I would have to say that the whole process was both familiar and unfamiliar to me. Being in my final year, I was familiar with the whole procedure of these exercises, however, I was accustomed to them not being graded the first time. The first assignment being marked adds a whole another pressure to making your work presentable, especially for myself, since I missed the first two classes. All in all, I executed what had to be done to my satisfaction, despite a few bumps on the road in making this first individual exercise.

My motivations were already innate, as I am an avid observer of everyday life. It was just the matter of presenting in a light that I wanted it to be shown. To me, an observation is describing what you felt or what you experienced during the time. The way people can connect to your experience is by inserting in your thoughts and opinions. That was particularly the motivation behind this. As for the intention behind this, I wanted the person/people watching to see the intricacies of my observation. For example, the close-up shot of the plant – despite being a common weed, I wanted to portray the little details that make it up as a “common weed”.

Through a close-up shot, there is a certain vulnerability to what is being shot, hence, getting to know the subject a little bit better.

The second shot was influenced by the fact that the first shot did not show the wider frame. Of course, there is a closer observation to the first shot but it is also important to see the wider picture. What was also different in this second shot was that there was a new subject, which was my dog. It is almost as if the first and second shot aren’t related but that wasn’t my intention at all but rather, to show the position of the plant. My dog just happened to be the new angle of this observation.

After I had transferred the files on my laptop, I realised how big of a difference there was with how it looked through the viewfinder and on my laptop. I was almost dissatisfied with how both shots looked but it’s not like they were completely unusable. I discovered that I hadn’t focused on the subject properly, the ND filter was off (I was filming outside) and the exposure was way off. I do have my justifications behind these errors but despite that, I still realised and learned from my mistakes. As I had previously said, this individual exercise puts you through a lot of trial and error and that was the important component of this assignment. At the same time, these can also be seen as a “happy mistake” because the “look” of the footage didn’t veer too far off from my aesthetic. It has a faded film effect to it which I usually gravitate towards to in my photos and videos. I didn’t particularly do any experimental work for this exercise, mainly because I had already imagined what it would look like. Although it didn’t go to plan, there were no apparent experimental processes that I went through in order to make this.

This assignment has given me an insight as to what we will be doing throughout this semester. This was a good warm up to the more in-depth observations and short films that we will be making. Learning the technicalities of this camera will also serve a purpose for me and peers not only in the studio, but in the long run of our media careers.