Looking back at where I was towards the beginning of the semester to now I can’t help but feel amazed at the progress I’ve made just in terms of where I am mentally in relation with film. While I have undoubtedly progressed immensely with learning how to use a camera (something I thought I’d never learn how to operate on my own), I feel most proud of the effort I eventually invested in this subject even if I only picked up momentum three quarters of the way into the semester. Coming in to this semester I was in a headspace of feeling quite cynical about whether I wanted to partake in creating film anymore, as I felt that any passion for creating films I had were beginning to dissipate. To then sit in a class that seemed to be completely about the aspects of film that I liked the least and had tried to avoid like coverage and cinematography, it was very confronting for me to the point where I almost dropped the class. While I’m in no way saying these words to shroud my mentors in a false sense of applause, I did very much like the premise of the course of sticking to one scene to really focus on honing our craft without being daunted by the task of having to create this whole piece of narrative work. This aside, I still really struggled to invest myself in anything related to creating film and this certainly surfaced in my behaviour as I experienced severe lethargy and a real lack of engagement.
This eventually resulted with me putting up my hand up to be an actor for the first few class exercises. While I was obviously electing to do this as I didn’t want to be near a camera, nor did I want to have to think in any new way, and to be frank sitting around with my fellow actors talking while the others set up shots was a great deal of fun for me. However while I didn’t gather to much from these first few weeks I was provided an opportunity to sit back and watch everyone operate which eventuated in to being the catalyst of what would inspire my final studies, as I looked to work in a manner that was completely opposite to what I was witnessing in class. It was also an enlightening exercise into the frustration an actor must feel when the Director is unable to articulate what it is they want properly.
The first week I wasn’t an actor for the day was when I was feeling particularly camera shy and we filmed the scene set on a train. While I resigned to being a boom pole operator due to me not putting my hand up for any other jobs, it was during this day that I felt immense frustration with the people I was working. While we were given an hour to film the scene, my group decided that it would be a good idea spend 40 of those minutes trying to look for a location that could pass as a train as opposed to spending that time planning an inspired piece of coverage as I suggested we do. While I decided on the day to no speak up as I didn’t really care anyway, when it came to editing the piece I was fuming as we had two camera set ups to choose shots from, essentially resulting in an exercise where everyone in the group just stuck the two exact pieces of footage together. In hindsight I can obviously see that I am to blame for my own dissatisfaction as I didn’t do anything on the day of filming. Yet looking back it seems that this was the first moment of engagement with the course I had expressed of the semester.
Following this exercise was our second and marked shot analysis. While at the time this seemed like a dry exercise that I completed out of a need to do it to obtain marks, looking back the aspects of the scene that I deconstructed from Moulin Rouge were exactly what I would try and reproduce myself, which was how the scene through its editing and shot construction imbued a great deal of emotion, something I have tried to figure out how to achieve.
More feelings of exasperation still emerged over the weeks prior to this as while I tried to invest myself into the scenes we did in week 6 which as a whole we put a lot more work into, it seemed that the only thing the class wanted to do was to figure out ways of coverage that were interesting and had not been done before. While I am a strong believer in innovation I hate doing something new for the sake of being different. It seemed that I was the only one who wanted to approach the scene from standpoint of trying to deduce the character’s emotional states throughout the piece in order to shape what it is we are trying to convey. However, not many people were eager to entertain these thoughts. After a slightly scathing blog post and much needed words of encouragement from Robin I was however able to come up with the idea to focus my studies on the relationship between cinematography and humanity.
While at first I was overjoyed to find a topic that I was genuinely interested in studying which proved to be exciting for me as I was able to approach cinematography from a vantage point that I had previously not explored; this did not convert into inspiring me into doing actual work as I kind of just slacked off as I was lulled by a fake sense of security of having a topic to study.
When I did eventually get my act together I did put together an exercise for myself which I think was perfect for me as it challenged my abilities yet was an achievable goal for me to meet. With comparing different coverage styles to elicit separate emotions I certainly provided myself with a sturdy launching pad to project my work off. However I still experienced a lull in my output of work after this exercise as I was unsure where to take the study next, which is a big issue that I have witnessed arise when tasks are so self directed and you are making it up as you go along. Having this work separate to what we did in class really did help me contextualise what we were doing in class, as tasks I had previously viewed as being banal now had a purpose. For example when we were experimenting with exposure and focus I really reflected upon how I would let what we are learning be relevant by what I am specifically studying and therefore looked to play with exposure to elicit meaning.
Thankfully I did find a strong stream of direction to focus my accumulative study on as I decided that I wanted to try and create a purely tonal piece of film that looked to convey subtlety in emotions, by visualising music that I marvelled at the thought of doing so. Ultimately I really cherish the opportunity that I had to conduct this project that was completely self indulgent which I did not have to conform to anyone else’s artistic vision. When I was shooting the film I had an out of body experience where I all of a sudden realised that I was really confident with the camera and I was moving around different camera set ups on my own with such fluidity and ease. This is a skill I never thought I’d possess. Extending on that further, once ingested the footage actually came out the way I intended it to, which is something that doesn’t happen to me often and I feel is a testament to the fact that in this case I really knew what I was doing with the camera and I wasn’t just bluffing as I previously was. Overall looking at my final product while one of the segments suffered from unexpected time constraints on the day, I was incredibly proud of it and I certainly think I wholeheartedly achieved what I sought out to. If others see any value in it whatsoever is another story, however as I stated earlier this task was purely self indulgent so I guess my own satisfaction is the most important aspect.
When I think about the fact that I almost dropped this class, I feel so relieved that i stuck it through, as I think this course was absolutely vital for me at this time in my life as it may seem cheesy it really invigorated and spurred on my passion to make meaningful art. While I may not have resulted in a sophisticated piece worth sharing with others from this semester of The Scene I certainly feel like I achieved a mini victory for myself and while I wish I invested more of my energy into the class earlier I have to at least be satisfied with what I did put in.