Over the course of the semester, I want to try to shoot my scenes more creatively and experimentally – I want to be able to get my coverage in an interesting and unique way that looks good. While some scenes will only require simple coverage, I think it’d be great to really test myself in how I shoot them. Directors I admire, like Wong Kar Wai, Paul Thomas Anderson, Robert Altman, all seem to be able to be exceedingly creative and visually stunning while still shooting a simple scene in a simple manner. Although I probably won’t have the budget or equipment that these directors all have access to, I think I can work within those bounds to create something that looks really impressive.

I’m also interested in long takes in film. I’ve always found them really beautiful, fascinating and impressive, but now I’m studying filmmaking myself I’d love to think about when and where they’re appropriate, what makes them work, and especially the technical aspects. Emmanuel Lubeszki is making long takes extremely fashionable in Hollywood right now, with three best cinematography Oscars in a row, all for films that cut sparsely and make great use of a shot’s length. Darting back to the first Reilly reading, where he introduces us to coverage, he stresses the immense technical difficulty of a ‘moving master’ (and also touches on it again in the following reading). He explains that on a professional set, lighting cues, acting cues, camera cues and more must all be hit flawlessly for one of these shots to work. Having only made short student films with a skeleton crew and minimal lighting, any long takes I’ve done have been nowhere near this challenging, so I’m sure if I get too ambitious I’ll be in for a rude shock when I need 20 people on set to carry around a giant light.