I was one of the actors for Tan’s shooting. In his shooting, he used dolly, and I never used it before and I learned something about it.

We ran into some problems during the shooting-the track irregularity. The tracks cannot be connected very well, there are some small gaps between two tracks and we tried to push it in, it just got stuck. Then Simone suggest to put some sand bags on the bottom of tripod to make the camera more steady. And it worked! However camera still not steady enough. After that, Simone suggest that we should use the red rope to make a connection between tripod and camera, that is what the red rope for. Then when shooting, pull the rope down as much as possible. Finally we make the camera steady as much as we can.

What’s more, something about framing.

Tan was shooting a walking scene. Simone and I are walking, I’m in front of Simone, and we have a small conversation, Tan want me to walk off after listen to Simone’s last sentence. But somehow there is no enough space in the frame, and I always walk off a bit earlier than he wanted. And we are walking really slowly. After few shots, we watch the clips to make some improvement. And we just find out that Tan’s frame is not tight enough, there is much space unnecessary around us two. So we suggest that tight the frame up, then I can have more space to walk off. Finally it gets much better.

This time, I changed location to shoot the same scene. This time I pay attention to few aspects, continuity, framing, mise-en-scene.

The mopping shot

In this shot, I still did the tilt up shot, but when editing, I will just cut from his feet and mop to his face. Also, I shoot it in another way, first a close up shoot of his feet and the mop, then a wide shot of he mopping the floor in the kitchen. This way audience gets really good explanation.

The dancing shot

To get more and natural jump cuts of dancing, I kept camera rolling all the time he dances.

The get caught shot

After he sees Tash, there is a cut back to his medium close up shot of him saying’ I wasn’t dancing…’ which is missing in last time’s shooting.

This time, whenever I frame up, I will check the background and remove everything unnecessary or not pretty.

After talking to Paul, I have more and deeper perceive on editing.

1. About tilt camera up

Usually, tilting or panning through the all object, it comes out a surprise. For example, when I tilt the camera from ground level, and audience can see it’s like a man’s feet, however when audience see object’s face, it’s a woman. That is where tilt is well used. In my editing, there is no need to tilt all the way. What I can do is cut directly to his face.

2. About continuity

In my scene, there is a dancing part. Before dancing, Prospero go to turn on the radio first, then I cut it to a close-up face expression of enjoying. This way confuses audiences in some level. All audience wants to is what he will do next, so a cut of he walking away from the radio and starts dancing would be much interpretative. Also when he dancing, more jump cuts are needed, small, short and quick jump cut would be better. This reminds me of shooting the dancing scene all together, just keep the camera rolling. In this way, it will be much easier for later editing.

3. About background music and sound effect

When Prospero is caught by Tash, he gets embarrassed and turn the music off. About this shot, I stop the music when Prospero turns it off. However it comes out not that good, a bit misleading and unnatural. The music is like a sign, what I mean, is when he starts dancing, of course, the music fade in, then when he gets caught, the music should stop immediately, in this way, audience get the message of something happened, some one appeared… If keep the music on, audience may not be aware of that something is different. Also, sound effect, when Paul said that you should add a sound effect here, I suddenly realized! I never used one in my former editing, so I almost forget about it. I forget how many comic elements can be added to it if I add a sound effect just at the point where he gets caught.

4. About mise-en-scene and framing

This concept is always in my mind, I guess I just hasn’t got critical about it. Framing is like a filter, when you see it from a film camera, when you have picked up your framing, you need to get rid of everything uglily and unnecessary. Be picky about the lighting, composition, background setting, background blurry, frame tightness, etc.

I chose the script of ‘That’s My Jam’ and shoot the first scene in it. Also I did some changes on the script. I planned shooting in my friend’s apartment. The location is picked, my friend’s apartment. Then I need my support team which is made up by a camera assistant, Lisa, a sound person, Niel, one of my friends, and two actors, Tan and Phoebe. I bring the jar of jam and a mop as stage property. Phoebe talked with her roommate about using their chicken in advance to make sure they are agree with our shooting. The film camera, tripod and audio kit are also ready to go.

