Shell Guy: Redefining

As the semester begins to define itself and as we define our plans for production, our team is also redefining our roles. After some discussion, we realized that this film is not solely directed by one person, but jointly directed by all three of us. As the original director, I felt like I was playing a unique role because I was supposed to be "directing" but I did not form the initial story idea and I had the least experience film making. It made it really hard to "direct" when I didn't know what to do! So I relied a lot on my team members for help. As our filming has progressed, we realized that we were all directing different aspects of the film. It has become a very joint project and for this reason we have decided to all be co-directors and I will be the producer.

I am okay with this change, as is the rest of our team and our professor. The one thing I realized I did want different, was more experience. As "director" or now "producer" I did not get a lot of the hands on experience. I've been setting up shoots, making contacts and doing interviews, but I wanted to get my fingers wet with cinematography and editing. After some discussion with my film team, I hope to get a little more experience in these areas. I don't want to take over either role, but I do want to learn what they do to share in the knowledge and the experience, since school is for learning. (That's at least the reason I took this class :) )

It's difficult once roles are defined to change and redefine, but I think that is a life lesson. We can plan for one thing, but for whatever reason, often it doesn't turn out as planned. We have to be flexible and sometimes ask: is there anything we can do to make this better? When we realize there is, we have to readjust and redefine.

For the future - we will be filming this weekend with Louis. We are still working out the details, but we may do a dive and at the very least ask some good interview questions and get some good content for our film.
On a completely different note - I watched a beautiful sunset yesterday at the beach. When I was standing there, I noticed all these little shells around me. If nothing else, working with Louis has opened my eyes to the whole wide world of micro shells and has given me a greater appreciation for all the beauty of the beach :)