Embedded Files
Week 4 began with Fahmida back in the lesson. I found this lesson as a return to my roots in essay writing from my previous school. As you can probably guess if you’ve been reading this far, I write a lot. Back in my school before college, we used to be forced to write essays of information weekly so going without it has been a change. However, with Fahmida, we looked at comparing two silent films, one from 1915 and the other 2011. Her main focus with this lesson was on historical and social context of the scene. We watched a section of one and trailer for the other so all my assessments of the features are made from those. During and following this lesson, I wrote a piece comparing the two along with notes which can all be seen below. Attila’s catch up lesson was a good time for me to continue on my lengthy shot list.
Moving to Wednesday, here was another time to use both acting classes. For the rest of this assignment, a lot of people worked in groups with each member carrying out a section of the brief and coming together to film. I decided I wanted to follow through on my original plan as this is my idea that I want to see through to the end and don’t want to be a pain to others in taking control of the project. What we decided to do, as each of us will need a few crew when it comes to filming, was that Jacob, Kwyn and I have teamed up to film and light for each other’s projects when they get to the production stages. For this day, Attila wanted us to pitch our projects to the actors in the morning and then progress with a read through and test footage. For this, Kwyn’s shot list he wanted to test was ready so he went to pitch and called on my help when they were doing a read through. This was a decent structure to my time as when I wasn’t helping, I could get on with finishing my lengthy shot list which has ended up with 80 shots split between 3 scenes, only two of which I ‘d like to film for this assignment. This excludes the montage as that needs considerably more time to film. This read through was quite slow and the actors weren’t too involved in the scene.
For Nick’s Wednesday lesson, we watched ‘the Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar’, a Wes Anderson short film on Netflix that uses all of Anderson’s common stylistic ideas but heightened to an extraordinary level. The characters perform directly to the audience, delivering most of their lines straight to camera as the sets move around behind them. We discussed the composition of the film and its visual style. Although it was firmly Anderson, his previous films don’t make constant reference to this being a film with prominent set changes and such. I may have to write a review on this at some point as the film is an interesting shift from my regular content.
In the afternoon, with Zahra’s class, Attila wanted the same people to repitch the scenes and their stories for this class to act in. We split into different rooms and were able to do a more thorough read through and shoot for Kwyn’s material. I thought that these actors took to the project better and the use of chairs in the green screen room assist in the framing. We filmed a few iterations of the scene with Jacob and myself controlling the camera and lighting. Below are photo evidence of Kwyn’s test footage.
Friday was going to be a perfect day for me to gather test footage. Having completed my shot list on Wednesday and worked on a story board at home on Thursday, I had everything I needed to film. My storyboard has a frame per shot divided between its three scenes. My aim was to grab classmates to be in scene 2 as it takes place on a field so easy to replicate at college. In the morning, Attila gave us a lecture about Storyboards and how to do one. Luckily, all the things mentioned I’d already included in mine. We watched a series of videos on the relevance of storyboarding, no matter the artistic interpretation. Although I’d say I’m somewhat decent at art, I choose to draw stick figures as they are the quickest representation to get the correct framing as this was the important aspect. The videos included the Birds by Alfred Hitchcock and how they used it shot by shot to get the movements of the lead characters. This was also important for the film as it gave the actors a greater understanding of how the birds were going to move and be. Below are my notes from watching this videos.
The rest of the day allowed me to refine my shot list and Storyboard, printing both and duplicate scripts off so that I could film in the afternoon when we were allowed to get cameras out. I managed to get the assistance of Tilly, Vi and Jacob to stand in which was great. I walked them through the overall story followed by the premise of this scene, which takes place between the Hermia and Lysander characters after they have run away for the day to spend it together. Vi and Jacob starred in it and Tilly was in charge of the spare camera lens and my shot list/ story board. With me as camera man, this meant that I could ask Tilly the shot type and information of the shot written on the shot list to position myself correctly. Here, I wasn’t particularly worried about the line delivery and acting as I just wanted an idea of the shot types I had chosen and how that looked in practice. I used the Sony SF5 camera which has two lenses in the bag: a wide angle and a tele. We went through and completed all the wide angle shots before going back and shooting the tele. I did a singular take of each shot, skipping over one as Jacob and Vi weren’t comfortable doing the lift I’d scripted in. From these 20 shots, in future, I plan on recreating my storyboard but with screen captures of the test footage as they are clearer than stick men. I believe the shoot went well and I gathered all the footage I was after. Maybe next week I can record the scene in the car as a test. I got feedback from the team for anything to consider about the real filming. Vi made an excellent comment about lighting as I’d positioned the pair looking across the hills to the sun. This causes shadows for reverse shots and blinds the actors for the standard shots. This will need to change for the real shoot by turning the situation 90 degrees or the time of day/ waiting for cloudy weather. Whatever I choose, I must make sure I can control. You can find all my core work on the Adapted Screenplay section of the website.
With one week to go before the end of the assignment, I believe I put myself in a good position to complete my test and help my fellow classmates with their own filming, which also improves my skill in camera work.
Page updated
Report abuse