I have worked with Terry on many other video projects previously and have enjoyed the creative process. However, this one was different because we had a unique script and more creative freedom to produce something memorable. What started as a little video that we wanted to enter for a specific contest, turned into something rather special that we are now thinking can go even further, such as in the short film festival circuit and on the big screen.
When I was first brought onto this project, I was interested in working on it as an editor and potential VFX artist but didn’t think I would be directing it! I did have some previous directing experience, mostly on corporate videos or commercial work, but I was surprised when Terry asked if I would direct this little drama. I said I would read the script and see what I thought about it first, which I did, and I loved the concept.
First, Christmas is my favourite holiday, and I was very excited about creating some holiday scenes that would feel relatable, nostalgic, and magical. I think there is something special about the holiday season that brings people together, encourages people to spend time with their friends and families, re-evaluate their priorities, and really enjoy each other’s company.
The other part of the script that made me want to tell the story was the idea of traditions and values being passed on to future generations, and the different perspectives involved in these processes. You have the parents, who are trying to surprise their daughter with a big doll house, knowing she loves playing with dolls. Then, you have the daughter trying to surprise her parents with a handmade gift to welcome her future sibling. It is a really sweet story of how the daughter is mirroring the parents’ love language in using a surprise as a way to bring joy and show affection, while also receiving that same joy in return when she sees her present.
Of course, at first glance this just looks like the Christmas season is full of gift giving and receiving, but it is also a positive message about passing along joy and raising children that will turn around and do that for not only their parents, but also their peers (or siblings). In a world that is so full of selfishness and greed, we sometimes forget that we have the power to bring others joy, just by putting some thought into what they might like and being creative about how to obtain it.
In the weeks leading up to our shooting day for this project, I quickly realized that there were a lot of moving parts, and everything had to be planned to perfection to get this to work. I carefully went through the script with my producer, noting props, costumes, and locations we would need to pull it all off and make it look seamless. Terry went to work on securing us a house that had everything we needed to shoot in one location, and I started looking for crew.
Since I am a graphics professor, I reached out to a few of my past students to see if they would be willing to work on this with me, and I ended up with the best production assistants I could have asked for. Terry found our DOP, and we collaborated on choosing our talent. I was especially excited that we would be able to work with Adie again, as I worked with her on a previous production and had a great experience.
I knew that this production would mainly be centered around her acting, as the audience needed to believe her reactions were genuine. Working with kids is something I have a lot of experience with, and I wanted to make sure that Adie’s experience was positive, and that she felt like her voice was heard and valued. I asked her a lot of questions about her character prior to commencing filming. We discussed which clothes were appropriate, how we would style her hair, what kinds of feelings she should be portraying and how she was going to show that in her body language.
I think it’s important with all actors, but especially children, to really go through the whole process and make sure they know and are comfortable with everything that is about to happen so they can do their best work, and we ultimately get the best result. I was very pleased that Adie and her family were so supportive of the whole process, and they all walked away from the set with big smiles, wanting to work together again.
I knew this project was going to be very challenging – we had a LOT of material to cover, and we only had a small amount of time. We had a single day in our location, and we had to ensure that we planned out all the shots in the right timeframe so that we would have daylight for most of the shoot. I worked on the shooting schedule for days to ensure that we would have enough time for setup, shooting and re-positioning. I planned where all my crew hands would always be, and what everyone should be doing.
I shared this information with everyone ahead of time, so that they would be prepared and there would be less confusion about what was coming next, or what anyone had to do at any given time. I think the most important thing you can do as a director is to communicate with your team. Everyone on set has a common goal – to shoot all the content that is required in an organized way and ensure that everyone is treated with respect and grace.
While I had not worked with my DOP, or my students in this context before, I trusted their experience and expertise to be able to execute the vision. Being a woman in film means that there is little room for insecurity – you must show up consistently and always be giving 110% to ensure that the opportunities stay open and hopefully grow in the future.
We had so many challenges- we had to make it look like Christmas in the summer, make the cookies look real, make a massive dollhouse box for a product that doesn’t exist, and fight with inconsistent natural sunlight coming in through some large windows in the family room. My approach was simply to tackle one thing at a time and do as much prep work as possible. I think being a postproduction professional was the real advantage to being able to direct this project the way that I did. If I didn’t have any editing, VFX or graphics knowledge, this would have been a lot harder.
We knew we needed snow, so we got a little bit of artificial snow that we made on-set and used it for some of the external shots where we might see it in the background. Knowing that wouldn’t be enough to sell it, I did a couple of VFX tests with images of the house prior to filming so that I could get the look just right.
Not only did the practical snow help me get lighting references on set, but it also enhanced the overall look once I added the falling snow and dustings on the trees/ground/rooftops. I even had the unique opportunity to show some of my past students how to prep a set for VFX work later, which is something I never get to discuss with them in the classroom.
As for the dollhouse, we made the massive label ahead of time and put it on a very large empty cardboard box. It’s always fun to do some product design for a brand that doesn’t exist and try to get it to look like an existing product, so the audience knows exactly what it is. I think this turned out especially great, and it read really well on camera.
For the lighting issues, we realized early on that we were just going to have to “roll with it” and shoot what we needed even if the lighting was not ideal. I worked with my DOP to adjust camera settings as best we could to keep things as consistent as we could, also knowing that we would have to do some colour correction to fix a lot of it in post.
I also tried to look at every shot with a critical eye and analyze the frames we were getting on the monitor to adjust what we could on set and avoid future work. For example, we had a large diffuser over one of the windows in the shot with young Adie in the bedroom. It was the only thing that helped make the lighting on her face/in the room workable. However, it posed another problem- we could see the edge of it in the frame, and there was no way around it. We tried hiding it, re-positioning it, etc. but we got to a point where we knew it was going to have to stay in the shot and we would have to remove it in post. So, I checked our angle and made sure that we also shot some clean plates of the window frame/bench without the diffuser, got some clean footage of the doll house, and anything else I might need to make it work, and then moved on.
When I finally sat down to edit it, I was so happy that I had the plates and extra shots because it made it much easier to work with and make it look seamless. We had more than one instance of things we noticed afterwards that caused continuity errors, or things that didn’t look quite right that we were able to fix because we had so much coverage and extra footage that allowed us to make a much more polished final product.
I am happy to report that we had a very efficient day of shooting. We followed the schedule almost down to the minute, and we got everything we needed. Was it all perfect? Absolutely not! But I am proud of what our little team accomplished in such a short time with limited resources.