In class we split into groups of four and each of us had 30 minutes to experiment with something of formal interest to us. We worked efficiently and everyone got their exercise done in under 30 minutes. It was worthwhile practice to aid each other with these experiments as we learnt from our different formal investigations. For instance, Matt wanted to experiment with shallow depth of field by having someone run into focus. We realised to achieve shallow depth of field we had to move quite far away from the subject so we could use a higher focal length accompanied with a wide open aperture. I know generally better to have the lens close to the subject but we couldn’t as we needed to get a full shot and the character had to be easily visible when he was far away. This gave us all a better understanding of how to control depth of field and problems that can come with it.

I choose to explore covering a dialogue between two people. It was quite simple but it’s actually something I haven’t had much experience in. As I couldn’t think of a script I chose an excerpt from the TV series Mad Man but shot it in the way I wanted to. I had a good idea what I wanted to the final cut to look like but I wanted to make sure I had ideal coverage of the scene to give me options in the edit suite. I followed what I had planned and everything went smoothly. To use our time efficiently I made sure we shot all the coverage of each character in a block, avoiding excessive camera setup/movement. For most of the shots I made the actors run through the scene as we had time and it would give me more options later as well as help ensure continuity. Some of the shots, for instance the close-ups I only captured for certain lines that I thought I may want to emphasise.

There are some issues in terms of lighting, exposure and setting but this was primarily an exercise on what combination of shots to use to cover the scene. I think maybe a few of the cuts might be a bit distracting but I’m not entirely sure. I think all in all I did a good job of covering the dialogue.

It was interesting how Sam’s performance totally changed the tone of the scene and actually slightly changed how I shot the scene.

 

Over and out,

Luke