Terre Di Cinema: Altitude

I was given the opportunity to attend the CineCampus as one of the Writer/Directors where we had 35mm film stock to shoot on, being sponsored by Kodak.

The goal of the scheme is to provide multiple challenges to the filmmaker allowing them to develope essential scheduling and problem-solving skills by restricting the amount of film stock provided and only one day to shoot their films.

It is an educational programme allowing the participants to learn practically through the making of ten short films as well as intellectually through the attendance of master classes with award winning Directors and Cinematographers.

With these restrictions in mind I wrote a short four minute script entitled Altitude which is currently in post-production. Since the scheme was taking place in Catania Sicily we were given a broad theme involving the wine culture and the resident Volcano Mt Etna.

Not only was it a challenge to write about another culture but we had to produce the film in a foreign country with limited pre-production time. I personally wanted to see the beautiful parts of Sicily in my film and so included four locations which provided us with a very strict time constraint.
Working alongside my Director of Photography we decided in order to manage three unit moves within one day we had to limit ourselves to twelve shot set-ups, meaning the challenge then became how to tell the story effectively within these twelve shots.

Taking into consideration the vast amount of limitations and challenges this film presented I am very proud of what I and the crew achieved. We were able to experiment and found creative solutions to these constraints which I believe is the ultimate point of such a scheme and shows a lot of the skill and passion of the filmmakers.

I learned a lot through this programme and the people I met on it, being surrounded by nine other Directors and twenty Cinematographers and camera crew.
I was also able to First AD one of the other Directors films which allowed me to practice my people and time-keeping skills as well as give me a film credit within that role.