The starting point for this post is a memory of a very stressful but also great feeling I had in a week in December. I was the director for our short film “Blau wie der Morpho”. Before this project, I mostly focused on animation because I liked having total control over every detail. Working with real people on a set felt like a huge hurdle for me, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle it. My main inspiration for the style of the short movie was the ideas that were created in the last semester by some other people in my class as well as a short awareness campaign by Aldi. I really liked their style, it was very realistic and short, but it made you think. That was the direction I wanted for our film about Frau Giraldi and her caregiver Elias.
When I look back at the process, it wasn’t just about the filming itself. I spent a lot of time with two teammates rewriting the script. We changed the whole concept to make it shorter and focused more on “awareness”. During the casting, I learned about a theater piece called “Geteiltes Leben,” which is how I met our main actress. She was perfect for the role of Frau Giraldi because she already had experience playing a similar character. The most difficult part for me was the leadership role. I am someone who really needs harmony and I don’t like telling people what to do if it feels like I’m being bossy. On the first day of the shoot I felt very insecure. It was a student project, so everyone had their own ideas, and sometimes it was hard to make the final decision. I was lucky to have Noah and Peter on the team because they supported me a lot when I struggled with my role as a director. I also came to realize that I enjoyed the time on the set the most. The roles were clearly defined, which made it easier for me to focus on the actors and the scenes. It felt very different from animation. It was more about human emotions and quick decisions. However, the post-production was harder again. When we were editing, many different opinions came together, and my need for harmony made it difficult to just say “no” to ideas I didn’t like. I had to learn that as a director, you sometimes have to be firm to protect your vision. In the end, I was really happy because the actors gave me great feedback. They told me they felt I had a very clear vision for the film. I still more interested in doing animations but this project also gave me an impuls to look into directing or art direction in a general sense. It’s a great feeling to see a vision from your head actually happen in real life. I still need to work on being more confident in my decisions when things get complicated, but I definitely want to do this again.