I shot this scene twice – one time in a continuous shot, moving the camera between the multiple frames of the shot, and once with cuts. I was trying to demonstrate how the process of reframing allows a certain coverage that cutting in post production denies. In this scene, the edited scene comes across as jarring because some of the cuts disobey traditional rules of editing. This jarring effect was a deliberate choice on my part. I came up with the ideas for frames and realised that if cut together, some of these frames would have a dissonant effect on a viewer. But, as I think I proved with this scene, by flowing between the frames without cutting, the scene is not awkward, and the audience can accept all of the frames together.

This is a very practical concept – so many times there are a great deal of ideas for frames that come to me, but they would look bad cut together, or they break this rule or that rule, but reframing offers a solution to that.

While I feel that the scene proved what I intended it to, and therefore worked as an experiment, I wasn’t greatly happy with it overall. The last frame in particular is pretty sub par – I was keen to end it with a unique shot but didn’t have any good ideas. On top of this, we were very stressed for time as we had a full class standing outside and glaring at us, waiting to get in. This meant I wasn’t able to fully conceive a great coverage and I was forced to accept first takes, even if they weren’t great.