In pre-production, I did sufficient preparation to make the shooting process smoother. For example, I wrote down the shoot list one by one, then wrote everything could occur in this shot and different ways to shoot this one. Also I tried to draw some storyboard, but it turns out that storyboard doesn’t really work for me and I was confused by myself’s drawing ^^”. So I give up the storyboard and make my shooting list more detailed and specific.

Even though I did sufficient preparation, but still I kept bumping into some problems. The location, turns out the location is much smaller than I expected. There is not enough room for a big tripod and actors moving around. Because of that, I cannot get the angles and framings I wanted originally. So next time, check the location more carefully. Also I ran into some camera setting problems which is pretty silly. When I look back, I thought of that we’ve gone through that in class. The answer to it is on the sheet of Z7 instruction. However we struggled with it for a long time, even think about shooting the scene with my own camera, canon 700D. In the end, I called my tutor and he asked me to turn up the Z7 instruction and finally I found the answer. So next time check all the settings first, not sure about some? go to the instruction first.

The shooting process is effective in general, everyone was doing their job well. And we finished the shooting in exactly four hours. Because of the small space, I found that handheld is much easier and more convenient than using a tripod. You can be more flexible about the height level. For example, when I was shooting the conversation, camera should be at their eye level, the chicken is very crowded and it’s impossible to put a tripod there, so I handheld the camera and sit on the table, in this way the height level seems alright. Also I learned something about camera movement, do not hesitate, be prompt!

At this weekend, Mona did some shooting exercise. I and Lisa went to support her. During the shooting process, we kept running into problems. Based on these problems, I will learn from them and be prepared for my shooting exercise next week.

‘GET INTO POSITIONS’

During Mona’s shooting, Mona, Lisa and me all did camera operating, also I was in charge of audio and camera assistant. Also one of mona’s friends was the pom holder. The problem here is there are too many people around and everyone didn’t actually clear about what they should do, what’s their positions, there is no clear divisions for everyone. Even though we got through the entire process, but it was frustrating and took a really long time to finish.

What I will do: I will need two actors, my friends Phoebe and Tan, a dop/director, myself, a sound person, Mona/Lisa, a camera assistant, Mona/Lisa, a director assistant, one of my friends, haven’t decided yet. I will talk to they all, and tell them what exactly what they need to be in charge of. Also I will send them the script, story board, shot list in advance. In this way it will be easier for us to communicate with each other and be more effective.

‘PRE-PRODUCTION IS IMPORTANT’

During Mona’s shooting, she struggled with different shot size, angles, framing. Also we ran into some practical problems like the male actor is very tall, it is hard for mona to get a shot over his shoulder. We tried to let the actor hunch a bit, but it came out to be strange. So finally we found a small chair to stand on it to get the shoot. This kind of stuff should be considered in advance. Then prepare for it. What Mona did good is the lighting. She was aware of the lights in her building, might be dark for the shooting, so she borrowed a light from Uni in advance. And the lights turned out to be great by using extra lights.

What I will do: I showed my shooting list to Paul the other day, he said one manner I think it’s great for pre-production, for example, WS of Prospero moping the floor, write this shot on a small piece of paper, then just like a brain storm, think everything related to this shoot you might consider like different shooting angles, framings, camera movement, what stage property might be used, what accident might happen, etc. I have to think about everything might happen in this shoot, and write them down. When shooting, all I need to do is check the list.

one spark I catch

To make it editing look more continuous and smooth, always shoot more clips. If they are not actually used is ok.

At this weekend, I shoot the exercise with Lisa and mona. We both shooting dialogues. I found the most important thing about dialogue is the shooting with different angles. Lisa shot three people’s dialogue, she kept shooting from different angles. For example, different people’s over shoulder, different people’s pov, different people’s face and back. Another important thing is when shooting dialogue, always remember keep the camera on the same level when shooting from different angles.

Mine is two people’s dialogue. In shot, I used panning. however I asked Pual for feedback, it turns out I didn’t pan well. Pual said there are two kinds of panning, first one is to pan optionally, the second one, two people are talking, pan when one is talking, and cut to the the other is listening, to show the audience the face of the listener, but we can still hear the one who is talking. About the panning in my exercise, when I saw the clip, I found it is like there isn’t enough time to watch when one of them is talking. I guess that’s why this is a bad pan. You need to give the audience a second to catch up.

