I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration – https://www.rmit.edu.au/students/support-and-facilities/student-support/equitable-learning-services
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!
Oliver Jeffers is an NYC based visual artist whose primary medium is illustration, collage and sculpture. He is author to many successful picture books, and his work is well received both physically and over his various social media accounts, such as his Instagram.
The above image, titled Happy Hour, was published on July 25th, 2019. I am a big fan of this painting. I like the mood, the shading and style of the picture., However, I think the use of lighting and how it operates within the world of the image is really detailed, with lots to describe.
The painting is set during what I would consider dusk. There is a slight glow dimming behind the mounds of dirt and grass of the landscape. The lighting is soft, with no hard shadows anywhere. This could either be the sun, or light sources from the place that has the happy hour.
The overall place is quite dark. This might be because the whole place is shadowed by the light source, meaning that the lighting is quite hard. However, I believe this is just because the light is not hitting the surface at all.
The text of the happy hour sign is lit by neon lights, giving off a slight glow in the dark sky. These lights do not affect much if any of the environment around it, besides the lit letters themselves. The structure the neon letter are held up by do not receive any residual glow from the letters.
Nightcrawler (Gilroy, D. 2014) is one of my favourite films of all time. I am the biggest Jake Gyllenhaal fan, so I am slightly biased, but I love the way this film manipulates tension, making you fear the psychological power the main character of Lou has. I love every aspect of this film, and the lighting is no exception. In the short scene below, I will describe the lighting to the best of my abilities, and try my hardest not to analyse it!
Besides loving this scene for the raw emotion, power and fear Gyllenhaal instils in this scene, once returning to it with more technical and theoretical knowledge, there is a lot going on here lighting wise (check this sentence).
From the first few frames, the highting is reasonably soft, with some soft shadows coming down from Gyllenhaal’s brows and chin, shadowing his eyes and neck. The lighting is reasonably detailed on his face, with his cheekbones and facial features being quite distinct in the frame. The light itself its probably at about 60% capacity, being slightly dim overall
The lighting seems to be overhead, with the reflection from his forehead indicating so. There is the perception of outside light, which is soft, coming through the window and curtains, seen behind him in the mirror. I doubt this is having much of a practical effect on how the scene is lit. Furthermore, there is a TV behind him, which is the blue light just behind his right ear. Again, probably more for mise en scene and context than anything else.
In this split-second scene, just before the mirror is shattered, we see a light coming from inside the cabinet. It is lit from the top, and most likely an LED or something that was built into the cabinet when it was put into the set. Its inclusion is to give real context to the cabinet.
In the last few seconds of the scene, out view of Gyllenhaal’s character changes slightly, as we see more of his shirt. The white surface of his shirt and the mirror reflects and bounces light off each other, filling the scene with a little harder light, not too much. This is seen through the darker shadows on his shirt collar and buttons.
I felt a lot more comfortable and at home with week 2’s Film Light classes. I was more used to the early wake-up times, started sitting with old and new faces, but most importantly, I am getting more and more involved in lighting thought and theory.
Some of the most useful information I gathered from these classes was the terminology. While not always directly relevant to the physical and practical aspects of lighting, actually having more than a base understanding of camera and lighting terms and tools such as International Standards Organisation (ISO) and how it determines and can influence exposure is now integral information to me. Heck, even knowing that ISO stands for International Standards Organisation is a feat in itself. This and relatively in-depth looks at how shutter speeds and the size of the iris (known as the aperture of the lens for all us smarties over here) is information I’ve always wanted but never been motivated to learn. I am really glad we are getting into all of this stuff, because it’s definitely going to help my filmmaking, no matter what position I hold.
However, I am not a fan of how these terms are often calculated in opposite ways, such as how the higher the f-stop, the less light is able to enter the lens. It completely throws my prior knowledge of bigger and smaller numbers out the window!
I also enjoyed learning about more adjustable camera features, and how they can affect lighting a scene, such as focal length, depth of field and the surprise underdog, ensuring your viewfinder is set at the ideal settings so what you see on there is what you get in post-production. This is something I had never thought of, but will now always be cautious (more like paranoid) about it before a shoot.
