Author Archives: Ruby Williams

WEEK 2 REFLECTION

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Due to this week’s public holiday and injuring my kneecap I was unable to attend this week’s classes but I tried to keep up with the class by emailing Robin to let him know I wouldn’t be attending and he got me up to speed with what I had missed which was focus pulling and the protocols and demands required of the camera department, director and first assistant director on a film set.

While I covered focus pulling in camera class last year, we focused more on how to do them instead of why filmmakers choose to do them over other types of shots so I decided to do more research into the purpose of focus pulls. I learned that focus pulls serve a purpose of manipulating the audience to viewing what part or parts of a shot the director wants their attention on it is also largely used as it saves the camera operators from setting up another angle in the scene.

With the production roles I already knew this information as I needed to understand these on set demands going into making me and my production groups short films at the end of last year and the year before that but it was no problem going back and refreshing these details in my mind. The camera department makes sure the camera and it’s equipment are set up correctly for the scene they are also in charge of shooting the scene, while the director oversees the overall production of the film while working with numerous departments and the first assistant director manages aspects of the film set such as managing the schedule and actors.

READING RESPONSE – DECOUPAGE, OR CINEMATIC SEGMENTATION

This week’s reading did an excellent job of breaking down the importance of building a scene and what separates a well thought out scene from a collection of pretty shots edited together. The piece makes several great points when breaking down the segmented aspects of a scene from behind the lense I and how the camera is unbiased and it is up to the filmmaker to manipulate the way the shot is portrayed I especially loved the quote “Machine and Man. The Purest expression of our time, our art, the real art of everyday”.

WEEK 1 REFLECTION

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In this first week of the scene in cinema I was keen to dive into the course material as it was my first preference. I picked this class because I would like to be a feature film director, but I feel my camera choices so far have been pretty standard and basic when they could be more complex and better suited to the emotions I’m trying to convey in my films to get a better understanding of framing and stylising camera shots to generate the correct tones for scenes and to get a better understanding of camera choices I’m not too familiar with in order to expand my knowledge and improve as a director.

I wasn’t expecting to start the practical side of the classes straight away in the first week but I was happy to do a blocking exercise as it was something we hadn’t had the chance to do much of in my past years of camera classes and it’s a directing technique I’ve been meaning to expand on so having the challenge of having a fixed camera and creating a solution by generating the coverage needed using tilts and pans was fun as it gave me the chance to work on my communication skills between the camera operator and the actors which is another area I believe I need to improve on.

In the second lesson this week we looked at covering depth of field by looking at aperture and focal length which was something I’d covered before in classes from previous years but had no problem revisiting since it gave me the opportunity to continue to learn where everything is on the Sony camera’s we’ll be using this year. After reviewing the work I think we could have created a stronger depth of field than we did while the subject was in focus and we had a good level of exposure the background imagery could have been push back further which is a shame as we chose that location thinking it would help us create a strong depth of field due to how well it showed up on camera. I also think we could have framed the subjects better. I believe there was value in recording the data on the camera sheet as now I see issues looking back the sheet shows what settings the camera was on to avoid making the same mistake in future practices

Both exercises were distinct but held a link as they were both types of stylistic camera coverage and both had challenges which my groups had different levels of success completing. In relation to the rest of the semester this class is showing a more complex style of camera covering as a opposed to standard camera set ups which is exactly what I signed up for.

READING RESPONSE – BLOCKING IS OVERLOOKED AND UNDERVALUED

I agree that many directors, including myself, often undervalue the importance of blocking a scene when it is an integral part of the process that deserves more attention. While I believe that directors should be in charge of blocking I can’t agree with the concept of actors not getting a say in how the scene is blocked as my directorial style is not a dictatorship and I like when people offer ideas even if I don’t end up liking them.