April. 30 and May. 2
This semester will soon be over now. Since we formed groups and got started with our final projects, I feel that we have become more and more caught up in our works rather than focusing on the class contents. It reminds me of the last few weeks in Translating Observation when I did City Drama with Sylvia and Rachel. How fast has time past!
This week we were divided into three groups to film different short exercises on Monday and reviewed them on Wednesday. All of the shots look generally pretty good compared to the earlier ones we did. I’d say it’s a proof of our learning outcomes.
The Shots
For this exercise, we are to film the “Mentelssohn exercises” again, yet we are to use artificial lights to light the scene.
Set-up: For the light we used, we added one blue color filter and one tracing paper to diffuse the light. The 1000k Arri light was placed on the side of both actresses around 4-5 meters away.
The shots: The light on the actresses’ faces in both shots are generally quite soft. We have imitated the quality of the reflected sunlight pretty well. However, there are still evidently hard shadows which couldn’t have been produced by natural reflected sunlight. The color temperature is cool which also fits well with this scene. I myself is generally satisfied with the look of two shots. The way we framed them is quite similar to the ones we did last time as a class. We have solved the problem of the background of Colin being overexposed for the most part—by simply moved the characters’ positions.
Collaboration: I had the role of a first assistant director. I was in charge of keeping track of the time and recording the technical specs of each shot accordingly. This is the first time for me to do this job and I just realized that I know nothing about this job.
The Roles
Yes, it is acknowledged that a group works most efficiently when everyone focuses on doing their own jobs with endeavor. However, what do I know about the jobs that are involved in filmmaking? I was clueless about what are the details of being a first AD. In the light of this, I did some research on the content of these jobs. I’ve found this website that describes the first AD job in detail. This is such an informative website that gives me a very detailed outlook of each career in relation to the film industry. It even tells me how to get in the job. (At least, it provides me with one of the many pathways. ) I shall spend some more time on such practical things and think over about my future now as the semester is going to end and it’s my final year at RMIT now.
