own calculations from the assignments I`ve gotten back til now) and maybe hoping for something more.. but not sure yet...

This was fast what Ive been doing this semster.. I have already started the double point unit for next semester where I got to be the editor in the film project I wanted. Its a drama film about a schizophrenic main character.. is going to be intresting :) I got 1 more week of before we go into 13 intense weeks with ALOT of work.. gonna be fun :)