Week 6 Reading Response

Howard Gardner, the author of ‘Five Minds For The Future’ (2007), is a researcher in psychology, who, in this book, looks forward to the future, in order to predict the ways our brains may need to develop. In his chapter ‘Minds Viewed Globally’, he introduces his ‘five minds’. They are:

  • The disciplined mind: which ‘knows how to work steadily over time to improve skill and understanding’.
  • The synthesising mind: that gathers material or information from various places and sources and collates these findings.
  • The creating mind: which breaks new ground in innovation.
  • The respectful mind: that ‘notes and welcomes differences between human individuals’, and,
  • The ethical mind: which analyses the ways that humans may be able to better the world.

Gardner’s concern is ‘to convince [readers] of the need to cultivate these minds and illustrate the best ways to do so…’, in order for people to stay current and thrive in the future. He believes that education is at the root of preparing people for their futures and thus, the education system should be doing more to include these ‘five minds’ into their curriculum. I agree with Gardner in that primary and secondary school teachers have been doing the same thing for a long time…too long. For example, recitation is a very simple way to learn and has been common practice for educational institutions for centuries, however, studies have shown that students cannot retain information through that process for much longer than a few days. Gardner comments that: ‘at the start of the third millennium, we live at a time of vast changes’. Hence, I think that education needs to change with the times and educators should not be afraid of these changes. They need to adopt new technologies into their teaching practices, so that their students do not fall behind in the future.

When hiring, Gardner asserts that employers will/should be basing their decisions on the ‘five minds’ and will/should be searching for individuals who have cultivated all five of them. Thus, teachers need to be helping students to grow these five minds, so that they will be eligible for the jobs of the future.

 

Week 5 Reading Response

In Judy Wajcman’s ‘Finding Time in a Digital Age’ (2015) she discusses the idea of time and how we currently live in what she calls an ‘accelerated’ society. She contends that technology ‘reconfigures’ time and suggests that we ought to recognise that time is a man-made creation, its source a machine: the clock. Although machines were made to save us time and make work/production more efficient, they have in fact done the opposite: ‘the unparalleled velocity of computerisation, telecommunications, and transport, which was expected to free up human time, has paradoxically been accompanied by a growing sense of time pressure’; an acceleration, as it might be. For instance, a computer is a mechanism that was meant to ‘save’ us time, in simple areas such as word processing. This kind of technology was supposed to leave room for more leisure time in our lives. However, today, there is a blurred line between work and play, because these kinds of technologies have intruded on our home lives. The ability to work from home, as a result of advanced communication devices, has allowed employees and employers to design their own business hours (rather than sticking to the traditional 9-5 office hours). People are now able to work as little, but more significantly, as much, as they would like to. Wajcman has found that people are now working more than people were during the first industrial revolution, even though they are actually far wealthier. She believes that this is because the western, capitalist society that we live in ‘…inflames our insatiable desire for consumption of goods’. I agree with this argument, because I think that the capitalist mindset of working hard, and being rewarded for this in the form of success, has given rise to the idea that we can’t enjoy our leisure time for the sake of leisure. As a result, Wajcman asserts that the unemployed have been demonised  in society, as they are perceived as ‘time-wasters’.

I found this article interesting because I think there is value in ‘wasting time’, day dreaming and procrastinating. I believe this is where a lot creativity stems from (at least for me). If you’re always in a rush, how can you possibly develop a fully formed idea? Without enough rest from work, how can your brain function at a high enough level to come up with an original and innovative concept? Wajcman’s belief that we are ultimately our own timekeepers is an empowering theory and is a reminder of the importance of ‘slowing down’.

 

Week 4 Reading Response

Two different approaches to work are presented in Cal Newport’s chapter on ‘The Clarity of the Craftsman’ in his book ‘So Good They Can’t Ignore You’. He entitles the two approaches as ‘the passion mindset’ and ‘the craftsman mindset’. ‘Whereas the craftsman mindset focuses on what you can offer the world, the passion mindset focuses instead on what the world can offer you.’ Newport mainly concentrates on creative work, such as music and comedy, and contends that if you adopt the craftsman mindset first, then the passion and love for your work will follow. Essentially the craftsman mindset is when you are constantly working towards getting better and improving your ‘craft’ or your ‘art’. Newport quotes music veteran Mark Casstevens in saying that ‘an obsessive focus on the quality of what you produce is the rule in professional music’ as this ‘trumps your appearance, your equipment, your personality, and your connections’. This concept can definitely apply to other art forms as well.

