So, Scream All You Want production is past the halfway point, and I can tell that some people are getting a bit tired from the hurried pace of filming. Every weekend, except for the Saturday and Sunday we took to attend Ottawa’s first ComicCon have all been three day shoots, and some of them stretch on for more than twelve hour days.

Of course, spending so much time shooting in quick succession is probably the only way that everyone would be able to stay together long enough to complete this ambitious project.

I had a bit of time last night to check out some of the footage, and while it looks great, I am quickly realizing a few things about video production that makes me far less envious of those that can create such content: it takes forever!

I was watching a movie the other night, and counting out the changes in camera angles, and the number of scenes that would have had to have been shot for a short segment, and I was ready to pull all of my hair out.

We’ve been taking multiple takes and angles of each of the important moments in Scream All You Want, knowing that once edited, it could only constitute a minute or two of usable video for every two hours put into capturing it, but naturally, when you watch a video, you don’t really notice all the angles and transitions that happen to create a fleshed out movie or television show for your enjoyment.

Lighting dark locations, dealing with uncontrollable noise, sweating through multiple takes without air conditioning as the weather heats up fast, managing all the data created, and moving equipment, it has been a huge learning experience for everyone. The set-up and tear downs can be excruciating as the team works hard to bring a professional looking production together.

There is only one more three day weekend of shooting scheduled, with potentially one or two more weekends of re-shoots and whatnot to also be done.

Recently, Tom, one of the directors, informed me that my data management wasn’t perfect, and I had lost a segment of footage. I will never forget 34abj for the rest of my life. Three short scenes, lost to the ether. We will have to re-shoot them, but I felt devastated. I have been creating three backups of each file to make sure things are bombproof, but I haven’t always had time to test each back-up I create, and as such, I made three copies of a bad file. We both tried every trick up our sleeve to repair and recover the data, but to no avail.

I never thought that helping on a production would be so stressful, and while Tom has constantly told me that I could take some time off, I am committed to helping out on this project and see it through. Besides, with such a small crew to begin with, anyone leaving for any reason puts extra stress on those that are left, and that’s really not fair. We have had days where we’ve had to suffer just a bit more due to conflicting scheduling, but thankfully, we’ve all made it through. (Probably thanks to the great craft services we’ve been provided.)

We are nearing the end of my usefulness in this project though, and then I can start to sort out the rest of my life here in Ottawa. Something, I’m definitely looking forward to. I probably won’t be volunteering much after this for a while, unless the time commitment is really light as I have my own list of things I want to see and do in Ottawa.

Besides, I only have one or two friends other than Tom that I would do this kind of thing for and neither of them are the type to try to create something like this.

Cool side note: Scream All You Want was covered recently by the CBC.

Also, check out this post by Susan Murphy regarding the production: Sometimes It’s What You Don’t Know