I know its coming. But I’m still feeling the uneasiness the reality is bringing me. I’m scared to finally meet the truth that our work didn’t qualify the competition, that our work isn’t good, that our work is rejected. I have the wisest idea on how to face and handle rejection. I’ve been an advocate of fear not rejections. But now I’m about to face it, together with my colleagues who dreamt and helped to work it out. Maybe, that’s what makes the situation more difficult for me to accept- it was not only me who worked on it. Maybe if it was only me who worked for it, I can face the upcoming rejection easier. I hate this feeling, actually. I’ve been rejected for a lot of times from varying aspects of life. But it’s different this time because our group who produced the film was labelled as a good one when it comes to such area. We are expected to produce some good films and we weren’t able to do so.

Maybe it was naive of me to think we can qualify that film competition when we’d just started producing the film last Friday and editing the whole thing night before the prior date of submission. I had so many mistakes on that filmmaking experience. And I’m asking myself whether it was a mistake too believing so much on our story. I don’t regret pursuing all the shootings and editing stuffs, but I’m kinda regretting for not analyzing our story well. And that’s more awful than the first, because it should’ve been the first thing to pursue actually- examining the quality of the story.

And now, I’m rethinking of what I’ve written. Is it the story’s fault or the cinematography’s fault? Because if we perceived that the story we all have ended up conferring with isn’t good, we wouldn’t dare to produce the film after all, but obviously we did, so it means we found and felt something good about it. So I’m about to blame the way the film was produced. And I stand as the director of the film, so it is me to blame for the rejection.

I’ve watched the short film for numerous times after it was edited. And I became honest with myself that there’s no ‘wow’ factor I felt on the first and even the last time I viewed it. I wonder if my colleagues felt the same way. I wasn’t able to ask how they feel about our film because I’m afraid they’re feeling the same way with me towards it. And that was the worst feeling I felt ever since we started shooting the film; not the feeling of lacking support from your prod-mates, not the pressure of finishing it on time, not the feeling of having no rest and no sleep because of the editing part, but the feeling of even your own colleagues who you worked with do not feel great about the result of the film you spent time and effort with for 5 consecutive days.

Yeah, maybe that 5 consecutive days was to blame as well because no very good films were created within days. But my mind is fighting back, if you’re good, no matter how short you created a film, the end product will still be good. Maybe I was naive to think we were good, that I am good. Maybe I’m capable of doing such, but I’m still not good. We were not good because first and foremost we have no formal and practical training on filmmaking. And it was just our first time to create a film and submit an entry to a film competition. We will still be taking film appreciation subject by next semester. And I am a Broadcasting student, not filmmaking. But we were able to produce good music videos before, the reason we believed we’re capable and good. Only, the first character was true, and the latter is still to work out through. Plus, I am never the director of those good music videos we created before that I stated.

I’m not only sure if there’ll be next time to work out being good. What if they won’t believe on me anymore? What if they’ll blame me fully for not qualifying on the competition? I am certain of myself that I didn’t only rely on my ability. I pursued the filmmaking because I saw they can do well. My actors are good. They can act well. Only, the end product was not enough, leave the blaming to my chosen setting s and cinematography and my personal mistakes.

Of course, I don’t want ending this blog putting all the blame on me. So I’ll end it up with all the learnings I realized from that filmmaking experience.

1.       Plan ahead of time. As in super ahead of time, not just a week before the deadline.

2.       Meet the production team and casts in person before shooting. Don’t just text or call them.

3.       Have your production staffs and casts read and memorize the entire script ahead of time. Because in our case, only me and the scriptwriter read the script. The rest read it during the shooting. My actors are good in impromptu and memorizing their lines in minutes, hah.

4.       Orient the camera men on the needed settings and shots of the camera prior to the scene to shoot. Use tripod as long as you can.

5.       The film editor should be always present on the production. As I observed being the editor always in any of our class’ productions, it’s much easier to choose and edit scenes when you’re fully aware on how the scene was taken and what the following scenes are.

6.       Take note of the settings and outfits of your casts. From the earrings, clothes, up to shoes of each cast, everything must be noted. In our case, we weren’t able to shoot all scenes located in a certain place all at the same time. The first time we shoot a certain scene in a particular place, one of our casts wears yellow closed shoes. During the second time we shoot the other part of that same scene in other place, we didn’t notice, the cast wears a different pair of shoes, and it’s a black one. We just noticed it during the editing.

7.       Take notes on what are still needed on the production and always read those notes. Don’t you ever forget to perform what you’ve taken notes for because it may ruin everything on your film. Get occupied by other issues and concerns but never ever forget to prioritize your film. On my experience, I forgot to read my notes for the last day of shooting because I faced so much issues on my other organizations and I ended up lacking some scenes and voice over which ruin things, well, not everything; but if those stuffs which I missed up cause our disqualification to the competition, I bet, that’s everything.

8.       Have a production budget. Money makes the world go round, hah.

9.       Edit ahead of time. Not night before the deadline, so if rendering errors arise, you would still have a bunch of time to process it all over again. And so you won’t sleep only for 15 minutes the entire time you’re editing.

10.   Thank God in spite of everything. This is the best learning I always have.

Lately, I’m under the spell of The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Princess Diaries. I thank Charlie of the ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’ and Mia of ‘Princess Diaries’ because if it weren’t of them, I won’t fill this stuff with so much letters.

I definitely admire novel authors like Meg Cabot and Stephen Chbosky. They can make their readers feel whatever their novel is conveying on every part of its story. When the character gets sad, I get sad too. When they’re happy, I’m happy too. I’ve been an avid reader of books for 6 years and books (always novels, never academic) are always amazing for me. I see it’s getting real whenever somebody opened up a book and started reading every page, and understand what the characters are going through. It’s just too awesome for me, especially whenever I’ve come to like the story so much, and yeah, I admit, it’s my form of escape when my reality gets tough and gloomy and boring.

I just realized by now that the novels I got under-spelled of, which I’ve dearly loved have something to do with self-actualization. Maybe it’s because, I, myself wanted to be self-actualized.