What I Learned in Week 4

This week, our groups planned and shot 2 versions of the same script, each swapping roles as we went along. For the first one, I was acting, so I was able to observe how my group operated as a team. In all honesty, I felt like it was a bit rushed and not extremely well thought out. This was the group that planned out the shots in class the class before, so there was more preparation involved compared to the 2nd shoot. I couldn’t tell how the shots were turning out, so I can’t really judge on how the coverage ended up, but I was a bit iffy about a POV shot of my character and didn’t think it added anything to what we’d already shot except for the fact it was an “interesting” shot. It ended up being a pretty standard coverage, but in my groups defence, the location was a pain to work with. You could only really fix the tripod on one of the flat platforms of the stairwell and for the blocking that had been set up, it didn’t leave much room for imagination.

I was DOP on the second shoot and that shoot was not planned out to the extent of the first. I talked to the director of this shoot before we started and threw some ideas in the air about how we could film it, and we incorperated a couple of different ideas in there. I was more there to suggest shots than anything else, and I did that, but I never thought of any logical cohesion of the shots. The more and more I do this subject, the more I realise how much I need to really plan out a scene. Making an entire scene flow well is tough, but obviously I have a desire to improve my steps in achieving such a goal.