On the other hand, the passion mindset is when you do what you love, because you think it will provide you with happiness and success. However, Newport suggests that this can lead people to become hyper-aware of what they don’t like about their art/work, which then leads to ‘chronic unhappiness’. I found this interesting because it goes against everything my parents used to tell me about finding work. When I was still in high school, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, my parents and teachers all used to tell me that I should just do what I love, because the grades and the success would simply grow out of that passion. However, this article asserts that ‘the craftsman mindset offers clarity, while the passion mindset offers a swamp of ambiguous and unanswerable questions’, like ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What do I truly love?’.

Nevertheless, I think there is a bit of push and pull between the two mindsets. It is hard to have the craftsman mindset of trying to constantly get better at what you do, if don’t have any passion or love for what you are doing. The case studies that the writer uses for the craftsman mindset, the musician Jordan Tice and comedian Steve Martin, obviously both love what they do (at least enough to continue with the same trade for many years), as well as wanting to hone their craft. I think it is also important to sometimes think about what your work might be offering you. If you just ‘put your head down and plug away’ at work, as Newport suggests, you may ignore the fact that the workplace you are in is exploiting you or there may be a better job out there more suited to you. To counter this argument, Newport says that ‘regardless of how you feel about your job right now, adopting the craftsman mindset will be the foundation on which you’ll build a compelling career’.

Week 3 Reading Response

Overall, Ramon Lobato and Julia Thomas’ article on Work in their book ‘The Informal Media Economy’ was completely terrifying for me and made me remember all of the anxieties I have surrounding work in the Media industry. Although they mainly talk about journalists (whose work took a hit very early on due to the internet), the article can apply to almost all creative industries. Lobato and Thomas concentrate on ‘informal’ and flexible work, like freelancing, which is a definite possibility for me, as an aspiring filmmaker, in the future. They have found that: ‘for many people involved in the actual labour of media production and distribution, much of which is repetitive and lowly paid, informal media work has a real downside: it can mean insecurity, overwork and low pay’. Even in my very limited experience working in the media industry I have found this to be true. I am constantly letting people exploit me (for instance, interning for over 6 months without being paid) and working overtime, all because I am getting experience doing something I love.

This article also looks at outsourcing creative work, which has become a common occurrence due to the internet. Media companies (whether it be video production houses or newspapers) can pay people next to nothing for content creation, as there is no minimum pay standards or unions for these creatives, and they are competing on a global forum. These companies are thus free to cash in on young and unexperienced people’s need for building a ‘wholesome’ resume. As a result of this outsourcing, journalism in particular, has become ‘deprofessionalised’, making it harder and harder for audiences to trust what they are reading, seeing or hearing. Lobato and Thomas quote Bakker (2012), in saying that ‘for professional journalists, this whole industry is an affront that devalues research and writing and floods the internet with rubbish’.

Wow, I cannot wait to be a media professional.

Week 2 Reading Response

Chris Lederer and Megan Brownlow’s report A World of Differences contends that ‘E&M [Entertainment and Media] is a dynamic, diverse industry with steady and sustainable growth’, despite more and more people moving towards ‘free entertainment’ sources. The article concentrates on five ‘dimensions’ of the global E&M market: demography (particularly looking at young people’s effect on the industry), competition, consumption, geography and business models.

The most relevant information for me stemmed from the demography and competition sections of the report. Lederer and Brownlow found that ‘…there’s an almost perfect correlation between markets with more youthful populations and those with higher E&M growth’, thus suggesting that young people are leading the trends in the E&M market, particularly the digital media market. They assert that younger people consume media in a different way to older audiences: they tend to multitask, consuming lots of different media at the same time. Youth demographics are also ‘…more open to adopting [new] digital behaviours – and therefore more open to digital spending’. I agree with this to an extent, but I think that it can be difficult for younger audiences, like myself, to have access to new technologies because they can be expensive, thus limiting large amounts of ‘digital spending’. Furthermore, youth audiences who have grown up in ‘the digital age’ are accustomed to spending little or no money on E&M, because it is so easy to pirate most video, music or gaming content. I am always tentative to spend money on digital media, because it can seem like a waste of money when it is available for free online.

