2. Homework #1:
I found the first homework for deliberate film much more difficult than I had initially anticipated, this lead to me building up the task into something big and scary in my head, and therefore, putting it off. I believe the reason I was so anxious to start the homework was because I hadn’t edited or shot anything (even just on my phone) since last year, semester 2. I decided for my deliberate film homework #1, I would shoot myself repeating an action, as I got closer towards the camera with shots ranging from wide shots to medium close ups. Although my video is shot on an iPhone and incredibly rusty, I still am proud of myself for pushing myself to create something and accepting that it will not necessarily be interesting or entertaining. For me, a moment of discovery came when I was editing this video and despite it’s terrible quality, still felt a sense of pride that I was able to produce any form of media at all despite feeling so nervous and unpracticed. In future, when I get this feeling of uneasiness, I think it’s better to just push through it and pull something together (even if it’s not my best work) rather than just putting off the task at hand until the last minute. One aspect of my homework that I was happy with was the diegetic sound of the ball hitting the ground as I feel that it adds depth to my video. Although, I was slightly disappointed in myself for not finding better lighting – the quality of this clip could have been vastly improved if I had closed the door at the back of the hallway as it would not have been so overexposed. I was also quite pleased with how I utilised my available surroundings (The hallway) to accomplish my vision of getting a wide range of shots into my video. Overall, I feel that this video was probably not my best work because of it’s poor quality, however I feel that I have learnt a valuable lesson about the creative process involved in creating media.
I found the Class exercise “Lenny 5 – The book” difficult to edit and complete because we could not shoot all of the footage that we needed to due to class being cancelled. This was a very big roadblock for me, as the first part of our scene could not be included. We also had several other continuity obstacles as we constantly switched actors so everyone could have a turn as director. I tried my best to edit the footage, but it still turned out rather disjointed and confusing. I hope that the footage is able to be understood, despite both of the characters being played by different actors in each shot. The realization I came to, when I saw the footage for this exercise was that I need to be more conscious and aware of what is going on when shooting footage. If I had been more attentive to what was going on during filming, and communicated more clearly with my group , the editing process could have been a lot smoother for all of us. Our group members should have established a more effective method of communication when filming, as it could have meant a more cohesive final product, rather than all of us simply directing their own shot and having no creative input for the rest of the shoot.