Graduating from University!

This week I officially graduated from the University of Portsmouth with a Bachelors Second Class Honours Degree in Film Production. The three year journey it took to get here hasn’t always been easy especially during this final year where I pushed myself out of my comfort zone by being the producer on my Graduate film. Which was a monumental task for me to take on due to the heavy amount of pre-production work I would be taking on along with then being on set making sure the production ran smoothly with the cast and crew. Then finally making sure the post production side of things was on track towards meeting the deadline that had been set for us. So overall while it was stressful for me having to balance so many things such as booking equipment, scheduling shooting dates, producing legal paperwork, securing locations, actors etc. It all did pay off in the end for what I believe to be a well written and well shot movie.

If you want to check out my graduate film titled Left Behind then you can by visiting the student projects page. While there you can also check out the Behind the Scenes video I shot and edited together to accompany the film. That was certainly a fun side project for me to do as it gave me the freedom to go about editing the video in any way I wanted. So to put it into perspective I was allowed to tell the story of how our film came to be in any format I wanted. Meaning that when you watch the video you can see I included several montages where they were put together to convey a comedic manner and then other moments where the crew and I talk about how grateful we were to find such talented actors etc. Whereas the editor for the full film was quite restricted when it came to piecing together each scene due to the director having a solid vision as to how he wanted each scene to look by already knowing what shots he wanted to use and their place within the scene. However saying that I have worked on editing films in the past with a clear cut brief that states what the client wants and how they envision the video to look. To which I still find enjoyment out of that due to my love for video editing however every now and then when it comes to me being able to freely edit to the pace that I like and the style that I want then it makes the process even more enjoyable for me. I watch a lot of behind the scenes featurettes/documentaries on films and TV shows that I like so I always have a rough template in mind as a starting off point whenever working on projects like this.

The last three years at Portsmouth University have been nothing short of amazing. I’ve made lots of new friends which I feel will be in my life for a long while yet. Plus I feel as if I have grown as a person not just when it comes to education and having a better understanding of the industry I want to work in. I also have gained many life skills as well that will continue to help me throughout the rest of my life when it comes to things like living on my own again one day. Portsmouth it’s been a pleasure.