Nevertheless, Lederer and Brownlow’s information suggests that as a video content creator, I need to figure out a way to tailor my content for younger audiences, with increasingly shorter attention spans, who are consuming a lot of media at the same time, on various different platforms and devices.

In the competition section of the report, Lederer and Brownlow mention that Netflix’s future is in ‘…locally produced content’. Although US produced movies are still doing very well, there is more demand for locally produced media, particularly in the film industry. This is good news for me, because I would love to produce films in Australia, for Australians, about Australia. However, it is difficult for Australian production companies to create good quality films, when there is limited funding (in comparison to the US). Hopefully streaming services like Netflix may be able to offer local production houses funding to create high quality content.

Week 1 brainstorm on Empowerment

During today’s (Friday) class we were split into groups to talk about various ideas linked to the theme of ‘Empowerment’. My group talked about the issue of censorship and surveillance, which was brought up quite a lot in Klaus Schwab’s article The Fourth Industrial Revolution (week 1’s reading for Media 6). The way technology is heading, in terms of it’s ability to track everything we do, could lead to what we called the ‘North Korea’ option; where the whole of society is tracked and limited in terms of what they can do/view due to censorship laws. A slightly more commercial version of North Korea would be a society where everything civilians do becomes data, essentially a 100% ‘open information’ society where there would be no privacy. This potentially means that people would have microchips put in them – this would be their I.D, their credit card, maybe their phone and it would make it incredibly difficult for anyone to commit crimes (and get away with it). Information would be (and is already being) sold to companies to target specific people and insurance companies (particularly health insurance companies) would be able to track a client’s well-being and charge them more or less depending on this factor.

Society could also end up going in the complete opposite direction due to the advancements of technology; everything could become globalised and decentralised and governments would have less of a role in society. Civilians could become autonomous and (kind of) ‘be their own boss’, working for online platform businesses such as Uber. This decentralisation would make it harder for governments to track exactly what people are doing (for example, not knowing exactly how much money they are making and thus being unable to tax them the correct amount of money) and also potentially eradicate the ability to censor any media content.

This brought us to the question that was raised in this week’s reading: to what extent are civilians willing to trade their privacy for technological advancements? According to Astrid Scott, who talked at this week’s lecture, very few people actually care that their personal information is being used by commercial corporations.

Week 1 Reading – Media 6

This week’s reading, by Klaus Schwab, looked at the idea of The Fourth Industrial Revolution and how this would effect various facets of society, particularly within the next ten years. He begins by listing the technologies which he believes will ‘drive’ the fourth industrial revolution: the driverless car, 3D printing, advanced robotics and ‘new materials’ like graphene (an efficient conductor of heat and electricity). He asserts that these digital technologies will significantly effect the global economy, power structures/politics and the environment, as well as the everyday civilian.

Schwab brings up an interesting point about how the internet and various other digital technologies are already changing the way businesses/enterprises are running. The internet has provided entrepreneurs with the ability to create ‘platform businesses’, such as Uber, Airbnb and, in Australia, Deliveroo and Foodora. These websites and Apps essentially work as ‘middle men’, connecting those who are in need of a certain service, with those who can supply that service, for the purpose of financial gain. By allowing users to interact and provide feedback, the platforms help to build a sense of trust between strangers, which may not have been possible in the ‘physical’ world. Schwab supplies a quote from Tom Goodwin, a media strategist, who wrote that ‘Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.’ Although I don’t personally agree with the statement that Facebook creates no content, I think it is still important to note that these new online enterprises have minimal physical assets, in comparison to traditional companies; yet, there are very few people who would rather drive for Uber and own a car, than own Uber.

So what does this mean for the future? Schwab is certain that more and more platform businesses will start to pop up and other businesses will look to move online. However, it is still questionable whether it will be the people, like Uber drivers, who will be empowered, or whether these types of businesses will give more power to those already at the top of the economical hierarchy. Ultimately ‘…whoever has the knowledge to operate the technology also has the power to do so’, which could potentially create a power imbalance in society. I suppose we will just have to wait and see…

 

Final Reflection

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Shortly after commencing the RMIT Media Studio ‘Ways of Making’ I wrote a blog post noting my initial aims for and expectations of the course. It is interesting to look back at this piece now that I have finished the university semester, because I see how it may have shaped the way I went about completing the course work.

