4.Flexibility with plans change

I always bear in mind about plan change and being flexible because there was no storyboard to stick on, just a brief shot list as a reference and then follow by instinct and instant judgment. But I also revealed I could film more B-roll shots quickly without spending much more extra time, while I forgot because too many things in my head to make a judgment, at the same time consider everything which could make the post easier because I would have more usable inserted/B-roll shots. I wouldn’t forget to do if I planned in advance on the detail shot list/storyboard. So actually how many plans in advance is being optimized?

5. Reflection on Deliberate improvisation, coincidental improvisation and intuition:

Deliberate improvisation involves structural planning in advance, except that I leave more flexibility and freedom for any instant change whenever the situation does not come as expected. On the contrary, coincidental improvisation is a spontaneous practical action with intuition as an internal mental process.

3. Natural vs artificial act by editing:

The decision between whole take without a cut (good for actors performance and editor continuity), and cut between different takes to create a “perfect rhythm/scene”, became one of the criteria to judge which (natural/artificial) performance fits better. 

I could only examine them when I started editing. I found that it usually has some technical problems need to be handed at different takes. So choosing one of the full take and apply directly as the whole sequence wasn’t that easy as I thought.

However, if I combine/puzzle a whole sequence from different moments of different takes, it could be challenging by using improvising acting. Because the actors usually acted slight different at each take. When I edited from couples of takes (I couldn’t film too many takes because of time and budget restriction), I found there was actually very few options I could choose to assemble the sequence after clearing out those technical problems. It further enhances the difficulty when each take is not consistent.  

Research question:

-What are the pros and cons of using improvisation to solve problems in the filmmaking process?

-How to deal with uncertainty by improvisation by one of the mean?

-What are the difference between coincidental improvisation and deliberate improvisation, and How did it change my filmmaking? 

The full PDF thesis of "From problem-solving to improvisation in filmmaking 

can be downloaded here:

Filming Process Reflection:

Hereby is the summary of my reflection in the improvising filmmaking process:

1. Challenge of improvisation for actors:

There was not enough preparation to practice planned improvisation. e.g. didn’t cast actors whom I targeted them for improvised performance, so I couldn’t let them contribute their own dialogue. I could have achieved it by either knowing the actors’ personal life enough so that I can guide them based on their histories, or I cast those who received enough improvising training.

One actor improvised by himself voluntarily. At one of the shooting day, he relied on alcohol to boost up the impact, it became a little out of control, his conversation was aggressive to the opponent actor, but it was a good try.

On the other hand, those actors who dictated the scripted dialogue perfectly performed not natural in my eye, because they remembered every line so their acting seems quite scripted. The obvious phenomenon was that they didn’t leave any pause when the dialogues throwing back and forth between the actors. It doesn’t seem like a real conversation in which we mostly would think before we say something out.

2.Digital era filmmaking with improvisation to challenge artisan film profession:

When filmmaking has become easier by the growth of digital technologies, in which I feel visual effects with green screen shooting has the strongest effect. On one hand I am happy that filmmaking is no longer just a luxurious wish that is only possible to dream about when I get a huge amount of money to start; but at the same time I also feel filmmaking is less interesting after so many films just relied on computer generated images (CGI) keying with green screen shootings of actors, rather than showing an actual location to film. As a result, I feel the importance of director role is somehow being shifted away and shared to the visual supervisor.  I tried to look for a way to defend that “filmmaking can still be interesting”.