DAY 2 – OFFICIAL SHOOT

This week we had our last day of shooting at Macedon. This location was beautiful and every turn we made, every corner of the location was visually appealing. Even though we had particular shots we already had in mine, one thing that we were concern about with shooting at such a location with endless possibilities was that we might get off track and ‘shoot the shit out if’. Having our film based on a poem really helped guide us through the filming process and gave us an idea how it should look like. The poem was about death and grieve, which means moody, dark, emo, loneliness. With the weather on our side, we were blessed with a nice cloudy day with no sunlight with contributed to the mood. During our test shoots at this location we were concern with lighting as that day was really sunny and had too harsh and bright lighting which we would struggle to fix during the post production stage but thankfully we don’t have to worry about that anymore.

We learned a lot as individuals and as a group, each member got the chance to direct and be the camera operator and while that was going on, we were constantly giving each other tips and feedback for the shots. I feel like this was really beneficial in a sense that they saw things that I did not see and vice versa that was wrong about the angle/framing etc. This is one important thing that I stated in my collaboration blog post.

In terms of camera movement and angles, I feel like we did a decent job however I realized that we had too many shot where the camera was stationary and the character moved, which could result in it looking boring. It would have been a good idea to take more tracking shots/ moving with the character or in the perspective of the camera.

One thing I wished we could have filmed better was the concept of the character going on a journey to this unfamiliar yet familiar place. While looking through the clips, I felt like we didn’t follow through thoroughly with our plan to take the audience with the character on her journey. For example this clip below, if we were to put it into the film , it would have been improved we had establishing shots of her feet taking steps, close ups of her hands, maybe a mis shot as well.

-COLLABORATION –

Collaboration is ‘the action of working with someone to produce something. In the first semester of the year we had been exposed to collaboration work and how it could either uplift or pull down the success of your project. I couldn’t relate to anyone who speaks of the outcome of a good collaboration. However after working with the group I had this semester, I now understand the mass impact and influence a good group can have.

My group consisted of Alana, Jeyda, Daleen and myself. Some groups were made through friendships but with our group, friendships were formed through this group for our final assessment. We kicked off to a good start in the first few discussion of our final project. Firstly it was important that we all had the same vision when it came to the final product of the film to avoid a clash of creative vision. Thankfully the whole group was on the same page and all jumped on board to the concept we decided on. Secondly, each member had a fair share in contributing and sharing ideas, all of us also had very open minds towards exploring and experimenting ideas to make our film the best it could be. As a group we understood the importance of creating our project to be very visually aesthetic way but to not let that get in the way of it’s true meaning of the film. (i.e- having shots that we like and felt ‘looked pretty’ but had no contribution or relation to the meaning of the film)

Another important aspect of a good collaboration is making sure there is equal workload delegated to each member during the pre and post production process. This key to collaboration was really emphasized in this group. Each and every single member played an important part in the process of creating our film. The strength of our teamwork was really shown when we began officially shooting our film. On the day of shooting, it was clear that we all respected each others creative input to the film, this is because we did a rotation of taking turns to play different roles in the process. Each member got to direct and operate the camera. At the time of our shooting process, some members due to scheduling and personal matters could not be there for it. However instead of using their circumstances as an excuse to not do work, compromise was made and they contributed in more post production work.

In post production work, the excitement and feedback we received from each other was very encouraging. We met frequently to ensure we had the right communication and visual goal for how we wanted the end product of the film to look and feel like. We had two locations for this film and before presenting out first draft, we had to roughly edit the clips. Collaboration was shown here as we split the group in half and 2 members edited one location and the second location by the other 2. We constantly asked each other for tips, feedback to see how we could make it look better and portray it’s meaning without losing the flow of the film.

In conclusion, I now understand the importance of good collaboration. Throughout this entire process we ensured each other that the friendship and teamwork will be one to carry into the future. We regularly emphasized how much we enjoyed working together and that we were all very proud with how our work turned out.

DAY 1-OFFICIAL SHOOT

Our first official shoot was at Jeyda’s house. It was a very fun day as we just had so much fun shooting together. The experience of figuring how to achieve the shots we wanted and excel in the process of doing so was very exciting. Based on the storyboard, we had a rough idea of the angles and camera movements however through trying to achieve it we had a few couple stumbles here and there. There is 2 shots in particular that we are very proud of that took us almost almost an hour to achieve.