I’m interested to see where this class goes, and very excited to start lighting scenes, with both natural and artificial light!
Looking over what we shot during the first class, with a better understanding of lighting terms and types from the second class, it is easy to see that exposure was a big issue with how our interviews turned out. Whilst preparing for the interview to be shot, I thought the exposure was fine, a little overexposed, but it looked nice in the viewfinder to me. However, once assessing this both in class together, and outside of class to write this, it’s easy to see how overexposed it actually is. This has now made me more aware and hopefully more cautious about how an exposure can look through a viewfinder compared to when seen on a more dynamic and rich screen, and not to underestimate the soft lighting power of a flat, overcast day.
Robyn also suggested we take this newfound knowledge, and observe, whether it be with the world around us, or the media we engage with. Similarly to how I know notice when audio is slightly out of sync because of a bad merge in movies and television, this information can and has come as a burden on my viewing experiences. For example, whilst watching some casual television with a friend, I found myself constantly and subtly analysing the lighting in shots. Whether it was a hard or soft lighting set up, where the artificial light sources are and what is natural lighting (as the show was not always shot in a studio), and of course, which side of their face is lit (which Paul has ingrained in my brain eternally.
I am really excited to see where this course goes, because the more classes we have, the more I realise how much lighting theory I have barely scratched the surface of, and how much that theory gets me excited to put it into practice!
The “Small Things” studio has been an amazing opportunity to learn and get a taste of a wide variety of film making and production aspects and technics. It has allowed me to ‘dip my toes’ in lighting, sound design and recording, camera work, “firsting”, directing and so much more, and from there, submerge myself into the roles that stand out and interest me. Furthermore, these base understandings have given me more of an idea of what I would like to pursue in the future, both in regards to university study and work placement/experience. A real standout skill taught in Small Things has been lighting setups and first assistant director knowledge, teaching me that lighting is an absolute necessity to have an idea about on any set, and that being the first AD is a lot of hard, but satisfying work.
However, the thing I’ve most enjoyed about this studio is the people and the classroom environment. Small Things really connects and bonds people, learning at the same pace, with enough of a skill balance that you can learn from everyone. Both Paul and the class as a whole have been immensely enjoyable to work alongside, and will definitely be a highlight of my time at university.
The concept of Going Up, the short film that David, Esther, Leslie Tessa and I made was created and presented by me during the Week 8 Presentations.
From there, I had no major script or scene ideas, so David, Leslie, Tessa and I worked together to collaboratively come up with and write the scenes for the final script. I wrote the piece about the mature woman flirting with a criminal, Tessa wrote the scene with the teenage girl on the phone, David wrote the murderer scene and Leslie wrote the bulk of the preparation scene.
We all collaborated together throughout the pre-production stage of our short film. We had an active group chat that was constantly thinking of new ways to do something. I was in charge of casting, which now looking back on, was very rewarding and enjoyable. It really gave me a good understanding of how to write out a casting call, contact and inform actors and most importantly, the courage to decline an actor who wasn’t going to work.
Leslie, David and I also did some test shoots throughout the pre-production stage, playing around with the preparation montage, experimenting with shot types and whip pans. This can be seen below.
While this didn’t end up being how we shot the preparation scene on set, it was a really great experience for operating with part of the crew on set, and was also the first time I got to see Leslie, in person, operate a camera. She is a gun and the whip pans!
For a more comprehensive read of where we were at post-shoot, view here.
The two production days themselves were also quite collaborative. Since 3 of us had written our own full vignetted scene, we decided to divide up the director role, depending on who’s scene we were shooting. This meant that I played the role of boom mic operator during Tessa’s directed scene, director of my own scene, and was First Assistant Director on David’s directed scene. This process and experience of swapping roles were almost all positive, with a majority of people getting to play around and experience new roles, as well as each scene having a different style and flavour to them.
The actors were for the most part, really easy and enjoyable to work with. We made sure they knew we were very much amateurs, and if they had any suggestions, we would be more than happy to consider them. This proved really useful, as they had thought about their motivations, and really built off their characters, which were written bland for this exact reason.
