Week Five: Reflection/Epiphany

I felt that this week’s exercise was a lot more organised. We have the opportunity to plan our first exercise. Not only that but because we started straight away on our 3 hour class, we got to do 2 exercises. Our first exercise was a little uninvolved given that we had a crew of 10, and there wasn’t enough for everyone to do. That is not an issue though as sometimes that’s just how it is in a real production.

Performance:

In the single take this week, the script was a very suitable to explore performance and focus on the little gestures and the actors’ interaction with space. Reflecting on our groups’ choice to have the camera transition between different framing as the actors moved from one composition to another was quite effective (as opposed to having a static frame where they move back and forth in). It was challenging to perfect with such little time, but the concept was an inventive one.

The edited scene this week was the most efficient and organised shoot I have participated in so far. Everyone assumed a role and our director (Amy) did an awesome job! I find that having a first A.D and allocating very specific roles to each team member is the key to making a film shoot run smoothly and a pleasant experience. In terms of performance, we gave our actors the liberty to interpret the role they were given, in this case the ‘robot’. The executive team did have to suggest and guide the performance in some ways such as speech tone, movement, gesture, and timing, but it was the actor’s ‘flamboyant charisma’ that brought the character to life!

Although I didn’t direct the performances for this week, it was a chance to observe and compare how others approached the task. In the exercises which I did assume the role of director, I generally focused on getting the actors on the same page as the way I planned it. Communication is a very important part of this. I would walk them through each action and even explain the motivations behind why they were doing something, this included things like looking out of a door before walking, turning around to close a door before spotting someone behind the wall, etc. A big part of my process was determining motivation and causality in the scene (which may seem a bit too literally at times) or creating or including a gesture or movement that makes sense.

To me, it was also an effective strategy to try to incorporate all the timing into the physical movements and actions and curating the sequence of events based on how they would actually proceed in reality. For example, in the shot (week 7: own scene) where my mother had to walk into frame the moment I closed the fridge, my initial instructions was to walk towards the kitchen from the center of the lounge. I predicted that this will allow some time for me to open the fridge and close it. We had to make slight adjustments but it was a much more natural way of timing and synchronizing the actors. Rather than telling them to just wait and walk in. I also believe that the natural progression of the action also make it seem more natural. They get into character before the actual shot.

This is my epiphany for this week.

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