Name Changes & The Whole Shabang!

Well, the film is finally finished. It feels extremely weird saying that. I feel like this is a project that I’ve been talking about for so long at this point.

I wanted to take you through the process and highlight something’s that I encountered while creating my film, “Rebirth.” I feel that these are very common things that occur during the creation of a student film and are therefore my final words of wisdom to you.

Let’s start with the title. Originally, the film was to be called, “Love Will Set You Free.” Based on my original script I really felt this to be an appropriate title.

I had written the script in such a way that it told the story of this young girl who had achieved her dreams of becoming a famous musician but got sucked into the monster known as fame.  It told the story of battling ones inner demons and being able to overcome obstacles. Her choosing love was supposed to be what set her free.  Granted in this synopsis it sounds cliché and campy but I promise you it had an enormous amount of heart and whit.

Once filming began and all of the actors were cast I knew immediately that the story that I had written and created would not be told. Our actors were not good at memorizing lines and felt more comfortable reading them and then improvising off of them. We did many rewrites of the script right in the middle of scenes. It was all about making it as fluid as humanly possible.

As the director I met with them as a group and we discussed the vision of the project. Ultimately we decided to use the script as a guideline and filming continued. I felt a little disappointed that my original vision had been changed but I was also very excited with what we had all come up with.

Listening to my actors really helped them to engage and get into their characters. It morphed from a drama to a dark comedy and got the story across in a different way.

While editing the piece together we felt that the title, “Rebirth,” fit not only the film itself but the group that we had become.  

While it is essential that you don’t lose the main focus of your film or what you’re trying to convey it is also just as important to listen and adapt with the people that you are working with. And so we have….Rebirth!