Filming the phone stealing scene did not go well. I was the AD. What went wrong?

We had an hour all up, and we only started filming once we were half an hour in. What were we doing in that time? We spent a long time finding the location, which I feel partly responsible for (I took us to one place which turned out to be a dead end). After we arrived, I spent too long trying to convince the director to think about the space and the possibilities, rather than just setting up in the first position we see as we walk in. In the end, we did end up using that first place we saw. Finally, on the first shot, I urged the director to consider which side of the 180 degree rule we were filming from, as it would impact the rest of the film. Having not thought about it before, he agreed with me that we should swap sides, to get more interesting and relevant information in the background.

Unfortunately, by this point, we only had about 20 minutes (factoring in time to walk back) to shoot the entire thing. So I made the director absolutely rush to get it done. I was not happy with the situation. In general, I like it when each shot is carefully considered and constructed for a reason (and dislike it when there is a lack of this consideration). But with this amount of time left, we didn’t have that luxury. I just had to force the camera to get in position and press record. It was, as you’d expect, bad. The 180 degree rule was repeatedly broken, so I don’t expect the final edit to make much sense. We didn’t manage eyelines. The camera was put in positions that didn’t make sense. We didn’t get close ups.

In the end, even though I was hurring the crew along, we still found ourselves with 5 minutes left and more than half of the scene (the more comex half at that) to shoot. So I just said we’d run through the entire scene from a few different points of view, and cut from that. That’s what we did, and I think it was a pretty good solution to the situation we were in.

My takeaway from this experience is that a crew should go to the most likely location first and get set up quickly, and the director should be decisive in their decisions. The camera operator and the AD should not get in the way of the Director’s vision (if time is short). Ultimately, I think this class and many of the people in it haven’t had much experience shooting scenes like these, or understanding of what should be done, so there’s a lot to learn about making them work (and this was part of that learning).

Reflections:

W6R1: Translating to film

W7R1: Difference between 10 minutes after and 1 day after

W8R1: Filming the Phone Stealing Scene

Observations:

W6O1 Ferris Wheel

W6O2: Reclaimed beach

W7O1: Wedding Photo

W7O2: Something on the road

W8O1: Spider

W8O2: Reflection in the Window

Filmmaking Task:

Filmmaking Task and Reflection (assignment 2 part 2)

Voiceover Task:

Voicover Task and Reflection

Going to the kitchen to get a midnight snack, I look out the window and am faced by a reflection of myself. My black shirt is lost in the darkness of the night, leaving only my disembodied head and hands visible.

The only other things I can see outside are two bare, twisted trees, situated on either side of my reflection. They look like tall deer antlers, and they frame my portrait nicely. They maintain a constant thickness similar to that of a digeridoo, with an organised mess of branches spiraling out of sight both below and above the window.

My reflection and the trees outside are sitched together seamlessly, both a brownish-yellow, creating one coherant scene. It looks as if I am a shady character emerging from a haunted woods, or a nobleman posing in an intimidating painting surrounded by the symbol of my family.

A spider roams about on the photocopier. While it’s small and probably not dangerous, upon seeing it, the two people in the room decide to remove it from the room anyway. One goes to retrieve a glass, while the other keeps an eye on it.

Unfortunately, the spider is loitering along an edge of the machine. This bent surface makes it impossible for the cup to create the trapping seal. The spider twitches up and down, as if it is taunting the people who are attempting to free it.

In a poorly planned attempt to move the spider, one of the people flaps a piece of paper near it. The spider frantically jumps somewhere else on the photocopier, and scuttles to the side facing the wall, out of sight. It is never seen again.

It’s nighttime, and streetlights dimly light the intersection. There are some strange dark blotches in front of one of the entrances to the intersection, as if to intimidate or trap cars entering it from that particular lane.

The blotches appear much blacker than the road they appear in, and as such do not convey any fine details. However, they reflect the light quite brightly, and sparkle mysteriously.

It’s unclear whether or not the blotches are puddles of water or oil, or if it’s smashed glass from a tail light. Either way, it looks intimidating to drive through.

A couple is wearing well tailed wedding clothes in the middle of a popular back alley full of restaurantsand cafes, standing still to have their photos taken.

Steam and smoke from the restaurants create a haze behind them, and the couple stands out with their strong attire and powerful stances. Many people are walking up and down the alley, and they respectfully walk around the couple. The wife’s dress has a long trail, which an assistant adjusts to the ideal position in front of her.

The alley has a district Melburnian vibe. The atmosphere of the alley is overall quite dark, but plenty of colours in the shop’s signs and people’s clothes bring it an underground style of life. The newlywed couple are not merely embracing Melbourne’s culture, they are becoming a part of it.

The tide is especially low, and it has created an expansive of land which is normally covered by the ocean. It’s appearance is eerilie not like anything normally seen on earth.

One section of the expanse is covered in thick, green plant life. The way the simple grass-like organisms lie on the ground, all pointing in one direction, looks strikingly similar to a kind of fur or hair.

