When I was in film school, I was a bit uncertain about what kinds of films I wanted to make. Of course I wanted to make the greatest film of all time, but you have to start small, maybe with a skeleton crew or even by yourself as a one man band on occasion. Either way, you're bound to come across issues when starting out in film school; these can range to sound problems, issues with actors and even lighting problems.
I made a few short films at first that experimented with lighting and sound, none of which were very interesting in retrospect. Other films from my first year involved an editing experiment, for which I chose to make a quick horror film, in which a student is pursued by an axe murderer in the middle of the night (let's say that when you're on a budget, family size bottles of ketchup definitely do come in handy). I liked this particular film because it was made in black and white and was more ominous than gruesome. It was also beautifully lit, using lots of contrast and the overall darkness and grain of the film added to its overall tone.
When I ventured to make one of my first major narrative projects in film school, I didn't expect a series of problems that would plague the production. I chose to venture into drama, writing a somewhat lame script about a girl whose parents get divorced, who then winds up getting kidnapped by vampires. Cheesy, right? Yeah I dropped the vampire angle and made it more about the problems she has with her jerk boyfriend who wants nothing to do with her. Honestly, it was all I could think of at the time as I didn't have the budget to create something with aliens or spaceships. I figured doing something with just a handful of actors and a crew of three (myself included) would be the best way to execute this.
I chose friends of mine, who weren't acting students, to be in the film; I thought their inexperience would add to the authenticity of the whole thing. At first they couldn't properly deliver the lines and weren't convincing in their portrayal of the characters; they were uncomfortable on camera, so the more we worked with tweaking the dialogue and rehearsing, there were fewer issues with the acting. I figured using real people instead of acting students would be a bit more convincing and add a bit of realism, yet I didn't realize that this would be an issue.
I discussed the problems I was having with my professors in film school and while they felt the acting wasn't the greatest, they did believe the film had potential. They gave me some suggestions as to how to make the film more visually interesting, by re-shooting some scenes and by tightening the editing a bit. Most film schools offer this type of interaction and by getting feedback from your professors as opposed to just making a film and showing something that doesn't really work.
In watching in the rushes with my small crew, we realized that the footage was actually more comical than dramatic and I decided to stick with the script and informed the actors to keep doing what they were doing, that I wanted it to be a comedy instead, and they agreed. I had the actors overemphasize the dramatic elements to make it appear more comical and preposterous. It was an interesting experiment, seeing if I could pull it off and if the actors were comfortable with my decision to change the tone of the film. When I finally finished the film and showed it to my class, it got a positive response and many laughs. Sometimes things just work that way.
Watching the film years later, it is funny, but incredibly crude. I realize that I should've used professional actors and perhaps tried different lighting effects, yet that was sort of the intention I was going for, to make some sort of 1970s era drama. So, I had taken this experience in film school as an experiment and learned from it with the intention of trying not to repeat the same mistakes on future projects. The interesting thing is that film schools want you to succeed, yet you have to learn by trial and error, which will benefit you in the long run.
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