FOCAL GRAB

So the first thing I thought of when looking at this footage was the focal grab I tried to attempt earlier on in the semester when filming the infamous ‘Lenny’ script. Now that I know how to mark the f.stops on the camera, it changes everything. At first I was aiming for Lenny to walk into focus and then out after a few seconds, but in the footage, Lenny walked into focus and then stayed in focus even at a pretty distant focal length. This is something I would like to reshoot again; a subject walking into a pulled focus, heading towards the camera, and then pulling them out of focus again. Above, I’ve added in my favourite dramatic sound effect straight from Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen to illustrate the untapped sinister side of Sammy who in class said if she had the chance she would steal a cop’s gun and wave it around “for the thrill”.

PANNING EXERCISE

I didn’t actually shoot any of this exercise as I was the model so it’s harder to analyse what happened and how things developed. Also considering that we decided to use this exercise time to have a production meeting for our project. When I edited this, I’ve tried to make a narrative to the random images of me dancing around building 12. Surely there is something I could cobble together with a string of nonsensical footage. If that’s not a spontaneous prompt driven narrative I don’t know what is, Paul.

INT. STANDING ROOM COFFEE. DAY

On a busy afternoon, STANDING ROOM is abuzz with student's lining up for coffee drink. All are using their facial tanning devices into which they stare intently, hoping the UV rays will make them bli-nd. ROSIE is receiving a call which consists of only the screaming of loved ones, in the hopes it will send her deaf. 

Suddenly a TIME TRAVELLING DEMON appears, using her sensuality to lure ROSIE away from the coffee drink stand in the hopes of killing baby Hitler. As she is lead to alter the fabric of time, ROSIE uses the ancient art of KUNG FU to attack the demon. She wanders back to the stand, but something catches her eye, THE VOID

ROSIE (to the void)
What?????

THE VOID
recording...

In a moment of realisation, ROSIE realises that existence is futile and astral projects into another plane of reality. Then she does a sick dab. 

END 

I think the most integral part of learning to pan would be body position when turning the pan-handle. The pans in this sequence are moving too late after the action and are still clunky.

TEST SHOOT

The test shoot was really integral to work out the space and location. I realised the setting would have these huge beautiful windows which I would love to shoot from the outside, with the stage lighting, disco ball and suspended animation. I want to capture this with a slow zoom, followed by a reflection on the glass captured in a focal grab which I now know how to do.

Our script adaptation was made in three different shots. We wanted to choose an outdoor location full of dappled light and we found it on the balcony… well full of light, briefly.  The clouds came over quickly and all of a sudden we were working with harsh daylight. Luckily, there was a thick layer of cloud and that filtered the 2pm lighting down to something soft.

In our first shot, we only POFENGERED…. without the POW! The blue tones are indicative of no white balance. It’s blue, but theres a partial amount of the dappled light we were aiming for. My shot is the final one, of a CU of Margot’s face. Here I am trying to light the off-side.

I should have used a tripod, but I chose not to because I was intending on standing really far back, cranking the zoom to create a cool depth of field. I had just watched The Piano and there was a shot of Holly Hunter playing on the beach, with the golden background totally blurred. This shot has been haunting me (starts at 1:03).

In an epiphany I’m just having now, I realise that if I wanted to recreate this shot, I would need a tripod. The shot would need to be static and my hands would shake at a zoom length that far.
Anyway, I forgot to even attempt it because we were all freezing and the ear-touching scene was too funny.

Make The Bed

I really wanted to make the bed something really special, but upon rewatching it, I realise I’ve ‘shot the shit out of it’. The whole video is a bit disjointed and overthought. There are 9 shots in 39 seconds, and only one shot repeats itself. I went in to get every angle possible  As each stage of the bed progressed, I shot each one in that order – pillows off, top sheet on and tucked, doona, pillows, decorative pillows, resulting in chapters of the film for each action. I think reviewing my rough cut, which ran overtime, I can see this chapter structure clearly.

In the first cut of this exercise, I am aware of myself trying to create a scenario. The slow cuts between shots of the strewn pillows are intended to mimic “aftermath” shots, often seen the morning after parties, and these pillows could be hungover revellers. Rosie from stage left comes and inspects these pillows, accepts the challenge to clean this up and begins by tossing the pillows on the ground, slowly at first but more intensely, leading her to rip the bedsheets and shake off the mess. I was semi-conscious of this storyline while acting and shooting, but reviewing it two weeks later, it’s apparent that I had a clear story in my head when I shot this.

Finally, this extra piece of footage was entertaining to rewatch as I added the clips into the sequence. My girlfriend Siobhan has been interrupting the filming to pop into our room to grab her keys, change her clothes and at one point jump on the bed I’m making. In this shot I am about to shoot what I thought would be the pièce de résistance; the doona cover slowly falling in the air, compressing itself as it lands. Siobhan starts asking me where the spinach is in the fridge. This is the best piece of footage I shot that day:

Lenny in Three Acts

I found this first sequence I shot with Margot and Nikki really interesting. We storyboarded well, had a clear vision and had completed a correct camera set up. It was only until we got out into the alley did it look totally different from what we had envisioned. The edit wasn’t as seamless as I had wanted, but there was a really crazy shot we tried with a focal grab, just as an experiment. Nikki would walk up to us with a pained face, and the closer she got the more in focus the image would be. It ended up being my favourite shot. Unfortunately it was hard to edit into the sequence but I tried anyway.  If I could go back I would go back and reshoot this take to fit the shot in better.

