Watching the Mamma Mia! Behind the Scenes featurette showed me a lot of things about the making of a movie. There is no main realization or anything I had so instead I have a bunch of stray thoughts I had while watching this featurette.  

     The first thing I observed was how the close the camera, boom mic, and other pieces of equipment are to the actor even if it doesn’t feel that way when the audience walks the way. It really showed me the level of professionalism that actors need to have to be able to completely ignore the camera and all this equipment around them while still being able to act.

     In the specific case of Mamma Mia!, there are dance numbers so the actors have to perform some sequences with as much energy and commitment as they would have stage while cameras are moving around them. In this way, some films are as theatrical as a stage musical would be. The difference, though, between the stage and film is that they are able to shoot the dance numbers from multiple angles and cut between them to make it cinematic. This means that they have to shoot the same number over and over and over again.

     The second thing I observed was how planned everything has to be in order to be time-efficient. In cinema class we have to plan things out excessively, especially if we’re juggling people’s scheduling and moving between locations. These struggles that we experience are evident at a much larger scale in the production of Mamma Mia!, as about half the film had to be filmed at a soundstage in the UK and about half of the film had be filmed on location in Greece. Because of this, travel expenses, and actor’s time and pay, there is no room for messing up. While in cinema class, we can sometimes go back to our locations and do reshoots with relative ease, reshooting would be extremely expensive for a professional blockbuster movie like Mamma Mia!

     The third thing I observed was how pretty much every choice made by every department was informed by the story and the style of the movie. Watching the choreographer working with the acting aspects of the dance moves showed me how much care went into telling the story with every medium. Similarly, there had to be massive production design as they built the entire hotel complex, planted trees, and created both interiors and exteriors on the soundstage in the UK. The production designer talking about her process showed me that while her goal is to make something aesthetically pleasing, her goal is also to make something that serves the story both practically and stylistically. This same principle applies to every department, including the lighting, music, etc.

     Perhaps the largest lesson I learned about filmmaking was that even professionals have to make compromises. In cinema class we have to make compromises all the time. For example, a shot doesn’t work that we can’t reshoot, or an actor isn’t available for a certain time, or we don’t have charged batteries or whatever it may be. We experience problems that we have to work through and sometimes that means making compromises. In the beginning of the Behind the Scenes Featurette, the cast and crew were singing their praises for the director, Phyllida Lloyd, for how calm and collected she was in the face of issues and problems she encountered. It taught me that just because a production is professional, it doesn’t mean that they don’t face problems. What distinguishes professionals from students in cinema class is how they are able to solve and work through the problems they face.