https://vimeo.com/129390752

Script (written by me): Scene

Shot List & Floor Plan: 

This scene was one that I wrote and had quite a clear vision of how I wanted it to look. The script does have a female character, however I could only get males on the day. The actors who are my friends, didn’t really perform the lines the way I would’ve liked as they were worried about remembering them. Even though I told them that it didn’t matter if they improvised, they rushed through some of the lines. It was a new experience for them, however in hindsight, perhaps having more rehearsal time would have made them feel more comfortable.

For this shoot I hired the EX3 in the hope of testing out some focus pulling between the two characters under the tree and the character who is at the car. However, I also wanted to use hand-held to follow the motion of the characters walking so they were kept tight in the frame. I couldn’t really achieve both as I didn’t have someone to focus pull for me, however if I did, I think the shot would’ve looked more interesting.

I was very conscious of framing as during our previous outdoor shoots in class, it was noticed that because there were no ceilings to give us framing bearings, our outdoor scenes looked quite average. I made a conscious decision to have tight framing as much as possible to avoid our previous in-class blunders.

The main issue I had filming this scene was the location I chose and the distance between the tree and the car. I couldn’t pull off the shots the way I wanted because I had to try and maintain a tight frame on the foreground of the two characters talking, while also keeping the character in the background still in frame. I think I would’ve felt more comfortable in an enclosed space where there would be lines from structures that I could follow.

The location also made it difficult to achieve shot 3 of the character’s hand on the door handle while also achieving his point of view. Instead I decided to go with a shot of all of the characters taken from the car side. It didn’t have the same impact that I was looking for, however on the day I became too concerned with keeping the characters always in frame that I didn’t think outside of the box to fix the shot.

I definitely believe that my ownership of this scene really hindered my vision as I had a clear idea of how I wanted the scene to look, but when it came to putting that into practice, I became frustrated with not being able to achieve what I wanted. Instead of trying to adapt to the situation, I just pushed on and the result suffered from this.

Despite doing a shot list and floor plan, I didn’t do any pre-production with the camera in the location. This was a critical error on my part as if I would’ve done this, I would’ve realised that I needed to change my plan. Pre-production with the camera in the location has been something that I am constantly reminded is an important process for my method of working. If I could re-film this scene, I would implement more still shots and focus pulling, while also perhaps considering either another location or better positioning of actors and props.