Aspirations within this studio for this semester and reflection upon the experience and content of one of this week’s classes:

My aspirations for Film Light are to harness and perfect my camera and lighting skills. I’m very much a creative person, so writing, visualising and organising is where I thrive but I aim to bring out those ideas through the camera myself as well as working with a team to record them. I want to be confident behind the camera and the decisions I make.

It was great to get back to practical work again, It had been a while since I had used a film camera so I had to reacquaint myself. It took a bit of remembering but with the help of a group and handling the device we were on our way. The small exercises we’ve done so far have definitely been beneficial, as well as the second class in which we learnt different terms and went into the types of lighting and effects the camera can give.

I forgot how much we can do with natural light. Utilising the focal length, depth of field and exposure changes so much because being students it’s important that we know how to cut costs in film making. Lights are expensive but with a reflector or even material boards we can create certain effects and moods ourselves.

But I do love using lights, in the diploma we used red heads, didos and blondes which are quite tricky and time consuming but when you do achieve the shot you want it’s all worth it. I’m a bigger fan of LEDs because there is more ease and colour involved. Practice definitely makes perfect, I find I have a passion for quirky, arthouse and expressive lighting. Watching the clips and analysing each of their lighting schemes was fascinating because we don’t always notice the intricate changes that create a big difference. For example how depth of field relies on how much light is entering the censor thus leading to how stable the camera seems and the size certain objects are perceived.

Review, comparison and changes I’d make from part 1 and 2 of the camera and lighting exercise:

We could have composed a more interesting shot and created more depth of field, Grace did want to catch the ripples from the sun light on the back wall behind me but they unfortunately didn’t show up on camera. The mid-close up shot also seems a bit squashed and doesn’t seem to match the interview style I was portraying, I’m talking in a almost bubbly and happy sense yet the tight shot with me angled and looking straight into the camera lens seems to resemble a more serious tone. That also brings me to the lighting, with one side of my face in a light shadow it expresses an almost darker tone, as if I’m hiding something when I’m talking about a holiday trip with my family. I would created a depth of fiend where more is happening in the background, composed a mid shot (almost hips up), had me to the right of camera facing an interviewer and the sunlight shining on my face from a distanced window.

The second exercise we focused more on the lighting and with the boards had a chance to have a bit more control. Softer lighting is much harder to control but gave us a wider opportunity to be creative and play. If I could change anything it would be attempting to fill in the left side of Bruce’s face to create more symmetry. I would have turned him to face the window more and had a more interesting background as well, it may have made the shot more aesthetically pleasing in terms of where the lighting hit his face and the background. We could have played with shadows using the boards and defusing the sun light from front on.