The thing that is really beginning to stand out in this class is that mindfulness – in any aspect of life – allows for a deeper exploration and understanding of what is going on. Actually, consciously beginning to be aware of where the camera is placed in relation to objects, to characters, and to action feels, in one sense, like beginning cinema studies all over again, but in a different, more sophisticated, way… I’m not really sure how to describe it in any other way then that right now – I guess this is something to be developed as the semester progresses.

A great example of this is how in Wednesday’s class, we spoke about eyelines – and about how sometimes what is technically correct won’t feel right, or work to achieve the desired effect. On Friday night I saw Inherent Vice and there was a fantastic scene in that film that has really stuck with me. No memorable action or dialogue happened, but it was just so well constructed it was phenomenal!

The scene involved two characters having a conversation in a diner – it was constructed through various midshots, and involved a not-so-typical shot-reverse-shot setup. Both characters had the midshot over the shoulder shot, but one was on a slight angle and from a low perspective. There was no matching shot. I don’t think this was intended to communicate any kind of power dynamic; as far as I’m aware, it added to the integrity and richness of the film…and it looked really cool. It captured the character in a different way to the way he was shown in the rest of the film. I’m not sure exactly why I liked it, it was just different and really stuck with me.

I acted in both of the two scenes we created this week. Here goes my journey of developing a greater understanding of acting and directing… It was interesting. I have enjoyed making the scenes in a short amount of time and the restrictions we have been given because I think that it offers us creativity in a different way…You try and make something more interesting BECAUSE you can’t do it handheld – you try and create the feeling and style through creative shots.
I think maybe our groups have been too preoccupied with making it look “interesting” (read alternative and stylized) that we haven’t fully made the best use of coverage of a scene. Acting itself was more interesting then I thought. It was really involving to have that heightened awareness of thinking about what you do and how you do it every time you do it.

Working in this somewhat collaborative mindset can sometimes be awkward and make it difficult to get the best possible outcome in a timely manner because we are all too worried about offending one another to jump in and have only one person take the reins can be seen as too authoritarian. Hopefully as semester continues this won’t be such a problem. It is great to think that the major pieces of work we do will be largely down to the individual.