On Tuesday and Thursday of Week 4, our True To Form studio activities was made up of various ideas that were formed together based on last week’s writing exercises leading up to Week 7 Project Pitch, proposal and presentation. In my case, I have planned to shoot and experiment something with different angles. I wanted to experiment this as this was something that I initially wanted to explore further on for pitch in Week 7.

Paul picked random groups to work together with and we had the whole 3-hour class to begin this journey. My group consist of 4 members and each of us had different ideas that we have worked on over the weekend and brought to class. So, we helped each other out to enable to make our ideas to real life. We begin our shooting in Melbourne’s iconic State library. My group asked permission and was lucky enough to be let in by the staff in the State Library. Although, it was quite packed and many people were taking pictures as well as, doing their own work, we were able to shoot some footages for three of our group members who utilized the State Library as the setting for their idea.

In my case, I initially wanted an open space, such as a park where there is an open field and I can utilize the camera in different angles from the front, back, left and right with no restrictions. However, I was not able to do so because at that time the city was full of people and the location we chose was at the heart of Melbourne City, as well as, the time was quite restricting for the four of us to make our ideas to come true. So I chose to film my part at Melbourne Central right across the State Library on the floor of the clock tower. Although, it was still packed, I was able to utilize my time as much as possible and obtain my idea as much as possible as well.

Here is what I collated together:

The character was one of our group member, Eva. Since we were at the edge I couldn’t get the camera to film in front of her to capture her full face. But, I was able to capture her standing and looking at the clock tower and Melbourne Central in different angles.

Even though my initial idea didn’t exactly happen, I still am able to use a bit of the first thought I had in mind in this exercise as much as possible. For the pitch, I wanted to be able to show that different angles could generate various expressions of the focus (in this case, Eva as a character) and how audiences may perceive this focus in various ways as well. I wanted to produce a montage of shots, in which could indicate a sense of ‘story’ without actually performing much or using a narration – just simply by showing different camera angle of a specific action within a space and performed by a certain character, up to Week 7.

I hope to be able to choose a better location and/or setting the next time around, to be able to direct a certain action more clearly, as well as, creating this simple idea as perfect as it can be.

In terms of editing, this short clip, I was able to maintain the exposure, white balance and focus for each shot from the original clip. But, I wasn’t able to color grade the clip just because I do not have much experience with Premiere as a software, especially, the technicalities, which I hope to be able to experiment further throughout the semester before the mid-break and our final project.

This exercise has definitely made me think more about what I am going to do next, especially that we’re getting near to Week 7. I will definitely explore more on my idea and research more about it. Thus, I still hope to experiment on this further so that hopefully, it could turn out to become a project for me to work on and pitch about in the future for this studio.