Watergate: A 2-Day Experience
On May 14th, we participated in a workshop organized by Green Me Festival Berlin organizers in Tehran. The main objective was to make a short film in 96 hours with the theme or subject of water, life, or the ocean. We formed six groups and started to shape our basic idea. We were supposed to write a short synopsis in thirty minutes. Despite the amazing teamwork experience, it would be considered to be a lot of fun to be back on short film production. I kinda missed it and I was really excited about it.
The teams were supposed to hand in their films by Wednesday. The winner is supposed to receive a 500 Euro prize among screening at the next edition of the Green Me Festival in 2017. There were a few rules such as keeping the duration between 3 to 10 minutes and restricting the subject to the water-related issues.
As a part of the agreement, our group was supposed to make a short film in 96 hours. As much as challenging it was, this project also was an amazing teamwork experience for me. We came up with an idea on the first day of the workshop on Saturday. we had to write it down in a few sentences and bring it to the workshop director. After that, we formed a basic storyline which Shahin worked on it. He wrote the script that night and the directing team designed simple and fast decoupage of the shots.
We started shooting on Monday. In less than a few hours, we shot almost half of the film and the main heist group scenes. Soroush, our DP, used a 5D Mark III with analog prime lenses. We also shot the slow-motion scenes with iPhone 6s which gave us true 240fps capturing at 720p resolution. Monday was our big day cause we had lots of outside scenes with four actors. Almost all the shots that needed some kind of preparation or accessories were planned on this day.
Our second day of shooting surprisingly took more time. We had to break into two groups on the final hours to shot simultaneously in two different locations. Tuesday was passing quickly and we were working hard to use the most of the natural light. Finally, we finished the production step and started editing at night.
Shahin, Negin, and I spent almost 8 hours of constant work on editing, color grading, and sound editing of the film. We finished the final touches on Wednesday at 4 AM and we were supposed to deliver it by 10 AM. The final edition of the film was four and a half minutes long and quite satisfying. We could finally take a break.
Although we didn’t win the prize, I must say it really was a great experience. Shahin and I had done such projects before as we created 28 Percent Pure from idea to the final film in less than 24 hours, but this time it was different. The fact that we had to work in a group with six fellow members with different views and ideas made all the difference and turned this project into a challenging yet enjoyable teamwork experience. The following is a series of still photos captured from Watergate. I hope I can share the complete film here soon.
