Exercise #1 saw us filming two 50 second pieces of the same subject with careful consideration of a number of things. In doing so, we would be employing practical skills using the Sony EX3, which I had not had any prior experience working with until this class.
I had initially planned to film for this week’s exercise after our Monday class with a couple of friends, but as I was sick/called into work on Monday, I ended up doing it on my own on the Friday morning. This was quite a bigger step back than what I anticipated.
After the full week, my memory of how to use the camera was a little foggy and time was short. I decided to stay close to RMIT for the filming so that I could spend the extra time focusing on the equipment side of things, but this didn’t seem to equate to much.
It took me quite some time to prepare for the first shot and remember how to do some ‘basic’ functions. Exposure was the big thing that I struggled with, which is evident in the end product. I also forgot to set the filter on the camera (I was shooting outdoors). This was something that carried over to the second shot as well, as I didn’t take the time to do a full reset and go through everything one by one, I just set the ‘obvious’ things and found a shot that I was happy with and started recording. I now see why Robin emphasised so much going through this checklist every time you are changing shots.
Although not the purpose of the exercise, I think this task made me realise how difficult it is to do everything on your own. When working with other people, I tend to vocalise my check list and ask questions even when I think I know the answer, just to make sure that I’ve done everything right. Being on my own with a piece of equipment that I was not yet comfortable with caused me to not place the importance on every small task that I should have.
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