Media Episode 30: Fiona and Hayat talk VCE Media

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In this episode of Media, we speak with former Year 12 students from East Doncaster Secondary College about the production of their VCE Media films.

We’re joined by Fiona and Hayat, who reflect on the creative and practical journey of bringing their ideas to life.

Fiona created a moving drama titled Carpe Diem, which follows Jesslyn, a girl who discovers a magical photobook that allows her to step back into her happiest memories. As her obsession with the past grows, it begins to threaten her present. The film explores memory, nostalgia, and the tension between reflection and living in the moment.

Hayat’s film, Capture the Ball, takes a very different tone. What begins as a playful park rivalry escalates into a comedic, high-stakes chase, as boys and girls battle for control of a ball. The film combines action, humour, and strong visual storytelling.

In our conversation, Fiona and Hayat discuss where their ideas came from, how their concepts evolved through pre-production, the challenges of casting and location scouting, and the realities of post-production. They also share valuable advice for current VCE Media students about experimentation, time management, resilience, and staying true to your creative vision.

Transcript

Mr Lamb: Hey there and welcome to Media, the podcast for students and teachers where we talk about VCE Media and media and media in general. My name is Brett Lamb. Today we’re talking to some former Year Twelve students at East Doncaster Secondary College. Today we’re joined by Fiona and Hayat, and we’re discussing the production of their films in Year Twelve. So Fiona created a moving drama called Carpe Diem about a girl called Jesslyn who discovers a magical photo book that lets her step back into her happiest memories, a growing obsession with the past threatening to steal her present. And Hayat made a film called Capture the Ball, in which a playful park rivalry erupts into a comedic high stakes chase — boys and girls battle for the control of a ball. I’d like to thank you guys very much for joining us today. And welcome.

Fiona: Thank you for having us.

Hayat: Yeah.

Mr Lamb: No worries. So what I might do is I’m going to hand over to Mr Chen, who was your Year Twelve teacher and is the teacher of our Year Twelve class, just for our first question today.

Mr Chen: Thank you, Mr Lamb. Right. My first question for you guys is where do you guys get your ideas for making films in general?

Fiona: I think the best way to find the source material for a story is not by going by a textbook and looking for a formula for what makes a good story. I usually come up with creative inspiration for my stories through a moral. I like to let a philosophy or a moral guide how I want to tell a story, and I kind of like flesh out the ideas from there. So I think the plot should follow the value and the moral of your story, rather than the other way around.

Hayat: So I usually, for me, inspiration comes from pretty much anywhere. It could be a song — the song that I used in my film inspired the whole idea. Sometimes I’ll be on social media and I’ll see short clips of short films. And that just inspires a different idea that builds off that concept. Sometimes even on Pinterest, I’ll be reading written prompts and I’ll just build an idea off that. So it’s basically any little thing will just make me think of something new.

Mr Chen: So you’re out there living your life, and everything that you experience is kind of feeding into these ideas that you have.

Hayat: Yeah. Basically. Yeah.

Mr Chen: Okay. Amazing. Now, you guys have been through the whole process of planning and shooting and editing a film in Year Twelve. I guess that pre-production phase is really, really important. So could you talk us through the process that you went through planning your films?

Fiona: The pre-production process usually starts with writing. You start by having a rough idea and an outline of what you want your story to be about. So you start with the logline, which is a one sentence description of what summarises the plot of your film. Then you go into the treatment where you flesh out the ideas more in detail. And once you have like the writing down pat, you move on to the logistics part of it. So for me, that included location scouting, casting the people who are going to be in the film, planning what audio I want to use and getting the copyright licenses for that.

Hayat: For me, the pre-production planning — I already had a general idea of what I wanted, is that I wanted to have a chase scene with a specific song in mind. What I had to do was try to figure out why were the people being chased in the first place. So my pre-production planning consisted of brainstorming different reasons behind being chased and trying to think of do I want to go comedic route? Do I want to go serious route? So yeah. And as Fiona said, that’s when that thought process develops when you do the logline, the treatment and the general steps.

Mr Chen: And Hayat, your film features a lot of action as well. Did you have very elaborate storyboards?

Hayat: So my drawing skills aren’t the best. But to me the drawings made sense. And I already had the vision in my mind. So I kind of already just could see it — how it was going to look, like the action scenes. I could just see it.

Mr Chen: Yep. And prior to making your film, you completed a couple of production experiments as well. What advice would you give students for the experimental stage when they’re building their technical skills?

