That’s a Wrap: Reflections from NCF
Call time was at 6am, and you couldn’t fall asleep till 2am. You’ve already downed two cups of coffee that didn’t do much to alleviate your heavy eyelids. The day just started, and somehow we are already running behind schedule, according to the 1st AD. All you want to do is to sit down on an apple box for a couple of minutes and close your eyes.
But then, the gaffer says a really dumb pun, or the actor hilariously messes up his lines during a take— and everybody starts laughing. All of a sudden, you forget how tired you are; you forget how badly you want to just go home and sleep; you forget how stressful the job is. In that moment, you’re just laughing with a bunch of your teammates and friends who are just as sleep-deprived and delirious as you are. At least we’re all still together, laughing. It’s the togetherness in our mutual exhaustion that bond us. We all become family. We allow our bar for humor to fall lower and lower as the day goes on. We laugh at everything.
I think there are few experiences quite as uniquely bonding as making a film together.
Filmmaking is teamwork at its best. Every single person on set is a part of something greater. Each person’s job, however seemingly insignificant, contributes to the success of the film. One fails, and we all fail. Every person matters. Every frame matters. We’re a well-oiled machine that only functions with the collaboration of its parts.
Filmmaking is nonstop creative problem-solving. From covering the reflection in a microwave with hairspray to shaping a light with cinefoil, you have to think on your feet, bounce ideas off of each other, observe, and listen. There are always unexpected problems. It’s a part of the fun! We’re all winging it on the fly, “hollywooding” it, learning from each other as we go.
Take one. Take two. Take three… Take ten.
The moment the director yells cut after the martini shot’s perfect take, there are big smiles and proud high-fives.
We made a film.
You drive home from set utterly exhausted, but smiling. Your heart is full. You lay in bed with too much adrenaline still running through your body to fall asleep. You can still hear the voice of the 1st AD saying “lock it up, we’re going for picture!”
Filmmaking takes time—so much time. Before you even shoot a single shot, you have spent hours reading and analyzing the script, envisioning it in your head, location scouting, and putting your vision onto paper in the form of shot lists and storyboards. And then, you get to build it in front of your eyes: blocking, setting frame, lighting, designing each and every frame.
And then, finally, you sit down one day to watch the very first rough cut. All of a sudden, it hits you. You realize the thing that was just a figment of your imagination has magically become a film on a screen. A film that tells a story. A film that an audience can watch and share. What a strange feeling, you think to yourself. What a magical thing filmmaking is.
So here's to us — the creatives, the adrenaline junkies, the perfectionists, the dream team — the filmmakers of NCF. We pushed through crisis after crisis, one exhausting day after another, and let these films take over our lives for a semester. We became friends, and then family, and we made three stunning short films together in four months for the world to see!
