Pacing Myself- Scheduling

 

Hello again! As people familiar with my work ethic are aware, I'm a big advocate for planning. After all, nothing gets done without an idea of what you're doing. At such an early stage of this project, there's little I can do in the planning for shooting schedules or managing which days I'll be working on editing more than developing my print component.

A general schedule is my best option if I want to start strong on this project, even if I don't follow the schedule's directions and pacing strictly, I've always been considered optimistic...

The way I'll try to break up this blog post is by sharing the goals I want to hit each week, followed by a brief explanation of why I opted for this particular outline. This may be boring and long winded, but I hope those committed to understanding my process can appreciate the detail and reasoning behind my decisions. Also... I just really like writing...

This start is pretty self explanatory, considering I'm in the middle of fulfilling my last goal for this week! I had to start work for this project somewhere....

This is the upcoming plan for this week! As someone whose talents lie within writing, getting the perfect story is very important to me, and so taking a week to decide on the story, its beats, its progression, etc. will help me get a better "feel" for what I want to write and how it will "feel" onscreen.

Once again, I'm giving a lot of priority to the story and feel of the piece. While I'm still unsure of which story I'm planning on going with, I am sure that I want my short film to feel very character-driven, whatever the story may be. Researching similar types of scenes / films in this genre may be instrumental in deciding the "feel", since my work typically takes lots of inspiration from media I have recently consumed.

After a few weeks deciding the feel of the film, I'd like to have a full script done by week 4, even if it's only a rough draft. Through casting and storyboarding, I'll start the final preparations before shooting for the film.

Week 5's work is mostly polishing, either on the script, casting, and any other planning details. I'd also like to take time to research how to properly use lighting in my film, a field where I recognize my ignorance. Therefore I'll likely ask my buddy Wade for some pointers and advice on lighting, since I know he's a connoisseur of lighting in films. (I haven't asked him yet though.. )

Week 6 is when I finally face the beast that is actually filming the project. Additionally, I'll be researching social media advertising and implementing what I learn from my research in the development of my own social media marketing account...  Not sure which platform yet.

Week 7 will be tricky, due to Spring Break either posing a threat to any actor availability (assuming they travel) or freeing them up immensely to be able to work on the film more often. In the event of any issues with filming, I will busy myself with further developing my social media marketing account, along with beginning research on potential film festivals where I could distribute my short film.

I dedicate Week 8 almost entirely to editing the film, because I know how utterly hopeless I am with editing software... I'm also lumping in the development of film festival handouts because I don't anticipate these being particularly difficult to design... It will also provide a nice respite from the throes of editing.

If all goes according to plan, I will have survived editing in one piece by Week 9. Only then will I be able to return to my dear friend, writing, in order to develop my Critical Reflection of the entire process of making my short film.

On the eve of the project's deadline, all that should be left is some reflective comments, linking the final product to the blog, and posting my Critical Reflection. Should be a pretty light workload for the last week!

    Hopefully enduring the breakdown of my planned schedule wasn't too agonizing... I can't help but over do the writing in these blog posts... However, I believe I have accurately and (somewhat) clearly illustrated the reasoning behind some of my scheduling decisions.

Now it's just a matter of time to see if I'll actually stick to my word on this schedule...