On the first day back we dived into shooting a scene we had revised before the mid semester break. By reshooting this scene we were trying to resolve a few problems. However, there were some aspects of the original version that I liked. The way Catherine drops into the frame and is well placed but still arrives as a surprise, suits her pushy, assertive character.
- The break away from the conversation shot of Catherine seemed out of place and awkward in comparison to the smooth reverse shot that established the scene.
- The upward tilt shot of Catherine was an attention grabbing use of movement but didn’t fit into the tightly framed, static shots that came before. Catherine leaving table to a random edge of the nearby wall also looked unnecessary and caused some confusion with her position in relation to the table, which then made their eyelines inconsistent.
To solve these issues,we came up with a simpler alternative which made it easier to keep track of eye lines and not have to calculate them as much. Instead of walking off the the side, Catherine simply slid back to the table behind her where she had conveniently left her bag on the way in. This bee lining method reduced chance of error and also allowed us to have less camera set ups.
Playing Catherine was really fun but came with some challenges.
- getting flustered
- sliding elegantly in an office chair and blocking
one Getting flustered is a specialty of mine. Without much preparation with lines and rehearsal it was easy to become stressed when there was a whole class waiting on us to “get it right.” Being in this position taught me that it might be good to give actors I may work with some warning before we start actually filming by making a point to say “yep we will shoot in 5” 
instead of , “OK READY YEP GO NOW” I found that what was making me nervous was that I was thinking about too many of the crew roles at once. Our director seemed to notice this and tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey don’t worry about trying to adjust your body to fit in the frame, : she said, “that’s our job.”
I didn’t know that I was doing it but I had been watching the screens in the corner of my eye trying to frame myself.
two blocking and delivery
An unnoticed skill that some actors possess is being able to smoothly and naturally plant themselves right into the perfect spot in the frame while being able to deliver their lines. What really helped me was associating a line with a movement. For example I repeated “*slide back in chair* “actually weren’t they both called Arthur”
Some more things I noticed
- A lot of “what are we all waiting for” seemed to happen. But as we got into the groove our AD got very good at shushing us and taking control.
- Too much tape! – there was so much tape on table that I was confused about what it meant.