Developing and Shooting My First Short Film + Some Advice for film makers!

My short film, 'The Black Bag', began as a simple chase sequence that I shot for a first semester assignment. Even at that stage I had every intention of developing the idea into a lengthier short-film, complete with beginning, middle and end. By the time the second semester of my course rolled around, I'd gained a lot of filming experience, admittedly with more hiccups than successes, but still it energised me for the task ahead.

Of course, unlike the previous filming assignments, this time we had to approach the task differently. We had to write up the script, as well as a proposal for the film project.

** The Proposal **

At first, the proposal was a daunting prospect seeing as I had no idea on what a proposal needed to include, let alone how to write one at a professional level. After completing the first draft of the script (which had been sent to the tutor), I began my work.

In addition to researching what I needed to know in order to write the proposal, I had the following tasks before me:

• Write up a summary of my screenplay.
• Include details for all the characters.
• Detail my cast and crew (including scans of all signed contracts).
• Research and photograph locations.
• Secure shooting dates.
• Outline a shooting schedule.
• Write up a detailed budget.
• Draw (or in my case, visualise in The Sims 3) a storyboard.
• Include the -final- draft of the script.

** Shooting the Film **

Because my cast were very busy with their real lives, the shooting of 'The Black Bag' took place over three Sundays on three separate weekends in 2013.

~Weekend 1
Although I had shot some short videos with all but one of my cast, the first weekend looked to be a lot more challenging because it was the first time I'd led a project at such a big scale as 'The Black Bag'. We had a seven minute video to shoot, and a very tight schedule lined up for the day.

The biggest challenge was the fact two of the actors had refused to read their scripts - and the third hadn't seen the script until that morning because he hadn't been able to come around and pick it up sooner. Luckily the third actor only had a couple of small lines, so that wasn't too big an issue.

The next, and equally unexpected, challenge came in the form of how surprisingly busy the locations were. There were several instances of needing to stop or restart shooting, but all-in-all it served to give us all micro breaks so it wasn't quite so bad.

As the morning progressed we got a little more shot than we'd intended before stopping for a desperately needed lunch break.
When we finished, we moved on to the third location for the day: the Kilmock bush track. This was located about ten minutes walk from where we had been filming at Fosbender Park, so we trudged along with all our gear and set up the next series of shots.

It took around two and a half hours to get all the 'chase' footage that was needed, including some reshoots. When we moved on to the film's BIG EVENT we were all growing more exhilarated at what we were accomplishing for the film. Of course, there were the moments of panic that passersby would see the gas-powered handgun the guys were using and think we were up to no good. But, in thinking about it... I think that ultimately wound up being one of the most exciting parts of filming that day.
After we shot the chase scene and the films big, game-changing event, we walked back to the vehicles with every intention of filming the last couple of bits we missed. But honestly, by the time we got back to the cars we were all completely knackered and just wanted to go home seeing as we'd all been on our feet for around nine hours by then.

~Weekend 2
The following weekend we shot the film's final scenes at an office building in Invercargill's CBD. As exciting as shooting in the bush was, the second weekend wound up involving more laughs than any the weekend before. It helped us breeze through the shooting in a few short hours.

~Weekend 3
The third weekend involved a lot of reshoots for some wide-angle footage, and reshooting a few other portions of the film. I was quite gutted at this point because I thought the film was going to be a major failure, but by a mad stroke of good luck the gang and I wound up getting even better footage than we'd gotten that first weekend! It left me feeling like we'd end up making an even better final cut of the film.

** The Final Stretch **

The few weeks that followed involved a lot of long hours editing the film together. I endured two major program crashes, one of which led to me restarting the editing from scratch. But, ultimately, despite all the trials and errors, all the shooting and reshooting, I wouldn't have changed a thing.

I wound up creating a cut of my film that not only got me a really good mark, but also gave me one of the greatest experiences of my life that left me wanting to do it all again and again.

** The Film **

Our eight-minute short film, The Black Bag, was published on Facebook in 2013, but was only uploaded to YouTube in 2016. The film’s audio is rough as we were operating on a 99cent microphone, crap audio-recording hardware, and we were all a bunch of newbies with very limited filming / acting experiences.

Still, we had a blast and have every intention of turning The Black Bag into a black comedy involving zombies. Finding the time when everyone is so busy is the hardest part.

If you are interested, you can view the film here:

~Advice from Me
My personal advice to anyone getting ready to film a short film: whether you are going to get production investment from someone else or not, write up a proposal and treat your film like a business. STORYBOARD YOUR SCREENPLAY! It might take forever to do, but it’s worth it to ensure you get all the shots you need.

Get contracts signed by your cast, seek permission from anyone you need to for location-based shoots (private land owners, city council, etc), and above all… invest in a decent microphone; there is nothing worse in editing a film than finding you have very shit audio that you can’t do much with.

My ideal equipment for our next shoot on a budget?

• Nikon or Canon DSLR
• $20 microphone (plugged into smartphone, NOT camera!)
• Fully-charged smartphone (+ spare battery/batteries)
• Lots of memory cards!!!
• The same great cast & crew I’ve worked with before

So to anyone out there that reads this and plans to get out there shooting a film themselves: JUST GO FOR IT AND HAVE FUN!!