I had the opportunity to work on a short film titled Fishbowl, this past summer. I had a mentor who introduced the idea of working on a short film, and since the opportunity presented itself, I jumped on it. There were 12 people that would be working on 3 separate short films, so started pitching our ideas.
After some voting and discussion, I chose to work on the Fish Bowl. Fish Bowl was a film written and directed by Sam Marzzarella, and It features a young man named Simon who would very much like to stay at home (forever), as well as a mysterious talking fish who kicks off an unforgettable adventure when he appears on Simon’s doorstep.
After our team was established, we set up the main roles that we would then be working on for the remaining 10 weeks of the project. I was able to be the on-set sound operator to ensure we had good sound, as well as my main responsibility, which was the editor.
We had a few weeks of preproduction that we had to do in order to be successful. We wrote and rewrote the script, created storyboards, hired actors, and contracted out locations. We were lucky to have a great location to film all the inside scenes. We then contracted with the City of Rexburg Idaho to allow the filming of the outdoor locations.
We spent most of our time with the preproduction so that we could get everything filmed in the 4 days of shooting. After each day of shooting, I would take the footage and begin with the edits, so that the outline and story could be told.
As part of the process, we also made a trailer that we used to advertise and promote our film.
Then at the end, we had a movie premier where we watched all 3 of the short films made during the project. At this premiere, we also had an awards ceremony where the best film aspects were chosen by other video professionals. Out of the 8 awards ranging from best actor to best story, Fish Bowl was awarded all of them.
I had a ton of fun being able to piece this film altogether. I spent hours with my team editing, splicing, changing audio, and adjusting levels so that the color corrector could put his edits over our structured film. I am grateful for the chance I had to work on this film, and without further ado, here is Fish Bowl.