Arts Leadership: Project action plan

The course itself lasts 10 weeks however the making of our film should take place within the first 5 weeks or so. We have two key dates which are the 30th of November and the 1st of December; this is the two dates we are filming and editing the short film. We put it together into a video that lasts any time less than 2:20. I plan to take lots of pictures of the shoot while we film it, to show you what we are up to.

I expressed an interest in producing to Meabh (The head of BFI in Sheffield) and this lead me to be the producer of the group. I think I am going to learn being a better producer just by staying organised and on top of the work I get in BFI academy, I have already set up the closed facebook group and taken alot of time into making the page nice and adding cover photo's and mostly, being considerate to everyone in the group. My main goal is to give everyone and even say. I think the best way I am going to learn is through experience and what better place to get that than at BFI!

Week on week I want to see my team develop, I want to see us get closer not only as a production company but also as friends, I want everyone to enjoy it and hopefully get a fantastic film at the end of it. I think I will know if I have achieved this goal by how much I enjoyed working with my team, I want to have a calm atmosphere where we can be unique and creative. I think the moment I will know if I have done a good job is the moment where I will turn to my group at the premier of the short film we have created and I will ask them "did you enjoy making this film?" and I think at that point I will know if I have achieved my goal or not. I do plan to show this to my friends and family and I think the main way I will get feedback is from my group and if they are happy and enjoyed it, but I do also want the actual film to be a success and I suppose I will know if that is by how the live audience reacts to it. I set myself the goal of making our film be thought provoking and have some level of effect on the audience.
As you know, I am the producer of the group but what does this mean... in actuality what is it I do within my group.

Well first of all, I am trying to make sure everyone else has there role in coming together as a group to create the film. I have to check we stay on track, stay organised, remember things and are ready to film and know exactly what we are doing. This means thinking ahead, remembering to have things like fake blood, water and a cloth to clean up the fake blood, a umbrella to cover up the camera if it rains. However my most recent job as a producer is to find a way to work around getting a knife on set. If you have read the script Sophie Higget wrote, that I published on my blog you would know that there is a stabbing in the film. This presents allot of health and safety issues, If you are wondering exactly how many: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/etis20.pdf

Now after reading through all that and thinking of the best way to bring in a knife and make it safe, I ended up coming to two conclusions, 1.) my head hurts after reading so much and 2.) bringing a knife is over complicating it and not completely necessary. So I chose to get hold of a realistic rubber knife instead. This is just one example of one of the jobs I had. Although my main role is literally making sure everyone is happy and knows what they are doing.