“Our eyes create art”
On a somewhat cold day of week number five, Lyreca had no knowledge that her Media 1 class would be operating on cameras (Sony MC50, to be exact). She came into class unprepared, with a million things in her mind about the upcoming assessments and especially this interview project. This activity would be the perfect task to keep her busy mind in check, especially with all the dread about these assignments slowly drawing near her. Right?
One thing I can say about this video – shitty audio.
Undergoing Thursday’s task was definitely unexpected as I have previously mentioned. I think it’s better to put the series of event in a list so here goes:
- Liam directed us to the ~hub~ of borrowing equipment, which was just downstairs from the class. I’m not sure why but the people reminded me of the typical, flannel-wearing (with a cigarette in their mouth) film-school graduates. I mean their outfits just said it all. They seemed like cool people though. They pretty much told us the house-keeping rules – borrowing equipment, being on the blacklist, that kind of stuff.
- Back to the classroom again, Liam explained to us the basics of how to operate the MC50, along with the tripod. He told us the basics such as the establishing shot and the 180° line. This is something I’ve already read about from the subject Introduction to Cinema Studies. Doing these two subjects together definitely correlates with one another, therefore, helping me with all technicalities.
- We chose the grass area as our location, because of its convenience – students hanging out on the grass, studying, doing whatever a student is supposed to do, I guess?
- We filmed what we were supposed to film – we interviewed each group member, but for some unexplainable reason, I didn’t get to share my piece of advice. Nonetheless, I got my turn on operating the camera so I’m not too fussed by it (but I would’ve liked some screen time, though 😅).
- Group activities are definitely something I need to work on. I need to stand my ground when it comes to creativity and ideas that I believe in. Some problems that were encountered was definitely the creative differences between us girls and who operated the camera (positioning angles, for example). These differences however, were mitigated by Premiere Pro – we decided that if any error happens, we could always fix it through the editing process.
- I think the quality of the video will show the type of interdependence we had on the day – one of the most successful camera shots were the ones with the clearest audio, as Liam stated that audio will be the or mostly the main focus for the upcoming project. Why else would you watch an interview with bad audio?
- in my opinion, the camerawork was sort of mediocre, including the audio. Overall, this translated as a somewhat mediocre piece of work for me – I don’t blame it entirely on the camerawork/audio/production. This also goes towards the post-production process done by the editor, but hey, it’s all part of trial and error.
- Finally, something I’ve discovered about camera technique? Like I said before, audio really matters! Therefore, the framing and the composition of the shot contributes to producing an audio where you can hear the person speaking. Note: The only shot we didn’t get to take was the interviewee’s POV or perhaps the camera behind the interviewee.
That’s it for now,
lyreca 👀