Reflection: What I Want From This Course

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When I first enrolled for this studio, I had a somewhat skewed view of what would be involved. I thought when I read through the course outline that it would bring me closer to script writing, and writing in general, which is what I’ve only recently realised I should be pursuing. Writing is really what makes me content and I feel I have a good handle of it. Though I’ve enjoyed making content in this and last semester of my university career, I want to angle my classes toward this end in the future. Therefore I wasn’t really anticipating to be so quickly using camera/sound equipment etc., and I feel much less able and confident than my peers.

However as the course outline details and as we’ve discussed in class, the traditional method for production (in that script is finished when beginning pre-production) is what we’ll be experimenting with throughout this course. As well as how and who brings dialogue to fruition. Hopefully through subverting these norms I also get to experiment more with not only the media side of this course, but also the writing side.

I’m also intending to get better (hopefully MUCH better) at using the equipment and get a handle on the proper BTS jargon/terms/rhetoric which will enable me to become an asset on sets.

PRAY 4 ME.

Wk 2 Studio

In today’s studio we once again joined with the creative writing students to bring to life a short script from earlier in the week. Though we were all a little confused as to what we wanted as the final product, it was really useful to flesh out the tools we’d be using later in the course. These included the proper method of setting up a shot before action, and practicing working with the cameras and tripods.

When group 4B directed the shot I was “cast” in their scene which was fun, though I felt sorry for them because we had taken up so much of our allocated time, not leaving them with a lot to get their shoot done.

more “work”

This is definitely the most professional looking product (and the one I had very little to do with). It was all shot by my friend Sam who is crazy good, he’s a graduate of film school and works on lots of music videos. Contacting the band for licensing to use their track was easy and they were totally into it (what hetero boy band from Geelong doesn’t want their song in a lingerie video).

previous “work”.

The lingerie designer (my friend Jarrah) and I were directors for this behind the scenes shoot of a photoshoot we did some time ago. This is usually our approach for filming promo videos; we ask some friends who do video stuffs to just shoot in the background, kind of fly-on-the-wall style, to give a kind of music video, IDGAF, fun, carefree vibe. It’s really lo-fi, and unstructured – as a director on these shoots all I do is point out where to set up the shots, remind everyone to have fun, and drink champagne.
I can’t take credit for the song choice (that was the editor Louis’s brain child) but I wish I could.

Wk 1, Lesson 2

Today in Writing For Film and Filming For Writing we did our first cross-disciplinary class. I was very happy to find I was in a group with my friend Alex from creative writing who I have known for a few years now – she helped me start my garden and in Sydney I met her parents and her dog. It’s really cool that we get to work together.

During the filming activity I found our group was probably too large, with everyone was eager to get involved. This was good, but sometimes it was a clear class of too many cooks in the kitchen if I may use an overused cliche.

I’m happy we didn’t have to do the editing in this class, and I’m also happy that while I initially volunteered to read the script I did not get chosen. This may make me seem loathe to get involved but I think I suggested some quality ideas and techniques for filming. I did sometimes feel like certain people in my group were overbearing but this perhaps taught me to avoid working with these people on assignments in the future.

Wk 1, Lesson 1

Today was the commencement of semester 2 of my course, and it felt somewhat like a baptism by fire. After 6 plus weeks of melting my brain with cartoons and alcohol, jumping right back into working was definitely a challenge.

The 5 and 15 minute writing tasks where mental anguish as I tried to get my sluggish mind to focus, but I felt good at the end of the hours. I was also alarmed to find I’m one of two first years in the class and the others are in the years above. I hope this will prove to be a positive challenge and inspire me to a higher level of scholastic work.