This semester I did a research about how to make shots look like as a dream environment. I studied 4 elements to explore this research project, slow motion, spatial relationship, extreme close up shot and lighting elements. All of the elements I mentioned above were successful in fitting in my research project.
The first element, slow motion, I did a slow motion with my friend Bella at abandoned rail track in Footscray, at the beginning, I just explained what kind of performance, I just explained what gonna happened in this dream sequence, then she understood it, but I did not tell her this was a dream sequence, the reason I did not tell her it was a dream sequence because I just want to rely on the slow motion this element to create the dream sequence, although performance is important, but I just tried it by my way. And also, the only require for my actress that is I need she to wear the clothing without colorful, no paintings in her dressing, less make-up on her face as well, because I do not want when people watch this video, and they are focusing on costume and make-up part. Because I just want to make the slow motion as the key elements. This video looks not bad after I finished it, so slow motion do really effect on the dream sequence.
The second element, spatial relationship, this idea came from my real dream, it just like using a camera as my eyes and doing what I do in my dream. I used a lot of uncommon ways, such as straightly low angle as my standing way, my camera is forward to the sky with buildings. The reason I use the low angle that is when people sleep in the bed, the position should be lying the bed, in my opinion, it should be open the eyes and look up at sky, and another reason is almost dream in my sleeping time were differents angle, so using uncommon angles could set up the dream environment very quick. Other shots I reduced the shutter speed as 1/6 to 1/10 to shot, I used for running in the corridor, with a low shutter speed, this shot will have a lot of shaking feeling and shadows, in this way to create the dream atmosphere I think it is successful.
And third element, extreme close up shot, as we know in the films, filmmakers are always using the extreme close-up shot of character’s eyes, in this way to tell audience that people fall asleep, but I want to try, how to using extreme close-up in each shot, in this way, to create the dream environments. Actually, is this not easy to do, because when you let your camera lens as much as close to the objects, the lens might have damage issue, so the first thing I have to do is figuring out how to protecting your equipment, so during my filming. I just try my best to choose a good angle, and measure the distance between the lens and the object, to tell myself is possible to shot or not. It is worth to mention that my first shooting plan of this element was collecting differents eyes from the human being and animals, the reason why I gave up this idea because it is very hard to catch animal’s eyes in extreme close-up shot.
The last element, lighting, this is my favorite part, the reason why like lighting that is I believe a good lighting design could tell a story. But I am not very happy with this last video, because using house lighting is too hard to get a good result in this time, I only used one light, Lamplight to create the dream sequence, but this is very hard to relocation it if you move it, and also I can not adjust the light be stronger or weaker, so once I feel it looks so bright or too dark, I can’t move the lights, the only thing I have to do is, fix it in final editing part. In additionally, the last clip I directed and acted by myself, and my friend Polly as my camera operator. And also in order to create a little bit tense feeling, I decided do not use the tripod, all the shots were using handheld, I think it looks good in a handheld way, a bit shaking, to create a big nervous…
To explore the dream sequence, all of the clips I used the color grading and had music, the most clips are black and white, because I can’t remember what kind of color in my dream, and also black and white with a bit of over-exposure could tell the audience this is not from reality. The function of music works good, does really enhance the effects of dreaming.
From above mentioned, I can understand that a dream sequence has used influences in my life combined with slow motion, spatial relationship, framing( the extreme close-up shot), music and lighting to effectively explore it. And compared to the beginning of this semester, I believe I have much more ability to direct people, I am much clear to understand how to make a dream sequence. All my friends helped me to research the dream sequence were very easy to cooperate, thanks.
2 mins videos link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcTpVb-GppM