(Assessment 1) Reflect on the findings from class exercises and homework

In the 14 days since the studios commencement, one learning activity particularly stands out. I am speaking of course of the ‘bed making task’. For this exercise, a clip under 40 seconds with only diegetic audio was required  documenting the bed making process. Below is my creation:

The first hurdle was the concept itself. How should I fulfil the brief in a way that would break from the obvious? The answer to this question came from my childhood. At an age I will keep from specifying, a game that would thoroughly entertain the toddler Michael would be inflating light bed sheet covers with a hair dryer to create an inflatable tent of sorts. It often struck me how the pulsating sheets looked and somewhat like water. Thus, I wished to somehow replicate this with the bedsheets I would have access to. However, it being winter, no such light sheets were in use. Thus, I endeavoured to make the wave like imagery by hand as winter doonas are far too heavy for a hair drier.

Then came the question of which bed to choose. Indeed, the obvious choice would have been my bed, but, since the brief simply specified “a bed” I took the liberty of conducting some location scouting in order to find the most suitable bed in my vicinity. A five-minute drive brought me to my grandmothers home where the guest room lay vacant. With its sparse furnishings, queen-sized construction, and more interesting doona covers, it far surpassed my own humble double bed with plain its plain grey sheets and cluttered surroundings.

I then theorised that a slower rate of playback would be necessary for the footage in order to smooth out camera shake and also create a sense of emphasis on the motion of the doonas. For this reason increasing the frame rate of my recording was needed. An added unexpected result of this time warping was that the natural audio from the video even became somewhat similar to beach waves. However, a mistake made was not factoring in lighting. To avoid motion blur, a higher shutter speed was needed to accommodate the higher frame rate. This increase in shutter speed meant a darker image, something I am not happy about in the final product.

However this was a valuable lesson to have had, as it made me think about the relationships between, light, shutter speed, frame rate and motion blur.

 

I declare that in submitting all work for this assessment I have read, understood and agree to the content and expectations of the assessment declaration
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