Week 1 Day 1 – 195 words

Today we talked through the art of framing. A personal favourite of some of the work we explored was Better Call Saul and Wes Anderson. Better Call Saul has an incredibly unique and bold cinematic style that is discussed is arguably the best on television. Within this discussion we explored the art of framing and the importance of symmetry in prestige film making. Through looking at multiple examples of this I was able to understand the level of detail that goes into the framing of every shot for the prestige films. We also talked about film colouring and discussed that we will need to consider this for our first assignment as it can have a big impact on the mood of the film. Another concept that we discussed was the One-Shot Perspective shots where all of the lines in the frame angle to one point that is generally symmetrical. This We explored what makes a good opening scene and how we can make our assignments ‘prestige’ film like. In the afternoon we set up  and shot content on the FX3, however, I did not participate in this as I have done this in previous classes.

Week 1 Day 2 – 32 words

Unfortunately I was away for this class, however, the discussion of the golden ratio continued for this class work as well as learning how to chroma key which I have done previously.

Week 2 Day 1 – 159 words

During today’s class we the concept of the golden ratio. This is a technique for framing up a scene where you place an object in the centre of the spiral which therefore draws attention to that area. This is very useful if there is an object of significance that the storyteller wants to show, not tell. While I already new of this concept, overlaying this spiral over existing scenes really helped to cement the idea of this and made me more aware of it’s importance and how commonly it is used in prestige films. In the afternoon we learnt how to use a zoom recorder and worked through how to record audio. I have previously used these recorders at uni and to record podcasts for work, so, I did not part take in this activity and instead went home and worked on my assignment and ensured that I applied the learning about the golden ratio to my opening scene.

Week 2 Day 2 – 152 words

Exploring the importance of sound design was very interesting. Throughout this class we got to see the making of the audio for shows like Game of Thrones which was really eye opening especially since they are creating noises for things that don’t exist. I learnt that they actually mixed a few animal noises together to create the sound of the dragons within that show. We also learnt about a variety of software’s where you can create your own audio. This was really valuable as often you know exactly what sound you’re after for a scene, however, it’s really difficult and time consuming to find it, so, having the ability to create the exact audio imagined is game changing. I had a go at utilising this software and some were harder than others to understand and execute. This gave me immense admiration to sound engineers and built up my awareness for their specialised skillset.

Week 3 – 160 words

We talked through Assignment 2 which involves creating an ‘in medias res’ style film and then we watched some examples of this technique which places the viewers into the middle of the three acts where there is a problem or tension rising. We touched on other techniques such as flash backs, flash forwards, book ends, red herrings, dreams and explored examples of these with existing texts. I learnt what book ends are as I have never heard of them before. While talking through this we revisited the ‘Three-act structure’ where there’s the opening set up, the inciting incident and the resolution. We then explored colour theory and then tested colour grading techniques using stock footage. I did not attend the second class of that week, however, I did go through the topics that we covered like a more in-depth discussion and application on colour grading and I reflected on how I could apply this to my second assignment.

Week 4 – 175 words

Todays class explored the topic of ‘tableau’ which refers to the arrangement of people and objects within the confines of your cinematic frame. While I had previously considered this concept for prior work, it was interesting to me as I’d never heard it labelled as this term before. After this, we looked into David Fincher’s colour theory and how he uses colour to depict feelings and provide immediate visual context. I learnt this technique is used more often than we realise and reflected on how we could apply this colour theory to my future work. We then discussed talked about how some films, but mostly horror, recreate scenes from art pieces in the real world. This was a perfect transition into talking about our final assignment as we mentioned that we could consider recreating on in ours. We created groups and began brainstorming concepts for our final assignment where we are going to apply all of the learnings of techniques from previous classes. In the second class for this week we went through our presentations.

Week 5 – 187 words

This week we set off to film our final projects. We organised to do our shoot day of the Monday and meet up to edit on the Wednesday. While we would have ideally filmed at an underground location we were able to utilise the station ‘East Richmond’ as it is not very busy and we were much less likely to be fined but we were still able to film with a darker, plain coloured wall. We had organised to meet on campus to all edit together, however, unfortunately Sam couldn’t make it, so, I did the first edit with Ava’s assistance finding the sounds. Then we handed it off to Sam for the next version as he agreed to add in his voice overs and complete the colour grading. Throughout our process of creating our final film we were able to apply the techniques we learnt about golden aged cinema like the art of storytelling, framing and mostly through ours ‘showing not telling’. Learning by doing was important for us as we were able to fully grasp the skill it takes to create a critically acclaimed film.

Week 6 – 152 words

This week we came into class to gather feedback on our first edit. The feedback provided by Cat made complete sense and was very impactful in improving our final edit. We worked together to find new audio, change the titles in between scenes and remove some scenes where the acting was not up to scratch. Along with this we removed a scene where the lapel mic was showing. This was due to the fact that this showing does not adhere to the ‘Golden Age Cinema’ element of the film we were attempting to make which is a great lesson for us to remember moving forward. This week we began writing our reflections, creating our poster and on top of making our final edits writing our reflections on other students work as well. This final week’s in person feedback was great to ensure that our final submission reflects our learnings throughout the semester.