Sometimes, there can be too many shots.

This was our (Tessa, Belinda, Astley, John and I’s) first attempt at tackling the “Lenny 4” script, and our first real shoot for the Small Things studio. While on set, we really meticulously planned out what shots and angles we wanted for this project, marking camera positions and creating a succinct shot list. Once shot, we felt really happy with what we had captured in the limited time and prompts given, and uploaded the footage onto Google Drive for editing to commence.

I felt really good about my rough draft of the edit, scenes were coming together and while they didn’t make too much sense in the grand scheme of the story of the script (but that might have more to do with the actors forever switching), I was enjoying watching through it. However, once reviewing the rough assembly the next day, I realised. There were too many shots.

Scenes of 10 seconds would have upwards to 3 to 4 cuts to different shots within them, which became jarring and incoherent with ever watch. For example, in scene two, the script states that Sharon walks through a laneway, looking up and around anxiously as she walks with the box for Lenny. Adapting the laneway to a hallway, we took 3 different shots of the scene. A wide shot of Sharon walking, a mid shot with way too much headroom and a close up of her feet in motion. In my edit, I decided to use all 3 in my rough cut, with the shots switching between each other at such a pace that a viewer would struggle to understand what was going on in the scene, whether these were all Sharon, and if the box they only saw for a second had any significance.

This abundance of incoherent shots definitely gave us more insight into how to shoot when we reshot the scenes the following week, focusing on the shots that worked and if they would make sense when cut and spliced together.