Shire Shorts! A student’s eye view.

Hi my name is Aimee Rigg. When I heard about Shire Shorts I immediately applied. It sounded fun and I hoped it would help me in my Directing career. After the first session I had already learnt so much about film, Sarah-Jane boosted my understanding on camera angles, lighting, colour meanings, genres and all the camera roles. We also got an understanding of finance and what it is like to have a budget.

Our awesome tutor Sarah-Jane and Mayor of the Sutherland Shire, Carmelo Pesce with my team!

Teamwork was a big part of this course, because we all had to work as a team to get things done. Every team had to make some pretty hard decisions, like what to spend their money on, what lighting and shots to use, and what roles everyone would play. My team mates Chloe Rigoni, Annie Henderson and Alex Russell all worked together to get the job done. In our team we had editors, actors, a director, producers and a camera man. We had two whole shoot dates and another full day of editing. It was very stressful in a short time frame but we got it done, and we made loads of good memories along the way.

Behind the scenes…. “Connection”

After we finished the script and organised the due dates then we had to figure out the cast, location and props. Cast was easy because Chloe and Annie are great actors and were keen to act. Location was a bit harder, due to different sites we needed to film at the filming took two and a bit days to film, and the filming took place at two houses and a park. When it came to props the Sutherland Shire Council kindly gave us a $100 budget, which my group used to buy props like fake flowers, cans of sardines, clothing and lunch for the crew. Chloe’s cousin and sister Gabby and Sophie were in a couple of scenes so when they had nothing to do we would let them do lighting, clapper boarding and press start on the camera, that was very exciting for them. Sophie even asked “will this be on Netflix.”

Setting up the camera!

On the 28th of April was the film premiere. All of the films were really well done, and worthy to win an Oscar. After all the films ended the filmmakers walked out the front of the cinema to receive their certificate and awards. I won Best Director and my team won Best Film. I was so happy when I heard my name being called out because every film was extremely good and I didn’t think that It would be mine. My teams film is a drama called Connection. Then there was a hilarious film called Doug that won Best Actor, and Charlie won the Bus Stop Films prize. As well as another very funny comedy horror called Horridy that won best Special Affects. I wouldn’t be able to pick out a favourite part, although seeing my film playing at the cinemas was a great experience and I can’t wait to see how it develops over the years.

By Aimee Rigg.

It was so cool to win Best Film and Best Direction!

It was great to have so much support at the Premiere! Jason, Bec, Gerard and Gary!