I chose ‘Ways of Making’ essentially because, out of all the other studios, I knew it would offer me the most freedom within the realm of filmmaking. Although I had no idea what I wanted to actually make in the studio, I just wanted to be able to have the option to do anything. In retrospect, it is very lucky that I did have this freedom as there is no way I would have been able to do the project I did in any other studio. Having had Paul Ritchard as a Studio Leader before also helped, because I knew that I would be learning about film industry practice, as well as improving my technical camera and audio skills. His guidance also ensured that the studio would be ‘hands-on’ and I would be able to do research-through-practice, which I would much rather do (and would learn a lot more from) in comparison to theoretical research.

The class time for the first half of the course was spent looking at various films and concentrating on technical skills. Originally I had written that I specifically wanted to practise using a dolly, because I had never used one before. I also wanted to learn more about colour grading and studying how to use lighting setups effectively. Thanks to Paul and Robin Plunkett, at least one three-hour class was dedicated to each of these practical skills. It was great to know that everyone in the class had a say in how the studio was run and that our questions and aspirations for the course would be taken on board. All of these classes definitely helped me in the second half of the semester when I was conducting my own shoots and editing the resulting footage. In fact, I employed all of these technical lessons into my final project: I used a dolly, I essentially had to light the shoot I was working on myself and I colour graded my own edits.

Which brings me to explaining what I actually did for the second half of semester. About five or six weeks into the course I was searching for something to create or to investigate, through making film. I work at a cinema that is infested with creative staff members: actors, filmmakers, writers, production designers, musicians etc. So initially I thought I would make the most of this and ask around to see if any of the writers had scripts I could use to create a scene or short film. The first one I asked had just started planning to direct his own short film and needed a cinematographer. Without even thinking that I could somehow mould this into a project for university, I agreed to be the Director of Photography. Luckily I spontaneously brought this project up in a meeting with Paul, of which he said: ‘go for it’; so I got to make the cinematography for the short film my investigation for the course. Although I am still not 100% sure it was the best thing I could have done this semester, (particularly because the class had been warned of the disadvantages of creating an entire short film), I would not have had the time to be involved with the production had I done a different investigation for this studio, and it ended up being one of the best experiences I’ve ever had. Therefore, I am still happy I shot the film, which came to be called Touch On/Touch Off.

Aside from shooting some video for my previous university and school projects, I had never considered myself as a Director of Photography and I was not confident that I could pull off shooting a whole film for someone else. So I decided that in preparation I would storyboard all of the scenes for the film and I would also do test shoots for a number of the scenes. This definitely helped when it came to the real shoot day. However, even though Max, the director, and I had shared our various ideas for shots, by sending each other storyboards and having face-to-face meetings, when it came to the real shoot day, I realised that it was him who was going to have the final say on how things would be shot. As always, the lack of time was a limitation of how ‘creative’ we could be, so we often found ourselves resorting to the traditional two shot, shot, reverse shot method. This is efficient, but as a cinematographer, rather boring to shoot. Maybe this would not have been a problem had I decided to work on a project individually; but in reality that isn’t how the film industry works. Although filmmaking may not be totally ‘collaborative’, per se, it is almost impossible to create a film completely on your own. Ultimately, the film would have been far less interesting without the amalgamation of various ideas from the cast and crew who were all amazing. I specifically enjoyed working with the production designers and I realised how much more beautiful shots can be with good props, costuming and makeup. The production designers made my job a lot easier because they positioned the props in specific ways so that there would be a balanced composition within the frame. They also made the images really ‘pop’ with the use of garish colours, that suited the feel of the film. It has been really fun to grade the footage because of this, although difficult to not go crazy and saturate the colours to make them stand out even more.

Even though I do not explicitly say this anywhere in my original posts for the semester, it is evident that what I really wanted to do was test myself: Could I make something that I was proud of? (Because I never really had before). Did I really want to be an editor? (I had come into my degree believing that all I would ever want to do was edit film and thus I spent the majority of my time devoted to editing in my first two years as a Media student and as an intern). Could I potentially be a cinematographer? Do I have the skills to do it? Could I make something full form? (Because I hadn’t ever made something longer than a scene in my degree before).