About editing, I did two different visions. When I was editing, I tried to let the one talk first, then cut quickly to another who’s replying, then cut back again, after that, cut again to the other, just like this, cut forth and back, it comes out the same problem as above, there is not enough time to catch up for audience, it’s pretty strange and uncomfortable to watch. So guess this kind of cut is more suitable for long conversation not for this kind of short, ‘few sentences’ conversation.

In my shoot, one of them getting up to get some drink from the machine, in my two visions, camera just moved slightly, following Lisa. Pual asked me if there is a better way to cover this scene. Then he showed me two examples which spark me. One is I can have a wide shoot from side, a different angle, contains two girls both in the frame. Second, I can pan the camera with the frame where Lisa is on the most left side, then pan camera back with the frame where both of them are in. Both of these two are better than what I shoot. When it is hard to imagine, I can also draw some pictures to help thinking.

In this week’s class, we did some shooting exercise in a group form. I did some camera operating and acting. And I found that I’m not smooth enough with the camera movement, so I will do more exercise about it. The problems I have contains timing and speed. I couldn’t choose the perfect timing to move the camera sometimes. Also, I could’t catch up with actors in time sometimes. More practices must be done, there is no other way to improve this.

Besides this, I learned something about camera movements. In mona’s shooting, I did camera operating once, there is a shot a drunk guy is against the wall and slowly sitting onto ground. In this shoot, I chose to move the camera up to down, exactly the same way of the drunk guy. Then mona asked me to just tilt camera down is fine.

What’s more, when Tan did his single shot, (I think it is a really great one!) He hand held the camera, use the his sight point of view (POV) to shoot the entire scene. four different people at four different spots in a hall way doing different stuff, camera just move slowly into the hall way and has a very quick medium close up shoot of what they are doing and then move on, the entire camera movement is very causal and smooth, I feel like I was the person who pass through that hall way. It comes out like a single shoot plus a long shot.

Also Pual said one thing also remind me of framing. I think it’s something like ‘anywhere can be an elevator’. Audience can received the message from lots of aspects, like sounds, dialogue, settings, etc. when you have a very tight framing, audience usually pay more attention to the actors and what they do, what they say. so my you can just choose a wall with a television on it. So this elevator has a television in it. We can add lots of editing in it afterwards.

These I talked about is just like some little sparks which remind me of more different ways of shooting I can apply into my exercise to achieve different effect.

In this week’s class, we go through several shooting technique, focal length, focus, exposure, neutral density, gain, white balance.

Follow focusing

In this exercise, I learned to chose the spots you want to keep focus on first, then mark them. Let the object stand at the spots marked before, crush zoom in, then focus, after that, mark the focus and focal length on the stick tap sticked on the lens before.

When object moves, there have to be a focus puller who change the focus from one point to another. This person can be camera assistant. Also he/she also need to be familiar with camera movements, so he/she can keep it same with DOP. and then the process can be more smooth than without any preparation and communication. When I support mona to be her focus puller and camera assistant in her shooting exercise, it happened, when she moved camera very quickly, I didn’t prepared well and realize it, so I failed to pull focus well. Next time in shooting exercise, I will be prepared for that, and ask my camera assistant to be prepared as well. What’s more, if there isn’t a deep depth of field, there is no need to do the follow focusing. It is also found in exercise, there is no big difference if there is a shallow depth of field.

Exposure

To choose the right exposure, there is a way to test, turn on the zebra code button. The standard is the appearance of zebra code on object’s forehead and nose. Then you can tell it’s the right exposure. However, during the shooting exercise, I found that it is better if you choose the exposure amount under the standard exposure, the standard exposure is a bit over exposure. Also I learned a little tip about lighting and exposure during the exercise, when camera is tracking and the light is changing and become darker and darker, we can pull the exposure circle to gain the light. So there must be a ‘exposure puller’ for this. And remember the right direction of pulling the circle. This manner also works when you want less lights when tracking.