Within our short-film production there are 7 different teams which includes: producer, screenwriter, director, cinematographer, editor, sound and actors. These aren’t very big teams as most of the roles only have one person working in them (the biggest is actors with 3 people).

I think for a film production to be successful teamwork is necessary, and therefore it is important that different teams work together. Within my groups short-film production I think the separate teams worked well together.

When preparing for the shoot everyone gave the screenwriter story ideas for the screenplay, despite what role they were in. This was successful as it is much faster and easier to come up with a story when 5 people are giving suggestions rather than just 1 person, which is very important when you are working in a short time frame. This also allowed everyone’s voice to be heard. Also, in the run up to the production there were moments when just two teams would work together. For example, the screenwriter would work with the producer and to find out if the screenplay was suitable.

During the shoot a lot of teams are normally working together, and the director is normally involved. For example, the director will tell actors how to act in a certain scene, or will tell the cinematographer how to capture a certain scene. In our production there was a lot collaboration with the people behind and in front of the camera. For example, some people would be feeding lines to the actors, or telling them where to position themselves, and actors would give feedback on how they think scenes should play out.

It is important that production teams work well together as not only is this faster, allowing things to happen more smoothly, but if there is a good team-working atmosphere this will mean people will be more likely to suggest ideas. For example, during pre-production we were a bit stuck on what to do with our story, but then someone in the team suggested that we could have the two hit men fall in love, which was a good idea, as not only does it give the story a stronger sense of direction but also turned our film into more of a dark-comedy, which is what we were going for.

If there isn’t good teamwork the opposite can happen and the pace of production can really slow down. Within our production there was a small moment when teamwork could have been better and this was to do with communication, as during our shoot we only had 2 copies of the screenplay when we really should have had at least 5. This was mainly due to us not deciding who should print off what, and affected the production by slowing things down a little, as people would have to gather round the screenplay in groups, however, if everyone had their own copy, less hassle would be caused if someone just wanted to look what scene we were doing.