Overall, I’m not sure I would say I am proud of what I’ve created. I’m proud of how much work I put into it and I definitely like parts of the film, for instance the chaotic pan/dolly shots and the closeups that I took with my favourite 50mm lens. But I still have so much more to do before I can say my final edit is ready and that I am happy with it. I’ve only gotten through about a third of the film, because it’s taken a lot longer to edit than I thought it would (I was hoping to have the whole film edited by now). Nevertheless, I would rather do a good job than a quick job, so I will just have to keep myself motivated and keep editing throughout the holidays, because I want the film to be something I can show future employers. The creation of Touch On/Touch Off was incredibly rewarding because I learnt a lot about the making of a short film and I also had the time of my life shooting it. For this reason, I am seriously considering moving my concentration away from editing and onto cinematography in the future.

Reflection on final edits (thus far)

So far I have edited 5 scenes for Touch On/Touch Off: scenes 1, 8, 9, 11 and 13 (joining 8 and 9 together and 11 and 13 together in the clips below). On average it was taking me about 1 hour to edit together 30 seconds of footage. Aside from initially looking over all of the clips for each scene, the time-consuming part was really editing the audio rather than the visuals. (I had already edited together the visuals for my test shoots of a few of these scenes, so I already knew what would work in terms of ordering). Although Premiere Pro is incredible at automatically syncing up bad sound from the audio recording on my DSLR with the good audio, it still takes a bit of time to do. In addition, adjusting levels became a problem once I realised how different the audio sounded through my good quality headphones in comparison to speakers in a room, or the bad quality speakers in my laptop. Thus, I had to keep testing the audio levels through different kinds of speakers to find a ‘happy medium’.

In saying that, as soon as the scenes were played in the cinema environment the audio levels sounded completely different again. This was the same for the visuals. To be honest, seeing the film on the big screen was a bit of a slap in the face, because everything seemed to look far worse when it was blown up to that size. The colour grading looked wrong – it was too white, too overexposed and far too saturated; even though it had looked seemingly natural on my computer screen when I was editing. There were also a few shots that I hadn’t realised were slightly out of focus, which degraded the overall quality of the scenes – all of these shots were (of course) shot with my wide angle lens; I’ve got to stop using it. Through this process I have realised that it is just as important to do test runs with the final footage (whether it be on different screens, or different speakers) as it is do test shoots, because you just don’t know how it will look or sound in an alternative environment. It has also left me pondering how I may be able to combat this problem from the start: from when I’m actually shooting. I have mentioned this before, but it is very difficult to get focus and exposure absolutely correct when you’re looking at a screen or through a viewfinder which is only a couple of inches big. No wonder I only picked up on a few mistakes when I watched the footage on a big screen: it’s literally 1000 times bigger than the screen on my camera! In the future I will definitely consider using a monitor to shoot with… all I have to do now is figure out if there is some way I can hook the monitor up to my DSLR without losing the display on my camera screen.

SCENE 1 EDIT

I had already edited this scene before, but I thought I ought to re-edit it after the feedback I got from Paul and the rest of the class. I decided to replace the tilt up shot with a wide angle shot, because the closeup of Will’s face was too out of focus (not that the wide shot is much better in the end). I may need to play with the audio levels a bit more as well because the sound of Will putting the phone back down on the table is too loud in comparison to everything else.

SCENE 1 FIRST EDIT


SCENE 1 RE-EDIT

SCENE 8 AND 9 EDIT

For the purpose of making narrative sense with using just these two scenes I actually put scene 9 (the cafe scene) in front of scene 8; however, the order will be reversed (back to normal) for the final edit. I am happy with how the three cutaways at the beginning of the scene establish the cafe environment. The crunching sound effect for the toast eating shot is a little bit out, so I will need to fix that up later, but otherwise the initial soundscape is pretty good; I particularly like how the dialogue about Metamorphosis comes in before we see who is talking (thus creating a J cut). I think I could have continued in this fashion by moving onto the next shot before the character finishes his lines to make the scene flow slightly better.

I can’t believe the big pan/dolly shot for this scene worked. Although we did many practices before Bridget (who plays the waitress Claudia) had to actually carry the tray of full coffees, it was still a scary shot to shoot, because we had to do it in one take. There’s one part of the shot where I wish I had’ve moved the camera a bit faster to keep up with Bridget as she walked, but overall, it’s pretty good for only getting one chance to shoot it. I made the decision to cut from this long take to the mid shot of Peta slightly early (i.e. before the camera finished panning), because otherwise it showed too much of the background of the set: there was a washing line next to the ‘cafe’ and I wanted to avoid displaying any remnants of the actual house we were shooting at.

