Sussing out that ‘shot-reverse-shot’:

Learning how to create a shot-reverse-shot is – I guess – super important, considering it’s utilised in (most likely) every film you’ve ever seen. Not only would it have been utilised in every film you’ve ever seen, but it’s probably been utilised a butt load in every film you’ve ever seen. The reason that the shot-reverse-shot is so prevalent in mainstream filmmaking is because it’s one of the easiest ways to establish the location of characters and their relationships to the objects and people around them.

I’m sure there is an art to creating a smooth shot reverse shot, that feels ‘real’ and ‘natural’ but what most surprised me about this exercise is how easy it was to create shot-reverse-shots that smoothly went together. When you shoot an exercise like this you think, “omg how am I gonna piece this **** together”. Then you get to the edit suite, bang the clips side by side and voila, your scene actually seems to makes sense. This was a pretty major revelation to me, but keeps in line with what Paul’s been speaking about since day one; which is that filmmaking is more a process of getting things done, rather than some mythical creative endeavour, only achieved by those who are truly gifted.

My second major revelation was how amazing of an actor I am, I was honestly just truly blown away by my own performance. Especially that killer death scene at the end and my ability at maintaining ‘dead eyes’ throughout that dramatic pan. If you ever need an actor?

 

Until next time,

Louise Alice Wilson