In Friday’s class we each took 30-40 minutes to act as creative ‘directors’ – organising the members of our groups as collaborators who would assist in the capturing of footage that we will further explore/experiment with in future classes. The exercise was designed to allow us to explore an area/idea that we wanted to further understand and develop skill in. Not only did this allow us to practice our instruction of ‘crew members’ but it also gave us the experience of being a member of someone’s team – a valuable experience for someone who wants to lead/direct teams in the future.
I wanted to explore some less conventional camera movements – specifically circular movement of the camera whilst facing upwards. I plan to edit the 4 clips I shot in a way so that the circular movements can blend together, creating an ongoing and ever-changing transition between shots – perhaps similar to a kaleidoscope effect.
It was interesting communicating my intentions to the other members of my group. Coordinating the 360 pan with the audio recordist was quite complicated as they had to move around in sync with the camera to avoid the XLR cables becoming tangled around the tripod. This exercise also helped me develop my knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of the Sony cameras as well as the 2 stage tripods.
Unfortunately I couldn’t point the camera straight upwards as I had planned due to the tripod head, however I found ways to work around this issue, for instance by spreading out the tripod legs so that the tripod head could be lower to the ground. It was good to work with the audio mixer and shotgun microphone plugged into the camera, as this is a setup I haven’t had much experience with.
I look forward to getting into the edit suites to experiment with the footage collected, hopefully everything will turn out alright – however if I experience issues that’s ok too as it’ll force me to problem solve and reevaluate my ideas.