In the post-production phase, we were still collaborative, but in different ways. We edited solo, but would share our drafts, scene experiments and colour grades across the group chat, constantly keeping everyone in the loop on our scene construction ideas and music and sound libraries. For the screening, we chose to show two cuts. One is Leslie’s cut, which has a totally different vibe and feel to it than any other, and is a lot of fun. Watching hers for the first time was an eye-opening experience on how the short film could be edited, rather than how I thought I had to edit it. The other cut was a collaboration between David, Tessa and I. We used David’s preparation and murderer scene, my teenage girl scene and Tessa’s mature flirtation scene. We did this because our three cuts had a similar tone and feel, and combined the best bits of each for the screening to give a more digestible and diverse viewing
My favourite aspects about making Going Up were the challenges in both set design, lighting and sound production. These three things were not necessarily my strong suit, and while they seemed daunting and unachievable at first, they worked out for the most part (one aspect I will discuss in more detail below). The set building was a personal highlight, as the corflute on the walls ended up looking great! Furthermore, the script and comedic nature of the film really allowed for the production process of Going Up to be really enjoyable for both cast and crew. Every take would end with us barely able to hold in a laugh, and the cast got really into it too.
My least favourite aspect of Going Up was the lighting. David and I spent hours and hours the day before the shoot, just trying to get a soft wash over the set, without casting too many shadows. We never truly got it how we wanted it, but decided to leave it until the others arrived tomorrow at a basic setup that worked. Furthermore, each new scene would have a slightly different lighting setup, meaning that colour grading was a bit of a pain. This was also the case for anything that wasn’t a mid shot, as the wash would either be way stronger or not strong enough in comparison with the main shots. We managed to salvage a lot of it in post, but it is still the aspect I am personally the least proud of or happy with.
If I didn’t make Going Up, I would have loved to make a small and complete story, similar to that of Where do we go when we don’t know or Do you want to go to the Circus. These were films that were short, sweet and easy to digest, and while I am proud of Going Up, I am envious of the aforementioned projects tightly knit stories and aesthetics. While we did make a series of ‘small things’ experimenting with shooting in a built set, and using sound to create a location, I do like the idea of a small, small thing.
One of the best parts about the filmmaking experience was the crew, who I love very dearly, was how open and communicative everyone was through every stage of the production, even know. No one has been afraid to ask questions, suggest new ideas during the pre and post-production stages, and most importantly, everyone is really nice and lovely! Here are some cute pictures of us on set! If any of you are reading this, thank you, truly!
I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration – https://www.rmit.edu.au/students/support-and-facilities/student-support/equitable-learning-services
1096
Throughout this report, I will explore and analyse the distribution methods available to users of the Instagram application. This will be achieved through the 9 posts of both video and photographic content that I have posted to my Instagram account over the past 3 weeks, and analyse the affordances and constraints of the methods I used.
Distribution refers to getting the content further from the initially published audience. During the era of legacy/analogue photography and videography, this would often be a vigorous and expensive process. With the example of cinema, movies would have to undergo the initial publishing state, getting companies and festivals to undertake preview screenings. From there, these films would be distributed to both cinema chains and locally owned theatres, for a wider release. This method of distribution has both affordances and constraints, but ultimately, was not very user-focused, and requires either wealth of copious free time and resources.
However, with regards to networked photography and videography, this process of distribution has become a lot more personally viable. With smartphones facilitating a new era of photographic history (Palmer, D. 2014 pg. 245), operating with so much “ready-made content“, users are more than able to author, publish and distribute all on the one platform, and with the case of the course prompted software, all on the one application, Instagram. Distribution on Instagram can take different forms, such as through hashtagging, and external sharing through partnered applications like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. All of this has the potential to increase the overall engagement and reception of a users content, something I experimented with throughout weeks 9-11 of Networked Media.
To investigate the prompt, I have uploaded 3 times a week over the span of 3 weeks to my Assignment 3 Instagram account ‘watch_the_door‘. These posts would vary from either two pictures and one video a week, or one picture and two videos a week. Before publishing this content to my account, I would broaden the possible reach of each video or photo by distributing further than the initial basic reach of my Instagram’s followers.
