CLASS 1

This week in the first class in small groups we did live performances of the scripts we were given. I thought this was a very clever way to straight way to get to the point of what coverage is in fiction cinema. I straight away started to rethink everything I have ever watched. As soon as I got home, I watched the shows and movies I was watching more carefully and analytically.

I really enjoyed the scenes we watched and re-enacted in class because they were very thoughtful and creative. They found ways to block the actors and really think about the space. I enjoyed that the directors of these films tried to find a way to shoot the scene in a way where they didn’t have to cut as much. I think there is a lot of skill in this! At some point during this week I saw that Wolf of Wall Street (Scorsese, 2013) was on television. I only watched a scene or two as I had already seen the film. But I did notice in the few scenes, the coverage seemed quite a bit more classic and possibly less creative in terms of scenes showing two characters having a conversation. The shots were a simply shot reverse shot and simply moved back and forth from mid shot of each character from the point of view of the other one. And while I’m not necessarily saying that this is not creative and smart, I did enjoy seeing a break from this as you do see this style a lot. I also do understand that in a film like Wolf of Wall Street, it was a high budget mainstream film and was possibly more focussed on having a good story as opposed to creative choices in terms of shots, but that’s only an idea.

For this exercise in class one I don’t think I learnt much from the act of blocking the scene with my group. I learnt a lot while watching other attempts and by watching the actual scenes. But our team did fall a bit behind as we spent too much time throwing ideas around.

The scene I most enjoyed watching the film version was ‘exercise 1’. It was very interesting that the shots in this scene looked to be showing the female in the scene to be the main character of the film when she wasn’t. If Robin hadn’t pointed out that the male in the scene was the main character, I would never have suspected it. I would guess that the director chose this decision because she was possibly an important character in his life and/or they wanted to see the point of view from the male character. Either way, it was an interesting choice I would never have thought of!

 

CLASS 2

Class two I also found very interesting! We first learnt a bit about the camera and the settings on it. A lot I had already known but sometimes the numbers confuse me even though it makes more sense when I get a hold of the camera! I think learning the settings through listening rather than doing confused me a little bit. Although when I group went out to actually use the camera, I think we all confused each other a little further. Each person in the group had a different idea of the exercise we were doing so we all confused each other. I think now looking back on other people’s exercises and our own, we mostly had the idea down pat! I think that we had spent a lot of time discussing and explaining what depth of field was and how to achieve it that we forgot to actually do it!