Firstly our group decision to assign roles prior to the day of the exercise ensured we understood our responsibilities and were focused on one vision from the director/cinematographer. Considering our varying experiences handling a camera/lighting equipment, we operated cohesively and each contributed to solutions and ideas. Our group also endeavoured to establish a vision before the exercise however the characteristics of the locations and the 45 minute time slots greatly influenced decisions made on the day.

Although the time restrictions were important (and not in question), I felt this together with our inexperience limited room for us to become truly engaged with lighting decisions. All of the lighting choices were a knee jerk reaction to the spaces and not predetermined in our earlier visualisations. In saying that, we still managed to control light and exposure and achieve a sense of continuity. For instance, the reverse two-shot of Quinlan and I maintain the same soft light and evenly expose both of our faces. However, the OTS shot of Quinlan is overexposed and detail in the window to the left is lost entirely. I recall our reverse shots were planned prior to the day and were intended to stage both characters in the frame to be time efficient, but after class reflections it became obvious our artistic decisions (and the other group with the same script) essentially made the whole exercise harder! As discussed in class, the most economic choice would have been to scrap that OTS and simply maintain a close up of my character’s boiling anger.

During the outdoor shoot I was camera assisting and helping Ally and Sam capture their vision for the script. For a number of reasons the scene became rushed and we particularly struggled to achieve an acceptable exposure between the characters in full shadow and full sunlight. To counteract this problem we covered Quinlan’s white t-shirt with a black scarf and bounced a gold reflector onto Louise (who was in 95% shadow). Our location choice was also cumbersome and made it difficult to communicate what we could see on camera and what was needed to manage the light. The results are 3 shots that do not maintain a consistent level or style of light.

On reflection we can identify the many ways in which we would approach the two scenes differently however I feel a major factor that determined our results was we simply were all working together for the first time! … but no doubt a recce of the space before hand to predetermine it’s limitations and capabilities would have helped.