Rationale
My first IB Film production, “Retrospect,” was created by XTCStudios, consisting of Charles Mak, Shaheed Allie, Xeryus Collins, and myself. The treatment we used was Charles’s; essentially, a teen comes to terms with the death of his best friend. I feel we chose this treatment because of its simplicity, at least relative to the other proposed plots. Furthermore, attempting a drama for our first IB project (as opposed to an easier genre) allowed for a worthy first test of our skills. Lastly, one of our objectives could be easily accomplished with this idea: incorporating time, which we did using flashbacks.
Commentary
The first thing we did upon having our treatment and pitch greenlit was establish roles for production. Given my year of experience editing, I was assigned the job of editor. However, I feel that despite being named roles, all four of us impacted every decision in such a way that we could each be reasoned as having a different role. I, for example, in addition to editing our final piece, acted as a general consultant to Charles, the director; for some shots, handled the camera in place of our cinematographer, Shaheed; and collaborated directly with Xeryus in sound design. I also had a substantial role in writing our script.
But enough on that. As the editor, I was obviously in charge of editing, implying that my responsibilities lay solely in post-production. However, this is incorrect, as I have learned that the editor must always remain vigilant. During pre-production and while shooting, I had to ensure that every concept expressed could actually be attainable. Occasionally, one of my teammates would perk up with an idea, but I would be forced to reject it given that it was quite unlikely. For example, Charles voiced his desire to utilize a rack focus; I informed him that the equipment we had available would make this notably difficult, not to mention the fact that none of us had any experience or knowledge of how to do so. Contrarily, while I didn’t believe we could succeed in using the basketball rolling as a transition into a flashback, I was surprised to find that making said transition was actually rather easy and ended up one of the high points of my work.
Commentary
The first thing we did upon having our treatment and pitch greenlit was establish roles for production. Given my year of experience editing, I was assigned the job of editor. However, I feel that despite being named roles, all four of us impacted every decision in such a way that we could each be reasoned as having a different role. I, for example, in addition to editing our final piece, acted as a general consultant to Charles, the director; for some shots, handled the camera in place of our cinematographer, Shaheed; and collaborated directly with Xeryus in sound design. I also had a substantial role in writing our script.
But enough on that. As the editor, I was obviously in charge of editing, implying that my responsibilities lay solely in post-production. However, this is incorrect, as I have learned that the editor must always remain vigilant. During pre-production and while shooting, I had to ensure that every concept expressed could actually be attainable. Occasionally, one of my teammates would perk up with an idea, but I would be forced to reject it given that it was quite unlikely. For example, Charles voiced his desire to utilize a rack focus; I informed him that the equipment we had available would make this notably difficult, not to mention the fact that none of us had any experience or knowledge of how to do so. Contrarily, while I didn’t believe we could succeed in using the basketball rolling as a transition into a flashback, I was surprised to find that making said transition was actually rather easy and ended up one of the high points of my work.
