During the final exercise working with Luke we shot two 50 seconds of footage in an attempt to document a place, event or activity. Overwhelmed with choices, we meandered for half of the time struggling to settle upon a particular subject. Our initial idea of wandering down to Swanston Street allowed us a vast plethora of material; the only issue was then selecting what to shoot. Finally settling upon the expanse in front of the state library we set up intent upon capturing pedestrians as they walked. The shot itself also included the backdrop of the state library and some aspects of QV. Once we set up we felt somewhat pressured for time and in our haste I feel they shot my have been slightly over exposed. At this stage we were more interested in capturing our first 50 seconds.

As we set up to shoot I thought a bit about what Robin had said in class about ensuring that you’re happy with your shot before filming. Ensuring that what you’re capturing is useful and interesting alleviates much of the stress of shifting through countless footage in editing. Reflecting upon prior projects for various subjects it seems that my thinking prioritised quantity over quality. The truth though is that bad footage cannot be saved by editing, what is captured in camera needs to have merit for the final edit to also have merit.

After our first 50 seconds we changed our position this time capturing pedestrians at a right angle to their direction of travel. In doing so, we believed a greater emphasis would be placed upon the walking of the commuters. In our haste once again the exposure of the shot is slightly off. Attempting to compensate for the prior over-exposure I believe this shot was somewhat under exposed.  Due to the fixed focal length we found with the first shot that most things we’re in focus and those walking from a far would then move into focus. Within the second 50 seconds we found that with the new positioning, much more of the scene was in focus and provided a crisper image. The framing of this second shot also provided the sense of a tighter frame, capturing the motion of walking in more detail.