Fiona: Definitely. Don’t underestimate the importance of doing production experiments. I think one of the mistakes I made early on in studying Media, especially in Unit One and Two, was that I kind of treated it as a more like a test run or like a transitory period to actually doing the film. But I think you really have to take advantage of the fact that you have basically unassessed time that doesn’t actually contribute to the actual film, to test out how you want a pivotal or a key scene to look. So definitely take advantage of production experiments. Don’t treat them as like not the real thing, quote unquote. And don’t take them for granted.

Hayat: Yeah, just like Fiona said. Don’t take them for granted. Use it as an opportunity to test out something you’ve never done before or you’re not sure is going to work out. For example, I wanted to test out filming chasing on a bike. I’d never done that before. I had no idea how it was going to look. So I used my production experiment to try it out and see how I could do it in the real thing.

Mr Lamb: That is absolutely amazing advice from both of you. And what I implore our current Year Twelve class sitting here at the moment is that’s one of the best things you can do. Just get out there with camera and start experimenting and reflecting, and really building up those skills prior to going out and making something. So I guess when it comes to production, filmmaking is not an easy process. And the students in Units One and Two last year would have learned that. So I guess my question is, what challenges did you face in the production of your films and how did you overcome those?

Fiona: There’s a lot of aspects in a film that can go wrong. For me, it was the casting and the location scouting, because I think one of the disadvantages with doing a completely independent non-funded student film is that you don’t have contracts or funding or anything. So the people that you asked to cast are doing it completely voluntarily and they can revoke it at any time, which happened to me. The original cast member I wanted pulled out probably like only a month before I started filming. But I think it’s important to have a lot of resilience and be able to turn around and adapt to that. I also faced challenges with location scouting. I think it’s important to be adaptable when those challenges come your way. Don’t have a very fixed idea about how you want your film to look. It should be malleable to a lot of different locations. So I initially wanted to film in a cafe, but the cafe ghosted me. And they never replied to me, despite my efforts. But I think it’s important to just take it with a grain of salt and be able to adapt and move on with another location or another cast member. Just be quick on your feet

Mr Chen: Having plan B, C, D, E, F, etc., etc..

Hayat: One of my biggest challenge was choosing to work with ten plus kids. I don’t recommend it to anyone. And building on what Fiona said too, one of them tried to leave — he didn’t want to act anymore. And the day of filming he texted me saying he was sick. He was not. And I knew he wasn’t sick because his twin sister fell sick the day before. Sickness does not travel that fast in that house, so he was trying to lie his way out of it. But I knew them well enough to get them to come in the end. So, yeah. Don’t work with kids, guys.

Mr Chen: Good sound is extremely important part of a successful film. What’s your advice for capturing audio?

Fiona: I would say to make the audio genre specific, so don’t fixate too much on what’s going to make it sound realistic if your film is not meant to be realistic — if your film is surreal or if it’s comedic, or if it’s an animation. Go with the genre and the mood and the tone of your film. For example, my film was more — I mean, I’m probably the worst person to ask about sound because my film was actually lacking sound. I utilised silence in a lot of my film because it matched the tone and the mood that I wanted to portray in my film. I know a couple of people in my class who did more comedic films, so they obviously had different ranges in music and soundtracks. So go with the genre rather than what’s good sound. I mean, at least from a genre point of view, not really a technical perspective.

Hayat: I think with sound, when recording it’s best to have multiple devices recording sound, is what I have to say. Because I had the camera itself recording sound, my phone voice memos recording sound, and a little mic that I attached to everyone recording sound. Clearly I didn’t use it in the best way. My audio wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t as stressful when I had all three options to use from.

Mr Lamb: Yeah, I think your advice is really important. Always have a backup sound source. I think we’re fairly fortunate that we do have directional shotgun mics and external audio recorders, which means you can get your mic nice and close to the actors. I know Hayat also used lapel microphones in the production of her film, which for narratives — we often think about those being used in documentaries, but for narratives, you can conceal a lapel mic in someone’s scarf or something like that and get really crisp, clear audio from a long way away. So there are also lots of options for tidying that up in post-production now using AI tools, including those from Adobe. So that is some absolutely amazing advice. I guess planning and shooting is only part of the process, and you guys probably spent a whole lot of time in post-production. So I guess, what’s your advice for that stage?

Fiona: You’re definitely right. Like, post-production is probably the most time consuming out of the entire filmmaking process. So I think with that in mind, you definitely need to consider time management. People think that editing only really starts once you finish filming. Get ahead of it. I would recommend, once you finish filming something for the day, organise your footage into a folder. And also maybe even preemptively edit it, like ahead of time. Obviously, if your film is dependent on it being in a certain order, that might not be the most realistic option, but I think definitely have a timeline for when you’re going to edit certain things and have deadlines for yourself because it creeps up on you really fast. And you realise that you haven’t finished editing right before the deadline, so be organised.

