Film of Love

Soixante Et Un

They are now seated in their chairs. We provided a handouts printed for them to see all the details and the contents of the paper much clearer than the handouts we printed and photocopy last Monday. There are so much changes since that day—we change something and add something within a single day given to us. The handouts that were distributed that day is not even that polished and detailed but they also called that day a fate because if I didn’t faint, I laughed on that thought, we can’t have time to do this all.

Some of our co-workers also provided us an assistance because they heard what happened. We are grateful for that and the only thing I or We are nervous right now is how can we pass through the meeting without any mistakes or hindrances.

The plain paper handouts were made by ourselves, edited by our editorial team, while the copies of the script were written, of course, by us, edited by the people I mentioned earlier and it was a bit of hardbound copy with a nice quality and also it has the official cover for the movie and was made by the graphic designing team. They were the ones who handles the visual concepts and create designs and layouts for the company. I want to say or compliment how beautiful and cute the cover for the “Until she falls asleep”.  

The meeting is starting now as they successfully turn on and set up the presentation that doesn’t even have a plenty slides because they will probably want to do an oral type of presentation and not really dependent on the PowerPoint. The two newbie was noticeably nervous but the other two was simply doing so fine, they also want to be a figure for the both aspiring writers and make them lessen their nervousness as they will face the crowd. They been also in this for so many times now, so it was expected that they will start the meeting smoothly.

“I’d like to welcome everyone!” Julia said. She was voted as the unit leader for the division’s script writer. They insisted that they should have a leader because they are working in a group and not as individual which is the main point of why the company did a division in the first place, but of course no one knows about that than the higher officials.

“I am the unit leader, Julia Rousseau! I am with Lucy Auclair, Christine Laurent and January Ashton,” Julia introduced to the artists and production-director team. They all nodded their heads for us. I think they reserved the applause once we finished the meeting.

“Please open up your handouts on page 2,” Julia instructed. The people in their front were silently obeyed the request from the unit leader. “In the page 2, it shows the prompt or the summarization of the plot that we have for the movie.” She added and all of them look like they have been controlled by a one person on how they all looked down, read and look up again on the same time.

“Turn the page on, and you can see a bit more detailed contents and that will give you a little idea this time around,” said Lucy. “The settings of the story take place on the same country in different cities and also what are we focusing in the movie.” They took a time for each of them and it was getting nearer to Aryn but then it will pass through Tine first, who is busy talking and explaining the pages assigned to her to explain.

“Pages 6 and 10 focuses of the main points of every scenes. It can be the highlight of the story that we are trying to build,” she explained. That pages can be one of the most detailed part that they didn’t put last time that they get to place in the paper this time. They curiously and cautiously watched their reactions and find that puts their normal resting face and that concludes that they are somewhat neutral about it and it was most came from the above lines—it was still not expected. For some, they reacted like they are somewhat amused by the mere details that they get to place in the sheets of paper.

“Are these the main point or the highlights?” Sheila Beaufort, the 1st assistant director asked.

“Yes. There are also some notes about the move every characters have in that specific scene. There are also the mood and tones that we might thought to help to catch the sensation or the feelings that the artist will give,” Julia answered and also shared the purpose why they all agreed to put a mood and tone in every scene—it does feel that they offending the director, producers and the camera man because of what they did but surprisingly they understand it so well.

That detail alone can make someone’s job be lighter even just for a few inches. The jobs in the AD Department can take it as a helpful guide to assist the director in achieving their vision. The job of 1st Assistant director can be both is and isn’t exactly what it sounds like. I often mistaken then to be part of the “Above the line” in the film production hierarchy because of the job and responsibilities in their hands. The AD Department can be the “Middle line” and they are something like the center of a wheel, that keeps all the other departments joined together in order to make the whole production move forward.

The 1st AD’s mandate is simply assist the director, and a day-to-day responsibility that are stretched far beyond the creative concerns of the director. They are like the elbow in our arms that make sure we are all cooperating.

