A One Man Band
In my no way significant by any
stretch of imagination opinion, pre-production is thought to be the all too
necessary evil of filmmaking. I have always been one to just grab my camera and
go outside hoping a brilliant story would ensue. Amazingly, I have never caught
anything on film worth bragging about. In the first few weeks of class it has
been presented to me that pre-production is the base of any great (or bad)
film. Every story needs a direction, just as a man needs his senses to find his
way. Without the many phases of
pre-production, film would be nothing more than a humble jumble of patchy
frames, aimlessly guiding us into insanity.
In this short article, I will be showing what Gareth Edwards has taught
me about pre-production and how he was able to break the rules to his advantage.
First, let me give you a short
background on Gareth. Gareth is a British film director. He has worked on many
sets ranging from motion pictures to television series. Gareth specializes in
digital special effects. I recently took interest in Gareth and what he was
able to pull off in the making of his first full-length feature film, Monsters.
Admittedly, I think I found someone
who is possibly the worst role model for the use of collaboration in
pre-production. In a short video
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z52OHXfLbSU&feature=related) Gareth admits
that he used very little help producing this video. He ran on a very small
budget for a feature film, and he worked out of his bedroom. Gareth wrote and
directed Monsters in addition to
filming and doing all the special effects. In an interview conducted by Tom
Huddleston (http://www.timeout.com/film/features/show-feature/10976/gareth-edwards-making-monsters.html):
On a big project we’d have about 100
people on set, all these trucks. And if you had a spontaneous idea, say the
light suddenly did something beautiful and you really wanted to shoot it, you
couldn’t because you had to move all the trucks. The more you spend, the more
people you have to help you, the less you can actually do. Whereas if it’s just
you and an actor and a camera, you can do whatever you want.’
Gareth
continues to say that he improvised about 90% of the film. He is one of a rare
breed who would be able to pull this off.
I believe the only way Gareth was able to do this was that he understood
the standard coarse taken in pre-production so well, and he set out to create
something so different and raw. According to Gareth, “I looked at it like a
documentary, but one I could control.”
While I believe Gareth was able to
pull off his film quite successfully, despite not using the much thought out
pre-production steps, I do believe it is like playing with fire, next to a
swimming pool filled with gasoline. Gareth
was a lucky, determined man! Despite his success, I can only imagine how much
wasted time he incurred during the production of his film due to the lack of
planning.
