This week was an intense one for me. Our group finally found time to film our first video experiment for Assignment 4 on Monday, we quickly prepared a presentation for said experiment that was showcased the following day on Tuesday, I had many assignments due at the end of this week, and on top of all that, I set myself the goal of watching more films. It has been HECTIC.

Let’s start with the movie watching, recently I’ve been bingeing a lot of Jake Gyllenhaal films (no surprise by now) that I had not seen before, but had been meaning to watch.

The first of these was End of Watch released in 2012, which is shot documentary / found footage style of these two cops going around on patrol in the gang-ridden areas of Los Angelas. A majority of scenes in the film take place on the dashboard/centre console of the car, and how they managed to control the light from outside the moving vehicle was incredible. I’d love to see how many cutters they used to keep the consistent or perfectly exposed changing light sources under control.

The next of these films I saw was Jarhead, released in 2005, which follows the story of a soldier, or ‘jarhead’, working his way through the ranks, experiencing the horrors of war what the lack of action can do to a mental state. I enjoyed the film, and the lighting worked for the most part, but it was pretty boring. They must have really worked with the exposure and the footage in post to ensure the desert shots were not grandly overexposed or maybe shot everything in a studio, I am not sure!

The most recent Gyllenhaal binge film I have seen at the time of writing this was Demolition in 2015. The film follows a widowed man reinventing his life and friendships to discover who he truly is and what he wants. Whilst I vastly preferred the first half of the film, the second half featured these scenes in which two of the main characters demolished a house, I noticed that a lot of the lighting fill was coming from the white and light grey reflective surfaces of the large rubble pieces, and wondered if they intentionally knew this would be how they would light the scene, or if it was a serendipitous accident. I have honestly been really looking at lighting in films with curiosity and wonder, seeing if I can identify their source and style. Whilst I usually can’t its good to be thinking.

Moving on to our group’s presentation, I was really proud of our efforts and overall presentation. Even though there were some scares with late arrivals due to transport delays, we managed to get through it all with what I thought was charisma and well-spoken explanation, with some feedback that has given us a lot to work with in regards to the next experiment for Assignment 4.

And while brainstorming for that experiment in class on Thursday, Robin incited an epiphany in us. We had been worrying about how we were going to lug so much gear with us, and how no location we could feasibly think of would have the right amount of power outlets to make anything viable. But all it took was Robin to suggest we use no artificial lighting, and our world changed.

We could instead, just use bounce boards and cutters to manipulate a well-lit area, and use inside and outside to show colour temperature. It was like a whole new world has just opened up to us. One that was going to sufficiently challenge and insight useful set information and technique. It was refreshing. We immediately went location scouting, with our brains buzzing. We found this lovely, well and variety lit location in RMIT, very close to the tech office. It’s perfect!

Here’s to epiphanies!