“On the pages 11-15 those are the vision that we wrote about the story that we imagined how it will decipher the story’s real meaning,” Aryn finally spoke up. As she says those words or the sentences her heart beat went back to normal. She felt relieved that the website that she clicked was useful, she didn’t stutter at all.

“We all know that all of the films that have been released are tricky in terms of its physical creation, this film will never want to be fall behind the creativeness and it is somehow complicated too,” Aryn said. “We put a little bit short but precise details to make sure that it will look so much better and what we imagined in our heads can be put in the real world.” She continued.

This part will never be easy for a project that is so huge in the beginning. Films or series can’t be done and watch so well without any creativity in visual aspects in every scene the take. The budget for this movie is massive and we want to put every penny of it into the making of the movie. Movies is not just a story or a recorded event by a camera as a set of moving images and will be shown in a theater or on the television. It is a story, played with various people but we just don’t listen to it, we just don’t tire our minds on imagining but film or a movie is a medium where we can feel that we are also in there, be there to escape the reality and feel the emotions and ride with the story line as we watch.

We included those in our written reports for the Art department to consider and also assist them on making the movie. The Art department are the ones who oversee the physical creation of all visual elements in a film. I realized that this meeting is not just some ordinary meeting because of the numbers of people in every department are here to see the presentation, the story and hear our opinions besides we are the real deal here, without us there will be no film.

I can see that the Production Designer, Ms. Aubrey Abreo and Mr. Aries Aguillard, the Art Director are present in the meeting, Aryn learned those as she survey the name plates that are resting on the top of the long, wide wooden table. They are the what you called the head and the second in command in the Art Department. Ms. Aubrey are there silently taking notes on her Ipad, she works with the director and the director of photography, Mr. Liam Wellington, to craft an overall look for the film, achieving it with the help of a wide variety of movie set jobs that can be found deeper within their department. They have plenty of people working with them because of how large their field is. Meanwhile, the Art Director may wear many hats depending on the scale of the production and we have a massive one. Being an Art director movie set jobs are mostly concerned with the supervisory responsibilities because they’re a field general who organizes and manages the rest of the art department crew to get the job done. So they are most likely to have brick stones in their shoulders but at the same time they have this wide range of capabilities that they develop within their field.

Aryn can now see how each department and their head or leaders are connected to each other. For someone new in the industry she often wonders who are working and being put in front of. When she was in her first year in college with a minimal knowledge about the film industry she always thought that maybe the directors and the producers are the only one who makes the movie but as she goes up in her level she discovers more from them but never really like to oversee all of them and focus on what she wants to know and who are the most likely to be known in terms of it.

She finally graduates on that part and she slowly take appreciation on the others behind the directors and the executive producers and finally felt that somehow, script writers have also a big part in the making.

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“That’s it for us! Thank you!” We all said. They gave us a very big round of applause because of the fact that we successfully finished presenting. The Directors and executive producers gave us a smile and we do smile back. It is uncommon to get a compliment, how about a smile then.

“Great job, ladies!” Mrs. Julia congratulates us and we said the same for her, because she never knows that she is the back bone of this group as well us with Ms. Lucy. We all went to the back because Ms. Layla and Mr. Kevin went on the front to lead the rest of the meeting.

They did was to instructed all of us especially the other departments on what they will do to finally start the process. They skipped us because we just held a presentation and they focus more on the departments that are really need to move. They also informed us a small meeting between two departments in the Yellow room or the brainstorming room.

“So that’s it for today! Thank you for attending!” Mr. Kevin said. The rest of us smiled and sighed in relief because of those words that will make the meeting dismiss officially.

“But for the scriptwriters as well as the artist please stay for a minute,” Ms. Layla announced. We all looked each other but I am sensing that they will give a dry run for the scripts and we are need for the supervision and guidance and also correct them if they give off a wrong vibe while saying this and those lines.

“So let’s start with the very first scene,” Ms. Lucy said. Luckily, we did bring our copies of the script so we can also follow them as they reenact or say their lines. The first scene is just the female lead, the parents in their home having dinner and so on.