So on the 22nd of October at 4 pm (intended starting time), Film Light hosted their studio screening of either both or the second piece of work created for our Assignment 4 submission. The prompt of said assignment was to choose any aspect of lighting, and explore it, as long as the idea was approved by our tutor, Robin.
This meant that each group of roughly 3 to 4 people produced vastly different works, with no two groups final outcomes being anything alike.
But to start from the beginning, for me, the day was not going well. After some truly awful and mismanaged PTV errors on my behalf, I was running extremely late, ending up arriving at 4:30 pm. I was under the impression that I was going to have missed at least half of the groups screenings, but, to my luck and my luck only, there with a broken door that led to the viewing running late. Furthermore, it also led to two other classmates and I being chosen by Robin to go grab two c-stands, two shot bags and a special bag of his to come and sort out the lighting emergency this door was creating.
It felt almost too perfect, a course about lighting to have a lighting problem, resulting in the class needing to use all their knowledge collected over the past twelve weeks to solve. A very serendipitous Film Light experience!
Onto the screening itself, I think it all went really well. I think our groups content conveyed what we were trying to achieve, even the second one, without the direct exploration included in the project itself. We chose to screen both our first and second tests of Assignment 4. However, we only realised how long our first test, exploring abstract white balances on different colour temperatures, was way too long, and a little tedious, especially for people who had seen it already, and it ultimately left us bursting out into laughter at the end, which was a nice group connection moment. We were most proud and excited to show our second experiment, which was about using only natural and available light to convey two different colour temperatures within the same scene. We weren’t exactly sure if people were going to get what we tried to achieve, but after speaking and reflecting with other classmates outside of our group in the post-screening celebration, it seems that it was conveyed well!
If we had to further the second experiment screened to a different and less bias / knowledgeable audience, such as that of a festival one, I think we would want to reshoot it. as to flesh the story out more, allowing for the different colour temperatures to be more distinct. From there, we would hire actors, a more refined script, and all the other gubbins that would make it a more polished work, but the main aspect we would want to address is to flesh it out, and allow for maybe even a third colour temperature change, such as when Tash (the girl in the raincoat) goes to enter the building, and before she enters the main indoor space.
Everyone else’s screened works were amazing and completely different and unique in their own way. A personal standout for me was Eleanor, Noah and Jagger’s second piece, in which they explored lighting and shooting in a car. I loved how natural and seamless their work looked, it flowed so well, and the lighting was that level of good that I barely took time to notice it. I would be interested to see how they lit it, whether they mainly bounced natural light, or diffused artificial light. Another standout to me was Tully, Joseph and Terrance’s second experiment, in which they further explored using silhouettes, this time, with a dramatic tone and colours. Their work always blows me away with how clean all the shadows were and how little spill there was onto each section. It was so meticulously crafted, nothing felt like it slipped up. There’s was also really funny and enjoyable to watch on the big screen, with Joseph constantly dying never getting old!
Speaking of that, it felt really nice to watch all the works on the big screen. It gave a really nice sense of community, and when works were funny or had a comedic element to it, the whole cinema laughing together was a really nice experience, and made me look fondly back on the studio as a whole. That feeling only extended in the post-screening celebration, which I thought was great! Being able to chat with the handful of lovely people, and Robin, who attended.
Overall, I really enjoyed the whole screening experience, and the studio as a whole. I’ve learnt a lot of invaluable information, and can’t wait to use it in the future!