Week 3 (Sept 25 – 29 2023)

To begin this week, we didn’t end up having a lecture with Fahmida due to train strikes which gave us spare time to work on our assignments. I used this time to work on my script, now using my reduced Shakespeare script and story treatment as reference that I completed over the weekend. I have updated the dialogue to be in the modern tongue rather than Shakespearian English. The plot now revolves around two houses of students so I wanted to make sure I could reflect that. I admit I’m not the greatest at dialogue and script writing in general but I was able to implement the technical side of things, including shot types in the directions and additional page markers, fades, cuts, etc. Script writing isn’t the area being accessed and isn’t an area I which to pursue in the long run so it will remain a background focus to help tell my story. Later that day, as usual, was a check in session with Attila where I carried on work for my script and CCP. 

Following our tests, Irene’s acting class joined us and we were able to see another group do the flower girl scene. The main note I had for this group was opening up again as well as being in the moment. From a directing point of view, I felt like the actors’ characters knew where the plot was going but they need to feel like they are involved in the story and making decisions as the feature progresses. Due to our lighting tests, that’s all we had time for with this class. In Nick’s lesson, he gave us time to continue on our scripts. Overall, the day gave me plenty of time to complete my script for the deadline the following evening. I walked out of the lesson on that day with a completed script and print out to give to Attila on Friday. 

Wednesday afternoon was when the pace picked up with Zahra’s performance class. They had spent time in the week to go over the scene from last week with the new coffee shop scenario in mind, including extras and a livelier scene. We were able to film this and a few of us had chances to direct. I worked with Jacob to build up this coffee shop, implementing chairs and spacing the set while also talking to the actors and deciding with them motivations for their characters in this scene and why they move around. This was building off of discussing context last week as well as what I found with Irene’s class in the morning. We had a few iterations of the scene, filming the whole time. After my coffee shop scene. Attila handed the reigns to others in the class to give a different interpretation of the scene in a different setting. They decided to go with a cinema, involving more extras and involved lighting, such as a blue filter on a light behind the set to seem like a projector. Below are some pictures of our experiments. 

After analysing the King Lear film and looking through the original text to understand it more deeply, We each had to put forward a version of King Lear that we would adapt into. My idea was to use a modern setting with casual dialogue where the king is replaced with a wealthy British gentleman who pays for his older two children to go to university but doesn’t support the third, the one with the greatest potential in life that he sees the most eye to eye with, as a way to challenge her and push her mind and business skills to their limits. Following our brainstorming, Attila told us to get into groups and film one of our versions using the new cameras. For this one, I teamed up with Reign, Jess, Vi and Tilly and went with their idea for a mother with her three children who have each made her lots of gifts in order to receive a reward. One of the children makes only one special gift and isn’t rewarded. For this experiment, Attila told us a bonus challenge to try and film the whole thing with one focal length. I was directed by the girls as to the story they wanted and I became the cameraman. All four of them featured which allowed me to test a series of shot types. I found it difficult to get the distances for the shots with the one focal length challenge. We had decided to film in 35mm and using the heavier Sony camera which made holding the camera up for birds eye view shots extremely difficult. For this, we weren’t concerned with continuity of dialogue and actions as it was more about the shot types. In the edit, I even ended up removing the audio completely as it distracts from the shot types and framing. My favorite shot is the inside box POV where the lid opens above and the girls all look in. In actuality, the distances for that shot are very deceiving due to the 35mm lens. I was surprised that even without concern for continuity, the story still more or less made sense and the cuts between shots are clean.