In all honesty, I’ve put off reflecting on my shoot because I am so disappointed with the results. Rather than dwell on my headspace (on the day and the weeks leading up to) that attributed to its faults, I will work to move forward and reflect on the solutions gained from hindsight.

First of all, Kerry was on fire for the entire shoot, offering lighting solutions, innovations and general support. I couldn’t have done it without him and I’m not even sure how he made sense of my gibberish communications. Also Ryan and Sarah who maintained their always calm demeanour – I feel fortunate to have worked with such a patient group.

I made the decision to change the ‘narrative’ to utilise the empty, family home and approached the day with a loose concept guided by a set of actions and emotions. The idea imagined Sarah as a metaphor for the memories that lingered in that space, like a ghost fuelled by emotion. Therefore each of the four lighting setups would still be according to plan, but Sarah’s actions would express an emotion. However this ‘loose’ approach backfired when the motivation for action didn’t work and because I wasn’t thinking like my usual self, I hit a wall. From this point forward a landslide was taking place in my head, which became evident after the first set up.

The first ‘scene’ was the closest to my plan, executing cool, soft, diffused light and illustrating longing. We maintained a moody feel through exposure control both in camera and practically, which included a bounced Dedo camera right in the wide and a core board to both bounce a Dedo and cut sunlight in the close ups.

The scenes that followed were ultimately tripped by my flawed ideas for action. When I reviewed the footage 24 hours later with fresh eyes, the missed opportunities and simple solutions were abundantly clear. The most obvious – there was an entire house at my disposal! Why didn’t I maximise on this and break out of the bedroom, since the revised concept didn’t need to be limited to that space. I guess the below set up was my improvised attempt but that mental landslide had gone too far. My idea for the action could have been resolved with Sarah pacing in the living room lit by the venetian blinds; close ups of her feet or close up shots opening/closing the blinds.

The second realisation was ‘quality over quantity’ – instead of 4 shots I should have focused on just two. Although this seems glaringly obvious in hindsight, I have enough experience that should have seen me rectify this on set. I should have maintained the first cool, soft scene and then contrast it with a warm, hard scene. If I had the opportunity to shoot again, I would strip away the action and instead mirror everything in the second setup, since this would cut nicely together and accentuate the contrast in light.

The decision to shoot 50p resulted in my greatest mistake, I forgot to match the shutter with 1/100th or 1/120th. Sure, this mistake is not the end of the world but in my final weeks of nearly 4 years of film studies, I am beyond disappointed. Initially shooting 50p was to ensure the handheld camera looked smoother when played back at 25fps and for the overall style to feel more graceful. I won’t fully know its effects till post, but hope the expected motion blur might be passable as an artistic choice and not the complete blunder it really was. Also, fingers crossed it compliments the ghostly nature of Sarah’s character.

Ironically, I felt like a ghost ‘fuelled by emotion’ and have not previously gone into a project feeling so distant from myself. I think it is all circumstantial and actually exacerbated by the emotions tied to finishing my degree this semester. But the result frustratingly affected my capacity to maintain clarity and be solutions oriented… Anyway, time to move on and edit.