Last night I went for an extended walk around my suburb with the intention to capture some footage to test out my current ideas for my Film3 research assignment. I got a friend to tag along (both to act as a subject AND for some company [because I’m scared of being shanked in a suburb predominantly occupied by elderly people]).
I had a few locations in mind, and I was able to capture some quite interesting and visually compelling video. Unfortunately, my monopod decided to break 10 minutes into our trip – resulting in a lot of handheld footage. I think the video/audio that I captured helped to solidify my ideas mentally, and it gave me more confidence in what I have decided to pursue for the next 6 weeks.
I was concerned that available light would be too low to capture crisp, noise-free footage however most of the locations I visited were lit well enough to capture visuals that were still visually pleasing. Using a f1.8 lens also helped capture clean images – this low aperture also resulted in a shallow depth of field that I had intended to manipulate to create more cinematic and interesting imagery.
I messed around a lot with bokeh effects and I found traffic lights to be interesting subjects to shoot out of focus: as the lights change from red to orange to green, the bokeh also changes, giving the shot a more dynamic feel. I also discovered that having someone walk in front of the camera whilst capturing bokeh effects results in a pretty cool look – as the person blocks the light sources, the disks of coloured light flicker on and off.
With audio being a key interest in my experiments I also aimed to capture some detailed and minimalistic soundscapes. I was successful in recording a chorus of pedestrian-light buttons ticking in harmony. I also recorded some really interesting buzzing sounds (coming from lights and power boxes) which I think will be valuable when I begin assembling whatever I decide to create.
I think this venture into the night was really helpful and the footage I’ve captured will certainly inform my future testing sessions and experiments. Hopefully the decision to film predominantly during 12 – 2am won’t ruin my sleeping habits (more that they already are) and will actually allow me to be a bit more productive during a time when I’m usually not doing much anyways.
*I’ll upload some of the footage that I captured last night and share it in a separate post*