Before I begin reflecting I want to actually define what I believe the process of reflecting itself to be. For myself, reflecting starts at comparing the work produced with the goal you had in mind. In order to do so one must clearly establish their goals in measurable terms so that if attained, they are satisfying and if not attained one can determine what particular factors were unsatisfying.

According to this definition I will reflect upon the final product. The goal I had established for myself was to explore the long take and its effect with very little movement within the frame. To  this end I am highly satisfied. Let me explain. I did not set myself such a goal that if I were to stray from it things would be disastrous. Rather I established for myself a exploratory goal whereby I can still define the successful and unsuccessful elements.

What I love about this take is that, on its own, I feel it delivers the message I am trying to articulate. In the same way, it suggests that it is part of a larger whole. Therefore I feel it has satisfied that sense of being a unit itself. The smoothness of the pan and the track encourages a heightened awareness of the accompanying soundtrack. It is the soundtrack here that establishes a progressive narrative: First we hear the sound of a baby crying (suggesting new life being born), then a flat-line on a heart beat monitor ( alluding to the death of the mother after childbirth), children’s laughter ( the innocence of being a child), car crashing ( death of loved ones – innocence being snatched away) , and finally funeral bells. Beneath these audio tracks is an eerie soundtrack, which seeps insidiously between the separate sounds creating a chilling ambiance. The reason I added this eerie track beneath it is to foreshadow the girl’s transition from innocence to literally losing her mind.

Interestingly the chandelier was never intended to be in the shot. In fact, it proved greatly disruptive as the crane was all too close to hitting it. We then decided to work with our issues instead of dismissing their potential importance. We chose to frame the chandelier in a CU before panning down to reveal the rest of the room. This worked so greatly and I am so glad we chose to work with it because it created a greater depth of field that gave the take a much more dynamic aesthetic.

The focusing is probably something I feel we could have worked better with.  We actively chose to have the background out of focus whilst the chandelier was in focus, and then focus pulled to have the the couch be in focus – since we were panning in that direction – making the couch and the girl (myself) the foreground. We certainly had difficulty managing to adjust focus whilst the camera was panning and tracking so that is something I would like to further experiment with (Having a camera moving around with the focus changing because I feel like we only ever practice that focus pull when the camera is steadily mounted on a tripod).  The focus however worked well because the girl came into focus throughout the track and came back out of focus when she was staring at the camera. Even though that loss of focus meant that the intensity of her staring at the camera was lessened, it gave her a sense of vulnerability (figuratively alluding to the fact that she is losing herself amongst this chaos).

I would love to have had an even slower take that lasted longer but it was very difficult to keep the camera steady on the crane which was mounted on the tripod that wasn’t as heavy weight as we wanted. The solution then -for future purposes-  would be to get a heavier weight tripod that could hold the crane more stable so as to attempt a slower shot. The warp stabilizer worked well in post. I overcame the fact that you couldn’t have the warp stabilizer effect and duration effect on the same clip by simply nesting the clip.

… still in the process of reflection… will keep you updated 🙂