reflection – My Media 1 Blog

Class Activity Reflection 1.

so this task was to reshoot the script in the same groups we were in the previous lesson. However this time we had to switch roles, as we were both on audio last time we took on the acting role this time. Which for starters is definitely not my strong suit but nonetheless it was fun enough to film, it just meant we had to film the same shot many times to get one without us laughing.

Firstly I think the location we chose worked really beautifully lighting wise, hence the reason as to why we chose it. Obviously its not a “bar” as written in the script but we felt this would work well enough for the time and location we were in. I think the camera operator did a good job on getting the right exposure, focus and composition. However perhaps it could be brought down a little on the side as there is a white patch but other than that I think the white balance and the subjects look rightly exposed. The audio as well I think worked well, although I found it initially hard to get the audio to match what I was seeing as there was no in camera audio as well as boom, so I had to just try and match it as best as I could.

I did have a few things I would prefer to change, I felt like as a group there was not a lot of communication. As a group we didn’t really “share the roles” so to speak, so when people had ideas about doing different shots it didn’t really get taken on board. I personally would’ve liked to have shot two close ups both subjects from each side. Or maybe a mid shot of the male subject waiting at the top of the stairs, that could’ve moved down to where both the subjects were sitting together. Obviously we didn’t have much time, but i think with more variety of shot it would’ve made the editing much more interesting and would’ve meant that as individuals we could’ve edited in the way we envisioned. I don’t think that having two shots that are pretty much the same from a slightly different angle looked good together, hence why I just kept it as one shot. Which still looks good but I would’ve like to test my editing a bit more and see how the edit would’ve looked with more angles and shots.

Class Activity Reflection 2.

This exercise in particular was a lot of fun to play around with. I have done a few focus pulls/ manipulating the focus before in class but it was really nice to refresh the technique and observe how it can really enhance a shot but adding in depth of field. We filmed this in our group for our final projects and we really only played around with this for around 10 minutes but I think it was quite amazing that we got some cool shots by just trailing around for a short amount of time.

We learnt that when doing a focus pull and zoom two people are 100% required because

a) its too stressful

b) its not smooth

This is a technique I’d perhaps like to experiment with a little more, having two people in a shot, zooming in on the person furthest away and then zooming out and changing the focus as you zoom out so its focused on the nearest person. I would love to experiment with how to make that look good.

I definitely feel like a focus pull works super well for shots where people are having conversation or doing something to show where the attention of the viewer should be. I think as a technique this is super effective.

I want to try this exercise again when filming certain shots for my test shoot, I think marking where you want the start and end zoom to go as well would be super helpful to get a super smooth transition.

I think its also interesting to note that with this exercise, despite the location, lighting or acting the shot still has the ability to look really cool due to the addition of changing the depth of field. I think this is really good to look at, and something I must see how this will work within my test shoots because I think it really adds another level.

Class Activity Reflection 3.

In this class exercise we trialled with lighting and focus pulls. Our half of the class had one dido light and two LED lights. We put the dido at the back of the room to light the back subject then two lights one with an orange filter to light the closer subject. I feel we did a nice job lighting the closer subject but i think we needed more light on the back subject that was less harsh. The overall mood of this shot feels quite dark and ominous which i think was accidental by our darker back lighting. I definitely want to trial more with this lighting style, I think the orange filter was a nice touch, when we first trialled with the lighting it was way too orange so we took out one set of filters. The depth of field in these shots didn’t work as well because the back subject was not as well lit. However it does work nicely when the subject is a bit further away from the immediate object/subejct. I think we should’ve also trialled the foreground subject being closer to the camera so we could’ve got a bigger range of depth making it a bit more obvious. This time we also used tape to assist with changing the focus which helped so much as we didn’t have this last time. I really love experimenting with a focus pull and I love the added vibe it gives a shot so I can’t wait to trial more with this over the coming weeks.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply