Bridget Ince

“Each day is made up of moments. And these moments, by sections of time that elicit feeling. And the sections of time that mean the most are the ones that are familiar, and comforting. For me: the ganglyness of my brother’s limbs when he walks, the eeriness of my grandparents house, the motion of a tram, the silence of my bedroom late at night, the night time colours and the presence of my cousin.” (extract from my project proposal) 

This was my first semester of Media, as I am a prof com. The reason I chose this studio, and my aim going into the subject, was to learn more about the process of filmmaking so that I could set myself up well for future endeavours.

To achieve this, I completed a project whereby I went out and pointed my lens at familiar things in my everyday life. Using different techniques that I had learnt in class as well as through my own research, I experimented with different aspects of filmmaking; focus, exposure, focal length, white balance, lighting, sound,camera movement, editing etc. in order to familiarise myself with filmmaking and challenge conventional ways of doing.

Going into it, I thought that by exploring the things that make up a shot I would be able to produce cinema perfection. This was not the case however. What I ended up with, was a series of footage that was un-perfect by conventional standards and gave a very accurate representation of my whole process.

Whilst the desire is to come up with something that looks good, by creating something that is a little ‘off’, I was able to learn a whole lot more. By analysing my technique and the way I shot things I was able to come up with important realisations about filming. For instance: lighting is everything, camera movement is overrated, exposure can have a big effect and things that are out of focus when they are not suppose to make a shot look really shitty. The importance of sound, the irritating but very crucial process of editing and that you should never invade Russia in winter.

It also showed me, that something that follows all the ‘rules’ of filmmaking is not necessarily going to give the best result. Sometimes, rules are meant to be broken.

Ultimately, what this project has given me is, not a perfect formula of how to shoot a scene, but instead a base and volume of knowledge so that in the future, maybe I can create something that is a little closer to being cinema-ready.

Bridget Ince, Ways of Making, 2016.

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