Hayat: Yeah. As I said again, be organised. Try to get ahead of the editing. If you know a specific scene is going to look a certain way and you’ve recorded it, try to get editing done even if you haven’t completely finished. Like, for example, the chase scene, which I already had in mind — once I’d filmed that, I edited it the night after filming, just got that out of the way and focused on the rest of the film. Just building off of that, I think also editing ahead, when you want a certain look for your film is important because it might change — your vision about how you want the scene to look will change. And you want plenty of time to be able to adapt it or edit the visuals of it. So it’s important, as Fiona said, to be proactive.

Mr Lamb: Yeah, the footage can certainly inform the rest of the shoot. Were there reshoots involved in either of your films?

Fiona: Yes. A couple of the scenes — because I had the time to review my footage, I realised some scenes were either they didn’t have the right lighting or the camera was too shaky at times. So if you film ahead, you give yourself the flexibility to do a reshoot. But definitely leave yourself time to do reshoots. I did a couple, especially with the scenes that involved my baby cousins because the children — you’ll need more time to do reshoots. Definitely.

Hayat: Yeah, I did have to do very minor reshoots more because the shot was a bit blurry. It didn’t look as right. Maybe I wanted more of an establishing shot more than how zoomed in it was. And I also had to rerecord audio, like just audio, and try to layer on top of the clip. Granted, I don’t think I did that very well, but that’s something to think about.

Mr Lamb: Those are all amazing advice. Thank you for sharing. Now, what is one piece of advice you would give to our Year Twelve Media students?

Fiona: I think something I would have liked to know when I was studying Media is to not try to live up to an image of what you think a filmmaker is. Whether you’re a Year Ten studying a Year Eleven subject, or whether you want to be the next Darren Aronofsky or something — don’t try to live up to a persona. Don’t think of yourself as a filmmaker. Think about what film you want to make, what story you want to convey. And definitely if you compare yourself to an image of what you think a professional filmmaker is, you lose a lot of potential in being able to articulate the stories you want, and you’re constantly comparing yourself and trying to keep up with an image rather than the values that you’re trying to show.

Hayat: Yeah, I’ll just say like, do something you want to film. Like, if you wanted to do an animation, you wanted to film a drama, a documentary — do it because you want to, not because someone told you to or you think something’s going to get you a better grade. If you enjoy it, you’re going to do good in it. And don’t be discouraged if, for example, camera work isn’t your strongest skill set. Just do what you’re good at and you’ll succeed, basically.

Mr Lamb: That is incredible advice. Thank you so much. Do something that you’re good at and passionate about. Now I’d like to throw it across to you guys. Do you have any questions for Fiona and Hayat?

Student: What I’d want to ask you guys is how did your ideas change throughout the production of your film? Like, did you have to compromise on some things?

Fiona: My original idea that I pitched initially wasn’t actually the same as the film that I did. So it definitely changed throughout the process. But I think if you have a consistent message that you want to show, you might change how the plot shows that or how the characters show how they interact with that. Even like your dialogue — I initially had more dialogue in my screenplay, but I realised that stylistically wise, it worked better without dialogue. So if you want to make those tweaks and changes to how you tell your story — not necessarily change your entire story, but how you do it — yeah. It’s expected that it’ll change.

Hayat: Yeah. Mine’s kind of slightly changed too. I was aiming to do school girls versus boys style thing, but it was more like the boys were just chasing the girls for no reason. Again, based on real life events. But then I realised, no, the ball idea is funner because we do actually have more fun with that. So my idea purely changed because of what I found funnier in real life.

Mr Lamb: One of the great things about the process of making any media product in Year Twelve is that you keep a production journal, so there’s an acknowledgement that you will start out making something, and then fortuitous things will happen that allow you to make that film better. Or maybe some things occur that mean you’ve got to change your plans slightly, but you have a clear vision. You document those changes as they happen, and it’s an acknowledgement that, as Fiona pointed out, the media production process is a little bit fluid.

Student: I hope this isn’t too like unrelated, but in terms of media, you have a lot of, I would say, essay questions that you have to complete. I’d imagine you have to study the films, I guess, to get an idea of — have that sort of inspiration. How would you go about preparing to answer those kinds of those essay questions, similar to those that appear on exams and stuff like that?

