Lets reflect!

Melisa Visca
Aug 25, 2017 · 7 min read

The most rewarding part about working on a film, especially as a director, is seeing it all come together in the end. Sometimes it may not work out to how you expected or necessarily the exact way you envisioned it but if you’re willing and open to new discoveries throughout the whole production process, the feeling of finally seeing all your hard work put together in a creative space is extraordinary.

Our Goals and the Final Product:

We set out make a festival worthy short film with a message that would impact the audience in one way or another. Jordan wrote a great story about toxic masculinity with the effects it has on generations of men. The film looks into the nature of toxic masculinity passed on from generation to generation and how it can shape the lives involved. It explores importance of breaking the cycle of the idea that men need to be ‘strong’ and the misunderstanding of vulnerability as weakness.

“Hardened is the story of Russel — A fifty-something father and concreter working day-to-day as a foreman. Despite having recently separated from his wife of twenty years, Russell still holds hope of returning back home. But this may not be possible unless he can overcome years of emotional detachment from his wife and teenage son.”’

Russel (Andrew Brown) ‘Hardened’

Our film has come together exceptionally well in a very short time. 13 weeks to be exact. To say the least, I am very happy with where the film is at, at this stage and I am excited to screen it at an exhibition this week. I think most creatives can agree with me on this that there are very few projects that I am willing to share with my friends and family due to being unhappy with them and my work however, ‘Hardened’ is definitely one project that they will get to see. Yay!

What was successful?

I was the director on this film and my job was to bring the script and story to life while keeping to the tone, visual style we set out to achieve and themes of the story significant. All of this was achieved because I had a great team of individuals around me who were very willing and collaborative to work with. My 1st AD Heidi, My DOP/writer Jordan and I worked very well and very closely together throughout pre-production and production to reach our goals for the film and ensure that our set ran smoothly and efficiently with a high professional manner. On top of my top two ‘go-to’ people, the rest of our crew, Natalie (production design/post-production producer/1st AC), Khalid (continuity/editor), Liam (best boy/camera assistant) and Daniel (sound recordist), did an exceptional job on set, working to the standards that I, as the director, set upon the production with a patience that I very well am grateful for. Everyone was also very well respected within the group and had a valuable part in the post production process.

Hardened Crew [Image] by Heidi Yla-Ajos

One thing that I would like to really point out is the when things got tough and didn’t work out the way we expected it, we were all there for each other and worked through it together. GO TEAM!

What could be improved on?

There were a few things that we could improve on as a team. The way I see it, there is always things that could be improved on, even the things that we did successfully throughout the production. I’m always asking myself how I could do things differently the next time around to make it even better because I have learned that constant self-reflection is how I grow the most.

One of the things that I think that myself and my crew could improve on is our communication throughout the whole process of the project. Minor issues could have been avoided such as missing props, issues with scheduling etc, if we communicated a little more efficiently as a group.

Our post production preparation was on the slightly poor side in regards to our post-production pathway not being tested beforehand and followed during. Also, camera tests for colour grades weren’t done until a very later date which chewed up time in our grading week.

Due to the production pathway not being met in the beginning, we received our sound design the day before exhibition and it was most definitely not up to the level that we were expecting. In fact, it was worse than when we gave it to them which caused a lot of stress on myself and the crew to come up with a solution and solve the problem within one night.

Huge thanks to Bianca Molini for saving us in the time we needed it most!

Challenges that we faced and how we overcome them.

One of the biggest challenges that we faced was the very limited time we had on our filming days to film everything that we needed to film. Our schedule for production was allocated around the availability of the locations rather than scheduling around how long we needed to successfully get every shot. We didn’t have the luxury of a large budget to spend on our locations so we had to utilise what we had access to however it became quite stressful for me going into production knowing that we didn’t have sufficient time for the scenes being filmed. With this being the case, I personally began thinking and focusing on the technical aspect of directing rather than the performance and taking care of my actors. I became quite anxious and I realised that my actors were picking up on my feelings whether I tried to hide it or not, which could have affected their performance significantly. A way that we could avoid this next time is for me and the DOP or finalise our shot list before location scouting and scheduling takes place.

A challenge that I personally faced as a director, which came from our limited time, was that I found it very difficult to get a great performance out of the actors. Every single one of my actors were so willing and open to working that when we eventually got to the point that they needed to be at, we had to move on and I didn’t have time to play with them and make discoveries through the characters.

Hardened Crew [Image] by Heidi Yla-Ajos

I always find that a huge challenge for me is the casting process in any film that I am involved in. Casting is one of the most important aspects of a production and I don’t take casting lightly so we struggled to find the right people for our roles, only just casting the role of Russel 4 days before filming started.

Brigitte Jarvis (Alison), Melisa Visca (Director), Andrew Brown (Russel) [Image] by Heidi Yla-Ajos

How far I came.

I believe that I came quite far over the 13 weeks of production, improving on some of my soft skills significantly. There were three skills in particular that I focused on through the process and they were my time management abilities, self-confidence and working well under pressure. I had the huge struggle of working 40 hours a week outside of production while also bringing this film to life which I struggled with, not 100% delivering on my role as director and I wasn’t sure how to handle this situation at the beginning of the process, however changed my mind set around my workload figured my way about things towards the end of production. This is something that I don’t really know how to explain because I don’t quite know myself how I figured out a way to improve my time management abilities, but I guess I took it day by day and found myself in a routine to ensure that I delivered on my responsibilities without letting anyone down.

One of the biggest skills that I needed to improve on was my self-confidence in my abilities as a creative. I am very hard on myself and this is a skill that I have been working on for years now but this production has helped me realise and really take on board the fact that for me to succeed, I have to fail. And failing isn’t a bad thing. If you don’t fail, you don’t improve.

‘Hardened’ is ready for exhibition however not completely finished. We are still aiming to enter the film into numerous film festivals and to do that, we have a couple of scenes that need to be written and filmed, the titles and credits need to be fixed and the editing needs to be finessed a little more.

But that is all part of the process. I came to accept the fact that we will have to do pick up shoots and re-shoots, and we will be working on this film for another couple of months but what we have achieved in the short 13 weeks is beyond my belief. I am so proud of my crew.

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