The first step would be to ‘geo-tag’ my content to the places they were captured. Palmer talks about his uncertainty of the purpose with the feature when analysing the potential of the iPhone back in 2014, but recognises it’s mainstream appeal in the foreseeable future (2014, pg. 250). Tagging the location of where your post was captured allows Instagram to recommend your content to users who have either done the same tag, engaged with content with a similar geo-tag location, or simply passed through that area whilst operating Instagram with their location detection on. The location tag of your is shown above the title on the post, and allows new users to engage with your content.
The most visible example of the distribution process on Instagram is hashtagging. Throughout my posts, I would end my title and description with a slew of terms, beginning with a #. A majority of these would be broad, examples being ‘#doors’ ‘#desaturated’ and ‘#melbourne’. These would group and filter my posts with various others with the same tag, allowing content to be grouped and distributed to a variety of other users who have either interacted with or published content that has the same hashtags. Furthermore, more content specific hashtags would be added to individual posts to target a more niche audience, such as with ‘#tram‘
The last way I distributed content posted to my Instagram was through external sharing. The Instagram application allows users to share with a variety of other connected or installed applications that are partnered with it. For both weeks 10 and 11, I used this feature to distribute those six posts across to both my personal Tumblr account and Twitter account. These would share the bulk of text attached to my posts, as well as either the visual content itself, or a link to it, depending on the platform.
The affordances of the location tagging on Instagram is the ease at which you can do it. Normand talks about how clear design in a product is key for user convenience, and that ‘sloppiness in design translates into confusion for users’ (Norman, D. 1999). Instagram both prompts and directs you to tag your location as you enter the publishing stage, and with your location services on, gives you options of where you are and where you were. This seamless integration is also non-intrusive in a clean post’s aesthetic. As stated before, the tag sits nicely above the title. However, a constraint of feature is engagement opportunities. This is an often forgotten feature of Instagram, with people rarely tagging locations.
The strongest affordance of the hashtagging method of distribution is possible engagement opportunities. Throughout my posting experience for Assignment 3, the use of hashtags has boosted my views and likes tenfold, bringing in over half of my engagements and followers overall. It has allowed new users to find content that interests them, and allowed me to find new users with similar interests to me. A constraint of the hashtagging process is the clutter it creates. Whilst location tags were out of the way of the focal points of a post, hashtags need to be applied to the bulk text of an image, ruining a minimalist aesthetic. Furthermore, the other constraint of this process is convenience. There is no way to save a selection of everyday hashtags, prompting direct manipulation over the convenience of command mode (Normand, D. 1998. pg. 184).
The affordances of external distribution through the Instagram application is convenience. The feature, once accounts are linked to your profile, is simple, tap the social media service you want to share to, and it will do it seamlessly. However, the constraints outway the affordances of this service, mainly in layout and conversion of design. Twitter has the biggest errors, with Tumblr working, but not as it should and easily could. This creates an unfriendly and unappealing link that does not entice me to engage further with the content. This could easily be fixed with communication and coding between Instagram and these platforms.
A constraint of my report is the minimal comparison between legacy and network distribution. With a higher word count, I would have touched on the differences and similarities between the two eras of photography and videography, and what might come next.
To conclude, before this course, I never really thought about distribution within Instagram, especially not to the scale that I have for this assignment. Furthermore, while all major pathways to distribute on the platform have their share of constraints to counteract perfect mapping, Instagram still stands as a prominent pillar application when it comes to powerful distribution methods.
Norman, D 1999, ‘Affordance, conventions and design (Part 2)’, Nielsen Norman Group, http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordance_conv.html
Norman, D 1998, The design of everyday things , Basic Book, New York (Sections: Preface vii-xv; Chapter one pp 1-13; Chapter 4 (constraints) pp 81-87; (computers) pp 177-186).
Palmer, D 2014 ‘Mobile Media Photography’, in The Routledge Companion to Mobile Media, (eds) Goggin G., Hjorth L., Routledge, New York pp. 249–55.
This video was taken on the 5th or 6th floor of building 10 at RMIT University, with the door connecting the library entrance and common rooms to extra common rooms and classrooms.
