In Wednesday’s class we watched back our poorly filmed shots from Friday. Despite the quality of the shots, I enjoyed watching them back in silence because it allowed us to focus on the camera movements and framing rather than the acting. When reflecting on how the camera could have been used differently we saw that the camera movements weren’t fluid, the panning and tracking was rushed and the frames hadn’t been set up properly. I’m hoping that it was the time restriction that caused for these mistakes. Watching the shots back really helped me to realise the importance of planning a shot and effectively communicating your vision to the crew and actors.

In class we were put into filming groups, given a script and location for filming on Friday. We briefly mapped out each scene, the camera coverage and the positioning of our actions on location. I really wanted to achieve a scene that was filmed to edit. We spoke about filming to edit in class and how it can used in order to manipulate time and control the emotion of a scene. I suggested to the group that it could be effective to cover the entire scene from different perspectives as this would give us more to work with when editing. As I wasn’t there for filming on Friday I am really interested to see how the shoot turned out. I am looking forward to editing something that I didn’t work on to see if it differs from my groups vision for the scene.

Epiphany:

This week’s epiphany has come from the mistakes that were made with the quality of filming when pressured for time. I realised that pre-production and planning is key to creating an aesthetically pleasing shot when given a time restriction. As a director, if you are uncertain of your own vision for a scene then it is extremely difficult to translate that vision and communicate it to your crew and actors. In realising that rough planning is needed before filming, I have also discovered how important it is to leave room for experimentation and improvisation- this is where some of the most aesthetic and interesting shots can take shape.