The class currently has lack of resources due to the corona virus causing everyone to be stuck at home in lockdown which has resulted in a lot of us being unable to complete last week’s exercise being an attempt to shoot one of the four scripts we looked at last week, however, Robin suggested we attempt to do a shot list, storyboard and a camera plan of the scene instead. I chose to do the script which featured two characters named Bob and Beatrice in the hallway of an entertainment center as the plans for how I was going to visualise it came easiest to me that said while I can do the tasks given to me I really don’t like doing storyboards I think storyboards are helpful so I don’t regret doing them it’s just I’m not keen on doing them due to my poor drawing skills as I don’t think I can correctly translate what I want my shots to look like.

This week we also started to delve into the French term decoupage which I’m very interested to look into as it is something I wish we’d looked more into the last few years and it’s one of if not the primary reason I picked this class my first preference as I want to be a director and want to expand my knowledge into more than just basic camera set ups and delve into the more emotional side of decoupage instead of picking a angle because it looks cool because I think it’s a skill I need to improve on if I want to be a successful director.

Reading Response

“The Background Action: How to Keep it Real and How to Get it Right”

I really enjoyed this reading as the staging of extras is something I haven’t had to many chances to do yet but always understood the importance of extras when it came to the film’s continuity. I appreciated the reading talked about the importance of accuracy by going to officials or people who actually do what you need your extras to do for a living to get advice in order to make the performance authentic as well as the talking about the role of technical advisers which is a role I haven’t had the chance to do myself yet but would like to challenge myself with doing in order to get a better perspective on managing extras on set.