The video is very blue. It was about 4.00pm on an overcast day and we had set up the camera facing the light, and the actress turned away from the light. I could write that the pain and nearness to death she was experiencing was pushing her into darkness, but it was more accurately a factor of filmmaking we did not consider. I want to be more wary of light, as all of the photography classes I’ve taken have said that it is the crux pf shooting anything. I find myself more engrossed in the performance whenever I’m looking through the viewfinder, or the direction the action moves in. Or even more, a colourful detail I want to include in the shot, such as the yellow pole or the RMIT sign on the wall.

To be able to critically analyse, through the making of film and reflection on that, traditional and industrial production methods.

I would like to discuss for my initiative post a few music videos I’ve seen lately. I’m trying to come into the practice of editing and shooting things in my own time to get in the habit of staying productive. Last week while I was hanging with some friends I thought it might be a good idea to bust out my camera and try to take some shots while we got a little winter sun and everyone was in good spirits. I shot a sort-of impromptu music video which I’ve embedded below:

a nice afternoon with my friends from rosie pavlovic on Vimeo.

This got me thinking of the production of creating a music video is based off the notion of creative prompts, which this studio uses. A song is another person’s artwork, and as a filmmaker you take lyrics, words, themes and ideas from this prompt to create something relevant, or totally irrelevant but still hopefully inspired. The video I made doesn’t relate to the lyrics my friend Shannon was singing, but rather the singing itself prompted me to go get my camera and shoot something beautiful.
Two weeks later and reflecting on this video after four BOX classes, I can already reflect on technical aspects. The export quality and encoding is not at the quality I can now create. After the first two weeks having a focus on post-production techniques I can now change the aspect ratio, correctly export and encode a video file.

I was really inspired by Julia Jacklin’s music video for her song ‘Eastwick’. It’s shot in a familiar setting to where I grew up, which is a theme I want to approach through filmmaking soon. When editing the film I shot at home, I realised I had a really jumpy hand on my zoom lens, and I couldnt keep a shot static for more than 3 seconds before changing angle or tightening the shot. This film clip mixes those quick shots I love but also balances with long shots of things I never shoot – landscapes, trees, scenery. I feel like in my photography I only focus on people and actions.
I rewatched the clip while writing this post and noticed it features an eyeline sequence including an establishing shot and two dirty over the shoulders.

Paul said not to shoot anything before the set is perfect. I haven’t shot anything constructed in a long time, but I am entertaining the thought that before I roll camera, everything would be lined up in my shot as if I were taking a photograph. That the shot construction would have rules (such as the rule of thirds), the colour would be correct and a single frame from one of these shots would be able to stand alone photographically, such as the first image above.

Also I hope this is relevant but growing up in a “go to the RSL on Wednesday night then put a $20 in the pokies” family, this whole music video is really inspiring in it’s composition.  I love this video so much I think I consciously positioned myself to mimic shot in this video for Louise’s class exercise where I tie my hair up.

I have trouble with giving direction. This occurred to me during the class activity where we were asked to create a three shot sequence of a person doing an action. My actions were to walk down a hallway, stop to tie a shoelace and keep walking. I shot each of these three shots once and we all moved on. My other classmates shot one image up to 12 times. I wasn’t satisfied with what I had, but I accepted that it would be easier to try to edit it than to ask the actor to do the take again. This is a problem! I’m struggling to apply the “camera on, world off” mentality because my mind keeps wandering to what the rest of my group think of the shot, or if I’m taking up too much time or being bossy. Beyonce said “I’m not bossy, I’m the boss” and I need to remind myself that when it’s my turn behind the camera I need to make the most of it.

I wrote my last post on my fear of approaching other for collaboration and how I wanted to absolve that in this studio, but in retrospect, I think that there is something really exciting about designing, shooting and editing a sequence all on your own. I love the ‘collaborative nature of filmmaking’ (a sentence I stole from a media and comms alumni that I dropped during my interview to get into this course), but part of me thinks I need to make something I can be proud of on my own.
The last realisation I’ve had is that I have no idea what is good and what is bad in this class. The cat video felt sloppy to me; there was incontinuity because of the shadows, the rendering was low and after secretly watching other class submissions I felt uncreative in my approach. However it was met with praise and I was a bit stunned.
In the ‘making the bed’ assignment, I tried not to think about what I did or didn’t do in the cat video. There’s less structure to the action so it was harder to storyboard for me. After I had exported the final cut, I rewatched and found unconscious similarities between the video (aside from my outfit) which I found interesting.

Make the Bed

Feed The Cat

I chose Box this semester after seeing the clip that accompanied the presentation. An entire film inspired by a piece of junk found in the middle of the street. I love to pick up things i find on the ground but I’d never think to make a movie about it. The whole course screamed ‘creativity’ – Something drilled into me that you ‘need in this industry’ and by looking at my folio of work, I was beginning to think it was a trait I didn’t have.  It’s not that I don’t have good ideas, it’s just that I struggle to bring an idea to fruition. Obstacles for me vary from a lack of technical knowledge, to an inability to approach others to collaborate, or the fear of ‘inconveniencing’ people (which i’ve found next to journalism or law, filmmaking is the next most inconveniencing profession).

When we started our first week, Paul told us; “Creativity is a bit of a hoax; people who think they’re not creative generally make exceptional content”.  Being told this was liberating. I’ve been stuck in a two year creative crisis and filming these simple, mundane tasks puts me in a weird mindset where because they’re boring, I can shoot them and they don’t have to be wonderful, or exciting. Feeding the cat and making the bed is boring, yet it’s rewarding making content regardless.

I suppose what I want out of this studio is a bit of faith in myself that I can make a basic sequence, address a prompt, and be competent at post production. When I eventually approach the ideas I’m excited about, they’ll be done right, through pre-production planning, efficient shooting and concise post-production.  And if I find myself in another creative crisis, I’ll be able to be prompted by what I once considered boring.