Writer’s Block is an observational short film, as such the camera follows a character for a day.
When it came to create a story, my group and I sat down and brainstormed some ideas for possible characters. We were looking for an interesting type the audience could relate to. We decided to pretty much make fun of ourselves by portraying an aspiring filmmaker who had been rejected by film school. He has an average life, the classic 9 to 5 job, but it’s almost as if he is actually living in a magical world, created by his own imagination. After a long time spent procrastinating, probably not due to apathy but more to anxiety, he finally starts typing the beginning of a script.
For this project I was the storyboard artist, production designer and secretary of production. So my role was to draw the storyboards, think of costumes and set design and keep a record of the work done on set (by filling in log sheets, so that the editor could easily identify the good takes). My favorite part was probably drawing the storyboards, even though they didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted. I still need to work on drawing realistically without photos as references. The production design was pretty simple, to make Sam’s room look messy I brought books, magazines and clothes. As far as log sheets, I think they are really important to speed up the editing process and make the editor’s job a little easier (shout-out to Mia who edited it😊). And it was nice to see that everyone on set had a specific role and was being cooperative.
The rough cut of the short turned out to be really long, so we had to cut a fair amount of the story out. There are some continuity errors and the camera and sound quality isn’t great since we couldn’t book out equipment. Overall though it was a great experience and we followed all of the set procedures, so I’ve definitely learned a lot.
Frame by Frame 