During this third week of the Film Light studio, for me, it was all about getting in front and behind the camera, and putting the information and techniques discusses and documented in week 2 into practice.

We had a few planned group members not show up, so Tash and I teamed up with Jagger, Elenor and Noah on exercise 3, which was great! They are lovely and talented people. Tash and I acted (born to be stars) in the dramatic telling of Barney and Rachel’s dinner plans. Being in front of the camera was a lot of fun, and whilst it wasn’t as technically involving (definitely want to be behind the camera next exercise, just so I can continue to familiarise myself with these depth of field and camera lighting techniques, we were both still very much involved in how it all looked. Below is a cut of what we did.

We wanted to really play around with a greater depth of field, making the shot more dynamic and interesting than a basic two-shot. The location we shot at serendipitously helped out with this, as there was a window behind the railing in which we could capture myself walking past clearly, as to notice Barney, and approach her. I feel like this worked really well, however, if this had been a professional shoot / if we had lighting kits, I would have suggested we light Rachel (myself) with a light panel or dido (not a Fresnel light though, way too much wattage). This way, I would be more visible, and my facial expressions of interest would have been clearer.

We used a white coreboard to bounce light onto Tash and I, and whilst it could have used a few more light sources to bounce off (just something that was out of our hands at the time), it worked way better than without, which has really given me a lot faith in white cardboard.

As stated before, being an actor was lots of fun, but I am very keen to get behind that camera or do something that gets me directly involved in the action!