The two shots shown above is two wide angled, tracking shots the the character, one around the back of her and another one moving towards her from the back. We knew form the start that a dolly or any camera equipment besides a tripod and the camera itself was out of our reach nor did we want to hassle to get it.

The process of creating these two shots was my ultimate favourite part of the day. At the end of it, we felt so proud and excited to edit the shots to our liking such as the speed, colour grade and etc. The clip above is the final product of the shots.

Below a behind the scenes look of how the two shots were taken.

I clearly remember the excitement we had after we overcame this obstacle of getting the shot we wanted, the ideas just kept flowing in. We kept in mind the idea of ‘shooting to edit’ which really helped us in a sense that we shot only what we thought would fit the vibe and be a contribution in projecting the meaning of the poem (not just ‘shooting the shit out of it’ quote Paul)

Things I feel we could have improved on:

• We had too many pull focus shots , but luckily we considered the timing and how we could edit/cut it if we did not want the shot as a pull focus.
• Too many of the same shots, next time more of a range in actions/angles
• Not as much camera movement as we should’ve incorporated, too many stationary shots.
• We figured we would add music in the background and not add in the raw audio from the clips, therefore during the shoot we talked a bit too much in the background giving us no option but to cut out the audio.
• Not much of a range in shots, mostly same shot repeated.

FIRST TEST SHOOT!

After narrowing it down to our two final locations we began test shoots.As a group we created a rough storyboard of the shots we hoped to achieve.The first test shoot was in Macedon, one of our 2 final locations. We had to limit ourselves to how far we were going to explore the location as it is a massive space.

We took shots of every part of the location that we thought could play a role in flow of the film. We traced our steps as to which we would imagine ourselves as the character and the director going thru the location and the actions we wanted to be shot. Moreover as the lighting won’t definitely be the same on the day of our official shoot, we still played around with the lighting and tested the angles in which the lighting would enhance the shot.

The second location is Jeyda’s (one of the group members) house, specifically her living room but on the day of our official shoot we ended up doing some filming in her garden. We did not have a test shoot for this unfortunately due to individual scheduling and also because we were only planning to shoot 1 minute out of the 3 of the film at this location therefore we felt like it was okay to not have a test shoot.

However my favourite part of the test shoot process was when we came together as a group, sat down in the edit suite and went thru clip by clip analysing what we could improve on for when we have our official shoot. Pinpointing the little things like framing, angles, lighting, action shots and movement of the camera.

 

For our final assessment we aimed to create a cinematic non scripted film that had that dark but meaningful concept to it. A few constraints we implied on this film was that it would only be shot with natural lighting and consists of only one character. Our initial idea was inspired by a short film called SALT by Ollie Ritchie, a you-tuber.

 S (stress), A (adventure), L (love), T (time).

We were intrigued by the idea of each alphabet standing for an individual word with it’s own meaning and still managing to bring it together as a whole film without losing it’s meaning. With that concept in mind, we went with the word FEAR and tried to make it our own however we struggled massively with having each alphabet stand for a word that when put in a whole film would connect but unfortunately failed to do so. We brainstormed for a couple of days and came to a conclusion that since we did not want it to be scripted that we needed some sort of guide.

After thorough discussion we finalized that our final film would be based on a poem. We searched through tons of poems to find one that we felt we could achieve in visually creating it and projecting it’s meaning to the audience. We finalized a poem that was by Elizabeth Jennings that is basically about a girl who is mourning over the death of people she does not even know and grieving at the fact that she does not have anyone to grieve for. Moreover with the constraint of having one character, we figured it would be cool to take the audiences through this character’s journey of grief and lost in an aesthetically pleasing way.

 

By Elizabeth Jennings 

 

 

At this particular time I have no one

Particular person to grieve for though there must

Be many, many unknown ones going to dust

Slowly, not remembered for what they have done

Or left undone. For these, then, I will grieve

Being impartial, unable to deceive.

How they lived, or died, is quite unknown,

And, by that gives my grief purity,

An important person quite apart from me

Or one obscure who drifted down alone.

Both or all I remember , have a place.

For these I never encountered face to face.

Sentiment will creep in. I cast it out

Wishing to give these classical response,

 

No epitaph, no poppy and no rose

From me, and certainly no wish to learn about

The way they lived or died. In the earth or fire

They are gone. Simply because they were human,

I admire.