The exercise on Monday involved capturing a 50 Second shot focusing on directed activity, how the body moves, its gestures and the way people talk and interact. With lighting, location, exposure notes from the last exercise and a brief on the Off Side and On Side technicalities, we set off in groups of 3 to the basketball courts behind building 80. I thought initially that this would be a good place to shoot because of the large courtyard space surrounded by tall buildings. The light, when completely overhead, lights up the whole space and makes all the contrasting architectural styles look quite beautiful and colourful. When we got there though the sun hadn’t quite made it and the space was half in shadow. My previous shot of the trams pulling into the stop with the whole city behind it in bright exposure, was a good reminder of what not to do. My initial instinct was to shoot the 3 students smoking a joint on the basketball courts in a long shot with the background ‘Porker’ graffiti as the backdrop. But unfortunately, the way the light had settled would only give me exposure to the buildings and not to the action bellow. I have to admit I didn’t realise the severity of this obvious exposure issue until I played back the shot and then decided to shoot one of my class mates from a high angle as she played with her phone and brushed away the hair from her face against the strong wind. The way she sat on the wooden plant ledge was interesting geometrically with the other lines of the ledges around her.

This exercise made me think about the relationship between location and character. If I was working with a budget I would have certain lights to set up correct exposure for that scene. But without those recourses, these are all considerations for preproduction planning. When I set up place and character I will have to find shots I can access easily over a fair few hours of the day so as not to be cut shorter than would need to be by the sun disappearing. Even if I had chosen the basket ball courts for a scene and was able to get the entire left side in correct exposure, I would only have a window of 45 minutes maybe less to capture the shot before the sun disappeared.

I love a good class exercise to help you see the obvious but it is simply the case that until you make these ideas a practicality, you just wouldn’t know how to do it. So many variables to consider when shooting. I’m starting to get feel for the necessity for good planning!