Another section reveals sand in the shape of dunes. These formations mirror the shape of the waves themselves, albeit frozen in time. Among these sand waves are an odd collection of colourful rocks. There are dark blue rocks, smaller versions of the ones which line the coast, with hard edges from the quarry that they are offcuts from. There are many red rocks, which upon further inspection turn out to be broken up fragments of bricks. And there are some rocks covered almost entirely in a lime-yellow growth, the type that lines old piers and lighthouses.

A seagull stands straight up a dosen metres out into the sliggishly lapping water, showing how shallow the once mighty ocean has become.

A Ferris wheel towers over the beach at night, the lights which trail down it’s spokes reflected in the sand at its feet. The result is a beach which is strongly coloured, and constantly changing. It transitions from an expanse of fairy floss, to mars, to slime, to an extension of the ocean. There are many people strolling casually along the beach, soaking in the warm weather. They too are lit by the wheel, and they respond by giving it a look or taking a photo. Everyone seems happy to see the wheel. They appreciate the atmosphere it brings, even if they don’t ride it themselves.

The Ferris wheel’s spokes start each shining different colours, and this lack of synchronisation subsequently denies the beach of its colour. It feels like waking up before one is ready, the fluidity of the moment taken away by the dull white light. However, the wheel goes back to the colours, and the smooth atmosphere is restored.

Transformative impact of the changing light.

Written 10 minutes after:

The facade of the university’s science department is a corridor which connects to the outside area of the university through a pair of sliding glass doors. Through these doors a desk can be seen, with a large sign with the word “Chemical” written vertically, accompanied by another word which is obscured by junk. The corridor is very white, between walls which appear to hold a heavy coat of white paint, and a large grid of small white lockers. There is a sign suggesting that the student lounge is further down the corridor. As one walks along this path, the corridor takes multiple turns and gets progressively smaller, like the inside of a snail’s shell. At the end of this maze is a tiny kitchen, with floorspace barely larger than the footprint of a car. On the walls are dark green shelves, mostly empty, and inside the room are three students, awkwarly squished in the space. They are drinking coffee and talking. There is no space to sit, and there is barely any space to stand.

Written 1 day later:

A sliding glass door separates the outside world from the long white corridor. Through it, passers by can see the endless grid of lockers, the heavily painted walls, and a service desk with a sign that reads “CHEMICAL”. A second word is obscured by mess on the bench. Another sign points to a student lounge down the corridor. The path takes multiple turns on the way to this lounge, and as it does so gets narrower and narrower, giving the impression of a conical shell. The student lounge it reveals is an incredibly cramped space, with the walls covered by dark green shelves and cupboards. Three students are squished into the room, the claustrophobic environment appearing to impede their ability to relax.

Reflection:

I think that my reflection from a day later was more succinct and made more sense overall. The first reflection feels like a barage of describing one thing after another, and it is hard to discern any deeper meaning behind each tiny observation. The first one is also more difficult to follow logically, in terms of how each thing related to each other. Having come straight from the experience, with everything being fresh to me and making sense in my mind, it would have been hard for me to know what I needed to describe and how I needed to describe it.

However, I don’t think saying that “time makes a reflection better” would be accurate. As I write this reflection almost a month after doing that exercise, I’m barely be able to remember anything from the trip to the science department. I could remember a few key details that stood out to me, but there isn’t enough of a picture in my mind to write enough to be translatable to film.

With pieces of writing as short as this, I think it is good practice to try starting from scratch and starting again, and then comparing the two pieces. The better parts of both can be put together into one “final” piece. This technique can help the writer avoid getting stuck using overly complicated explanations, and can bring light to some more interesting way of expressing things.

“A week after being out of order, the lift is back in use. It doesn’t feel like it though.

The walls and roof are covered completely by white wooden panels. These panels are held together by a few more non-painted planks, mostly in the positions where handrails would otherwise be. There are small rectanglar holes in this casing to show the screens on the segments of wall on either side of the door. They only narrowly frame the number itself, a simple black numeral suspended on a plain white background, hiding all of the other additional information and clutter on the much larger screen behind. The inside of the lift looks very clean, but not futuristic, and very hand crafted, but not rustic.

On the wall opposite the doors, high up near the roof, there are dosens strange, black markings. They look like messy, dragged fingerprints, as if a zombie was trying in vein to climb out of the lift. They are high up enough that it would be different for a person of average height to reach them.

On one of the segments of wall beside the door, a message is printed clearly in marker to instruct the lift’s occupants on how to act appropriately. Below it is a short response, scribbled messily with a pen, exclaiming that one occupant did not intend to follow these instructions, and did not appreciate being told what to do.”

I like the drama that can be associated with this scene. Following a character from when they call a lift, to seeing this one open, cautiously getting in, and looking around. I could imagine POV techniques being used to reveal sections of the elevator.

It’s interesting how this scene has a progression of time in real time, but also a suggested narrative of something that has happened in the past. This could be “played out” through the order that the elements are presented in, and the way in which they are presented. Suggestions of the meaning of these past moments could definitely be established through film techniques.

Lifts are tied to suspense, and the questionable nature of this one makes it so the audience is anticipating what will happen next.

In such a confined space, if a real lift was used, camera positions and focal lengths would be restricted. An open set could be used to alleviate this.