Fiona: By essay questions, I’m assuming you mean the ones that are about like agency and control that we study, and also about our film study practice. I would say that the best way to get good at anything is to always practise. And I think especially with writing, people perceive it as less formulaic. They’re like, oh, but there’s no one correct answer. But I think when you practise your writing, you get into a rhythm of how you want to articulate your ideas, how you want to express your ideas. It’s not something that you just pick up formula and apply. You have to experiment a lot with how you word things, with how you incorporate evidence, different statistics, different articles, and how that all relates to an idea in how you articulate things.

Hayat: Yeah, just building up that similar concept. Similar to what Fiona’s saying. Me personally, I tried to find a set structure that I could use because it just helped me think about my thought. It helped me with my thought process during writing. So maybe develop a structure that works for you.

Mr Lamb: And a piece of advice that I’d give to all Year Twelve students, all students generally is, we have something called the EDSC Revision Framework, which is those peer reviewed strategies supported by cognitive science that help you learn. The first one is retrieval practice. So, for example, with narratives in their contexts, you need to know the film very well. So in the narrative you’re looking at, I reckon there’s probably six key scenes that you’ve got to watch again and again so that you know them off by heart. But there’s also a lot of knowledge around the context of that film and how audiences may read it now. So a lot of practising retrieval practice over time. And as Fiona said, practice testing — responding to practice questions. And then reflecting on your progress. So I would refer people to the EDSC Revision Framework. A lot of great advice in there.

Student: So my question is, as former students who have finished their SAT, what do you think defines like a good film, like a successful film?

Fiona: Building off of Hayat’s previous answer. Definitely stick to something that you’re passionate about, because I think the beautiful thing about filmmaking is there is no one definition that’s universal about what is a good film. Because a lot of it — I don’t think even the audience can agree on what is a good film. Nobody has an objective definition of what it is, because audiences will interpret films in relation to their own experiences and their own values. So I think in terms of the filmmaker’s point of view, what a good film is, is what defines a good film to you and to you only, and that is in relation to your values, to what you think a story’s purpose is meant to be. I think a story should be intended. I mean, from my point of view, a good film is one that has heart, one that has a story that’s worth telling people to change their perspective about a certain thing, about a certain value. And so if you stick to that, I think you will find something you’re passionate about and by consequence, a good film.

Hayat: Yeah. Just like Fiona said, everyone has their own definition of a good film. If your definition is it made my friend laugh, that’s a good film then. That’s what makes a good film. My definition — what makes a good film for me is that if you get me talking about it for more than a week, if I’m still talking about a film for more than a week, that means I really like that film. That film was successful. So yeah, it just depends on everyone’s perspective.

Mr Lamb: Yeah. And I reckon, going off of what you’ve said there, there are kind of two layers to this. I would encourage you, first of all, to make something that makes you happy, that gives you a sense of achievement and that you are proud of. And then the second layer is connecting with audience. So one of the things you will have an opportunity to do in Unit 4 is to show your films to the rest of the media class on a big screen and see how they react. Showing your film to other people and seeing their reaction, whether they’re gasping or they’re chuckling or whatever, is very affirming. And I think it helps to refine that product a little bit more.

Student: A question I had is like after finishing like VCE or like, do you guys still like, do any like media projects or like involve yourself in media and like, how do you not get sick and tired of filming?

Fiona: Thank you. So I still do media related stuff from even after finishing VCE Media. Sometimes when I’m watching a film, I’ll just write about a certain bit that I really liked and just send it to my friend to convince them to watch the specific show or movie.

Hayat: Right now I found this like outside of school media film club based in Melbourne, and I’ve joined that. And right now I’ve joined like the screenwriting team. So still doing a media thing outside of school.

Fiona: I think media is always going to stay relevant in all aspects of your life, because it’s so much more than film. You also study how the media portrays certain world issues and how it shapes public opinion, and how public opinion shapes the media. And I think there’s so many different ways to engage with media even after you finish VCE. I also still write film reviews because I like to analyse what a story was about. I would like to get back into filmmaking, but again, there’s a variety of ways that you can engage with media. I still like to write analysis about things that are happening on social media, things that are happening in the world. And so I think these skills are going to be applicable to a lot of different things beyond VCE.

Mr Lamb: I reckon, Hayat and Fiona are absolutely correct. You never stop being students of Media. You will continue to create, and you will continue to think about the media landscape long after you finish VCE Media. Thank you so much to the Year Twelve who came along to this session. A very special thank you to Fiona and Hayat for their time and their expertise this afternoon.

Fiona: Thank you.

Hayat: Thank you.

Photo by cottonbro studio.