Authoring
This video was recorded around 4 meters away from the doorway that is framed above. Whilst roaming with the intention to find a glass doorway to film, I stumbled upon this walkway and readied the rear camera of my Samsung S9+ and the Instagram app to record a few seconds. I waited for people to not be walking through the main section (for a clear and naturally shadowed frame, as well as minimizing embarrassment) and captured the doorway. Unlike my previous videos, this series of moving images is not a clean cut, and has a slight millisecond cut around the start. This is because my finger slipped, and I only realised now!
I then proceeded to edit the video immediately after capturing, as I was in a rush for my next class. I used the thematic Inkwell filter, bringing its intensity down between 60 and 80 %. However, the footage looks more saturated compared to previous posts.
Publishing
After editing the image, I played around with vague and ambiguous titles, settling on “Divide”, based on the physical divide between the doorway in the foreground and the doorway in the background. This post was the 4th video uploaded to the Instagram account for my Assignment 3 and the 8th post overall.
This was not my first attempt to video the doorway. The first few attempts were very still, with only my shaky hands being noticeable movement. I then waited like a creep, for someone to walk around in the background, and then captured what we have above.
Furthermore, the image was location tagged at RMIT University before posting.
Distributing
The post followed the same 5-period separation between the title and the hashtags, which all followed the same, nuanced and simplified format of the previous posts. Consistently hashtagging #doors, #rmituniversity and #desaturated seems to gain traction beyond my limited follower group, attracting the engagement of 7 views and 8 likes (very confused by this).
This image was also shared to my external Twitter and Tumblr accounts, which retain the same hashtags. Again, as stated in previous posts, I am yet to see a significant influence from either of these platforms.
This picture was taken after leaving one of my media studio classes, on my way out to Swanston St to catch the trams. It is of the big motor operated doors that divide the outside courtyard area from buildings 10 and 12 of RMIT University
This image was captured near the elevators on the fourth floor of building 10, of the two big push and pull doors that nicely segment the areas between the access to other levels and the cafes.
Authoring
The first image was taken whilst standing directly in the middle of the big motorised doors, which just happened to be opening at the time I strolled past this are of the university. I quickly opened up my Samsung S9+, opened Instagram and switched to my Assignment 3 account via the quick switch tab in the top left-hand corner of the profile bubble. From there, I tried to centre the door frame in the middle of the square dimensions Instagram provides, with breathing room for the light to seep into the frame. Just as I was about to snap a picture using my rear-facing camera on the capture tab of Instagram, a fellow passerby walked into frame. However, whilst I had feared this would have ruined the image, it actually worked out really well, and after editing the image with a 60 to 80 % saturated Inkwell filter, I feel like the product came out almost cinematic.
The second image is a lot less meaningful or interesting. Whilst waiting for the elevators, I turned to my left to see these two big physically operated glass doors, with a shopfront sign sticking out in the background. I was in need of a second image for the third batch of posts to the Instagram account, so I waited until the door was clear, and took the image using my Samsung S9+’s rear camera through the Instagram app. I was really happy with the composition of the shot, and after desaturating the photo with the Inkwell filter, it made the ‘cafe’ sign pop out like a beacon of light (which is pretty unreadable in the screen grab above)
Publishing
The first photo is titled more alongside the overarching theme of minimalism and simplicity, “Passage”. This felt fitting due to the huge overarching doorway allowing what is such a small being in comparison to pass through, felt very Lord of the Rings-esc. This was my 4th photo uploaded to this Instagram account and the 7th post overall.
The second photo follows a previous and less prominent trend of titling the works by their literal features, such as the previously posted “Reflective Slide”. In this case, the post is titled ‘Cafe’, due to the sneaky inclusion of the RMIT coffee house sign. This was the 5th image uploaded to the ‘watch_the_doors’ account, and the 9th and most recent post at the time of writing.
Both of these images were my first choices for uploads once they inspired me, and only took one take. Furthermore, they were both tagged at RMIT University before posting.
Distributing
Both images use the same 5 period spacing between their titles and hashtags. Furthermore, both posts use almost identical hashtags to distribute the post further than my 4 followers, with the essential #doors, #city and #melbourne. The first post does include a new hashtag, #open, due to its wide-open door frame.
The first picture has 7 likes, and the second one has 6. This is a drop in engagement compared to my previous video and image content. Both images and hashtags were externally shared to my Twitter and Tumblr accounts.