Amateur filmmaking

Recently, I had the opportunity to "star" in an amateur film as a dead monk tied to a tree. Thankfully, my horrible acting skills were not questioned, and I wasn't in an uncomfortable position for too long, unlike the main character of the scene, who had to be set on fire. But I digress. My friend Ibrahim's brother Lukman Hussin (who's playing a role in our film) invited me to play an extra in a film where he plays the main character. Lured by promises of fire* and ninjas**, I decided to take him up on that offer, as I thought I'd learn from the experience.
The scene filmed was a 5 second sequence where the main character (Lukman) looks out of a window and sees his friends all being attacked, and in one case, set on fire. There were 6 actors in total in the scene, four characters fighting, one dead (me) and one being set on fire. Although the camera was only rolling for 5 seconds, we were there for over an hour. All the fighting had to be planned out and practiced, and the fire suit had to be readied. Although I realise that a simpler dialogue
scene would probably take far less time, I had never really given much thought into the filming process. The planning was all done before hand, and was as perfect as it could ever have been. The camera was simply set in the right position and turned on and it was the acting which took so much time, although I am sure that this is something that depends on the circumstance. Still, it was interesting to see how similar the storyboard and actual shot were, in some places identical and in others unrecognisable. The planning was in the acting too though, all the costumes were ready to put on, and copious amounts of cooling gel was prepared, as well as a fire suit and fire extinguisher. Although there were still decisions that had to be made on the spot, everything was done swiftly and smoothly. As there could only easily be one take, it had to be done perfectly. All that said, there were a lot of things which were not planned so well, such as everyone forgetting to take a lighter save for one actor, and deciding to take some petrol to burn just as we left was a very wise decision.


So did I learn anything useful from the day? The most informative part of it I found to be the experience of being in a film set. Simply being there gave me a good idea of what to expect and how the filming process is carried out, which was definitely worth learning. The importance of planning was another thing I learnt, as every shot was planned out, ready to film. I know that if one thing had gone wrong, we could have been there at least another hour; it was luck alone that there was a lighter in one of the actor's pockets.
*Sorry, I was too tied to a tree to take pictures.
**The film is a martial arts-musical with ninjas and monks.