10 – SETTING A SETTING

One of the decisions that I felt that all group had to go through was how there were going to establish the setting for the film. Yes we all were making films in and around the Queen Victoria Market, but that didn’t mean we all were going to be able to set up the scene exactly the same way 5 times over. I knew of some groups who were planning on beautiful sunrise time-lapses and others were possibly just going to pull in directly into the store they were featuring, never going away from the main story. Our group went with the classic idea  of starting out big and closing in on what we wanted to feature in our story. So starting on with a beautiful wide shot of the Melbourne CBD, followed by more shots of distinct traits of the QVM. We got the flags, the signage, the people, and then we wanted to come to a stop at the store entrance, slowly bringing the audience into the shop were the story and magic lies. It’s definitely not a revolutionary technique of establishing anything, but it was the most effective way for us to get the audience to get a feel for the tone and pace for the rest of the film. This coupled with the looping of some music that we were able to source ended up creating this anticipation for what was going to be the final backdrop to this film we were making. Our story was so small that we had to find a way to add a bit of extra magic into these first few shots, and choosing to keep a consistent locked off shot, each one establishing a presence moving closer and closer to a destination was just the right way for us to tease a little mystery.

Plus it also helps when your group-mates happen to have some great views from their apartments. I could never imagine waking up to a view like this, and it made me fall in love with Melbourne even more. Even if it’s all concrete and business sometimes, the fact that you can see the personality of Melbourne in some of these shots is incredible.