Pandemic is short film conceived and created by Sidcot students. It aims to convey a range of opinions and observations of life in lockdown.
Autumn 2020... we couldn't assemble a cast from mixed year groups... we couldn't put an audience in the Meeting House... everyone had to be kept apart in 'bubbles'... then from time to time a bubble or individuals would have to go home and isolate. A big stage production was out of the question.
So instead we made a video called "Pandemic" - a collection of items each contributed to by actors and crew from within a bubble.
Planned, scripted and shot over the Autumn Term, this project involved a lot of students and constant communication to get everyone in the right places at the right times. The IT and organisational skills students developed during OSL in the summer came in really handy here. Costumes had to be found, lines had to be rewritten and lots of locations had to be found.
Students learned about the 'grammar' of how a scene is shot and put together, and how lights and camera angles can be used to get the effect you want. Most importantly from the Drama perspective, they learned how acting for a camera is very different to acting on a stage - every eye movement matters, everything is more subtle and you need to do the same thing for each shot or the editor won't be able to put it all together.