The Comradery Effect

When you work on a film, be it a feature or a short, you naturally form a sort of attachment to the people that you're working with. You can call it what you want: comradery, friendship, family bonds, whatever, it doesn't really matter, what matters is that it's there. This relationship is somewhat short lived when it happens on a short film (obviously) because you'll be shooting for, maximum, a week together, and chances are you probably haven't done an awful lot of rehearsal time or the like.

I've never worked on something of the scale of Follow The Crows before, and so it's interesting to see that comradery bloom for an extended period of time. I have found friends, working on this project, that I sincerely hope I will remain in touch with, I have found people whom I desperately want to work with again, and I have enjoyed watching people come closer, as they do in situations such as this.

In jokes begin to crop up, people start to finish each others sentences, you see everyone beginning to find themselves on the same page, it's a great thing to watch unfold and it's an even greater thing to be a part of. There's something very (and I hate using words like this but it's true) magical about the whole thing. A group of people who had never met before forming a close bond, it's something you don't really see happen in other professions and I don't mind saying that it's one of my favorite parts of the film-making process.

This phenomenon was most evident during our recent shoot on the sunny sands of Burnham on Sea. We took a mini-bus up for the weekend, ready to shoot a couple of the more intense and difficult sequences of the movie. These aren't necessarily complicated shoots, but they're very emotional ones, two major sequences in our story, and we felt that the beach setting would add to the overall feel of the whole thing.

We took a skeleton crew (myself, the producer, the actors and the head of make-up, the DoP was unable to stay so would be joining us for the day and then heading home in the evening) and set off out to the beach. The ride up was a nice one, people chatted. We had spent that day shooting a very complicated sequence, so everyone was pleased for the break.

We spent the first evening relaxing and eating fish and chips (it is the seaside after all) and then we went to bed, ready for the intensive day ahead. The day was spent shooting in some lovely locations, and while we may have had some issues with the fire during the evening ("some issues" can be roughly translated into "smoke practically blinding our lead actress") we managed to get everything out of the way and done, and all in all the day was a success.

The evening, once our DoP had headed home and everyone was changed into their "civvies" and well fed, things took an unexpected turn. Needless to say drink was involved and fun was had by all! To go into details would be far to expansive, and perhaps that's a subject for a blog post in itself, but suffice to say we came out the other end closer. Yet another perfect example of how people on film sets will bond over their shared experiences, what else are you expected to do waiting around in the rain for hours on end for the weather to cheer up?