I think this scene would dramatically improve if I added some diegetic background music to emphasise the chaotic vibe of the cafe; maybe something manic and jazzy. This would further highlight the tonal differences between the crazy cafe scenes and the relaxed and dreamy scenes of George wandering around Melbourne. To an extent, the ‘slower’ editing and acting/staging style of the park scene differentiates it from the cafe scene. We purposely didn’t include any camera movement in the park scene so it would feel more calm and ‘stable’, in comparison to the cafe scene/s. Nevertheless, I think some ethereal music for the park sequence would also strengthen the tonal contrast between the two scenes.

I think the edit for this scene is fine, but I really need to fix up the sound effects. At the moment some sounds are too loud and others are missing altogether. The problem is that we only got one wild audio track for this scene and not all of the sounds I need are there, so I may have to get some royalty free foley off the internet. My only other considerations for modifying this scene is possibly taking out the high angle shot of George falling onto his back (by cutting back to the wide shot) and maybe using a different shot of the tree canopy because the current one is quite shaky.

SCENE 11 AND 13 EDIT

Again, I have played with the order of these two scenes. There is meant to be another scene between them, but I liked how they fitted together, so I decided to edit them next to each other, even if it is just for the studio screening.

Depending on how this cafe/angry customer scene fits into the final edit, I may cut out the first shot of the sequence with Claudia scrubbing the concrete where she dropped the coffee. Even though it is a nice continuation from the cafe scene prior to this, I don’t like the shot because the background is very overexposed (because I was exposing for the foreground). We also don’t have enough audio to play over this shot to continue it on into the next shot of the customer complaining. (For some reason we only recorded the part of the complaint that was in the script and did not think to do some improvisation to start the angry customer off on her rant). I think it will work better if we cut straight from scene 12 to the mid-closeup of the angry customer mid-protest.

Scene 13 was simple to cut together visually, but the atmos, foley and soundtrack creates a complex soundscape. I think I could improve the transition into this scene for the final edit by getting rid of the fade from black and bringing the background noise in a bit earlier. I think the song works well to create a ‘Melbourne wine bar’ ambience and helps to establish a relaxed vibe, which reflects George’s state of mind at this point in the narrative. I may need to alter the EQ of the mosquito foley to make it sound more like it’s actually coming from within the wine bar environment and maybe also figure out a way of making it look like the mosquito was actually squished onto Will/George’s arm, but I’m not sure if people notice this or not.

All in all, I don’t mind the edits, but I think I still have a long way to go until I can safely say they are ready for a proper screening as part of the film.

Reflection on day 3 shoot

Shoot day 3 consisted of filming both of the scenes at the train station and the short scene at the coffee shop. Even though we only had three scenes to shoot, two of them were the longest of the film, so it still took a whole day to get through them. I had test shot part of scene two at the train station and scene four at the coffee shop before so these were slightly easier to shoot in terms of framing and camera positioning.

My main problem for the day was exposure when shooting scene two. Again, we were shooting under a verandah area at the station, which was cast in shadow. Thus, exposing the shot became difficult because the actors were standing in the shadowed area, but we had to do a few wide shots where the sunny platform was in frame. We made the conscious decision to expose the actors correctly in the shade and let the sunny areas outside the shelter ‘blow out’ a bit. This was a shame, but it was either that or underexpose the actors, which looked odd because they were the focus of the scene. Letting the background blow out has never been a preference of mine and I don’t think I’ve ever had it happen, never mind, made it happen. However, I don’t necessarily think it matters so much in this scene, and it doesn’t look too bad losing detail in the background, when the main focus is the character anyway. Overall I’m glad I chose to overexpose the background, rather than change the whole location of the scene, because I think the staging works well. The location was perfect for the script because there was a myki machine right next to a bench, where the characters could sit, and you could also see out of the shelter to the walkway. Ultimately we will be able to adjust the exposure (to an extent) when we colour grade the film as well, so it shouldn’t look as bleak by the time we’ve finished with it.

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I am particularly excited to edit scene four, because the performances were inspired: well timed and genuine (I believed them even just watching them through the camera). It was great to work with semi-professional actors (like Will who plays the main character) and professional actors (like Eddie who plays ‘The Ex’ and ‘The Handsome Stranger’), because they know a lot about film, they treated the production process with the respect, they were used to waiting around for crew to set up and most of all, they look natural and sound great on-screen, rarely needing more than one take to nail a line.

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