BLOG NO. 1 A look back
I decided to have a look at my first blog post for this class, I wanted to note what my goals were for this studio and I intend to reflect upon them.
Here is what I wanted to achieve
No 1. blog to my hearts content.
Now admittedly this hasn’t happened, I have blogged enough but I haven’t pushed myself to blog and reflect more. I haven’t really tried to work on my writing skills which is something that does need to be worked on. I often find I write whats on my mind without thoughtfully articulating what I am trying to say. Perhaps it has been my time management, or perhaps it has been the overwhelming amount of time spent on trying to create a mediocre stop motion animation. Nonetheless I recognise I haven’t put enough into my blog this semester especially when there was so much to reflect on. Hopefully this last assignment will hold a few more blogs than my previous assessment tasks.
No. 2 watch new and interesting film clips
This was defiantly achieved, Robin did a fantastic job at showing us a variety of fantastic lighting in film. All of which we as a class could achieve, we had the resources and in some ways we had an easier opportunity to recreate the light used. One that really stands out to me is from when we were learning about how to get the contrast from a really soft light to harsh light and keep it all in the same shot. It was a short video of a man and women waking up from their alarm and the women goes and rips open the curtain to let in a massive stream of light. I was in awe that the overall shot wasn’t vastly overexposed at this point. When we tried to recreate similar tasks in class I realised how difficult it was, but by using reflectors or cards the light could be controlled and this could be achieved.
No.3 Notice more about light
This was something I didn’t draw a lot of attention to outside class but over the course of the semester it just sort of started to happen. Sitting on the train every morning or night for over an hour meant I had an awful lot of down time to observe my surroundings. More often than not I would leave home at dawn and whilst I sat on the train the sun would rise or I would leave the city at 4 and got to watch the sunset. I got to witness the sunrise from looking at the ocean to getting to the city and the sun was just resting behind the skyline. It was extremely beautiful to note every day. Watching how the sun would sometimes refract from certain elements such as rain or glass or the ocean. My favourite thing to do was to watch the peoples faces, sometimes the light was so perfectly hitting their face creating a hard light I wish I had a film camera to capture the moment. However I definitely learnt a lot from sitting and watching how the light fell what time of day would create a harsh or soft lighting effect.
No.4 Learn how to achieve that lighting
Probably my favourite part of this studio was all the class exercises we did as an entire class. I loved putting together a set to achieve a scene with everyone in the class. Splitting up actors, set design, lighting, sound, camera operators and directors it was really exciting to watch it all come together. I loved watching in a hands on setting how one thing such as putting up a cutter could change so much about the lighting. It was great to visually see how you would set up a shot and how you could create a desired lighting effect.
No 5 & 6. experiment and get feedback
Experiment we definitely did, from whole class exercise, to group exercises to exercises outside of class I definitely got a variety of skills from experimenting with different types of lighting.
No. 7 low light shooting
Not only did we do low light shooting in class but we also chose to film a low light scene in my group for our final projects. We did a night time shoot in a car park and trialled with some LED lights and car lights. This shoot went really well and it was a great experience to just observe how other works and to see first hand what lights we had to set up to achieve our desired effect.