Base14

My final project for my graduate directing class, entitled Brian Paulson: Tree Dropper, has finally been released online. This project was created entirely during Spring semester, which includes all pre-production, filming and post-production. Okay, most post-production. The reality of the situation is that it took me all summer to get around to cleaning up the audio and making a final cut. With summer classes and all the traveling I was doing for Duck ♥ Teslacoil, I almost forgot about it. But as of last week, the final cut is done.

More discussion after the break.

There are lessons to be learned. My intention for this short was to replicate the mockumentary sitcom style seen on shows like The Office, but without allowing the characters to acknowledge the existence of the camera. In hindsight, this might have been an unnatural blending of mockumentary and narrative, and probably could have used more careful planning of shots and character blocking. But with the few weeks we had to produce the entire film, the time simply wasn’t there. The other major obstacle we faced was the time of year, which was the busiest time of year for filmmaking at SCAD. People and resources were scarce across the board.

Still, a lot of hard work was put into this film and it shows. For the relative inexperience of most of our actors, they put on a surprisingly good performance (with the exception of my ugly cameo, of course, which was the only way to fill empty roles due to our lack of extras). But the lessons learned here will be put to good use. While my strength obviously lies in animated shorts, I will keep directing live action when I can make time for it. Being versatile in both mediums will, in time I am sure, make me a stronger director overall.