Reflection – Class exercise & studio summary

For the last few weeks of the semester, besides working in groups for our final projects, we also continued to practice film lighting setup in class as well as watching and analyzing scenes from movies. These practices indeed helped a lot with what we were doing with our projects. For example, during one of the Wednesday class, we experimented with a scene with a character sitting by the table reading books with a lamp on. This particular setting is very similar to our second project and we did take a lot from it. I was aware of the fact that in our second video, the character was sitting reading papers in the dark, which was a bit unrealistic. We initially had borrowed a lamp from the prop store, however, we were told that as it was just a prop it did not have a bulb inside so we did not use it afterwards. Perhaps if we had had more time, we could have set up another dido to manipulate the scene as if there was a light source coming from the lamp. In addition, we can also apply a few things that we had observed from the exercise in class to our project one with the swinging light bulb. During Monday class in week 10, we had the pleasure to have Rory Timoney, a professional gaffer, come and show us some professional lighting equipment. It was such a rare opportunity to observe and learn about some of those tools and what they could do. One of the thing that I found really fascinating is the ARRI Skypanel S120, which you can dial specific color and do tons of tricks that can be applied to many lighting situations. Moreover, some of the types of diffusion panels he showed us were quite interesting and it would be great if someday I could actually have a chance to use these tools.

 

Overall, this whole studio has given me a great deal of in-depth knowledge about how lighting works in films and how to achieve a great visual. I have always taken these beautiful images I see on screen for granted, however, now that I have a chance to take a closer look, I have developed a much deeper appreciation for the work of the cinematographer, the gaffer, the cameraman, the production designer and all other department involved in the process of film production, their craftsmanship and the efforts they put into the projects. By carefully studying and analyzing several examples from different movies from the most talented cinematographers both in class and in our own time for the assignments, I have taken out some key techniques often employed by those and tried to apply them to my own work. In addition, I have gradually had a habit of asking questions for myself about what lighting situation the scene was possibly shot in, how the lighting speaks for the underlying tone of the scene and in what situation I could potential apply the similar setting to. Through several exercises in class, I have also learned that to achieve a beautiful aesthetic is the collaboration of a team and everyone has a right to express their creativity in different ways that might bring about unexpected outcome. In addition, it was such an eye-opening experience to be introduced to different lighting equipment and some tips and tricks to manipulate lighting. I believe everyone of us in the class have done some filming and lighting one way or another, but none of us had consciously made such carefully planned lighting decision as we did during this studio. Now we have the experience to make a call for which equipment to use, which aperture, focal length, camera coverage we want to shoot in, which tools we could apply to tweak the lighting and color temperature and so on. At this point when the studio has come to the final stage, I have nothing but gratitude towards what I have learnt and the lessons drawn from my mistakes that I could use to move forward to future projects.

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