In today’s class exercise, we were placed into groups to go out and capture a roughly 50 second shot of someone doing a mundane action. We were allowed to direct the action, as well as set the focal length and the option to pan or tilt given that there was no zoom.
Our group set out to find aesthetically pleasing locations and interesting actions that would make for an engaging clip. Our final shots included a shot of someone at the vending machine, chess players out in the courtyard, a shot of people walking up and down stairs, and people in the window of a building above. Each of the different takes had their own strengths. For example, one shot was well directed and therefore had interesting action, whilst another shot was visually appealing and so was interesting despite having a mundane action such as people walking. Through observing each of these takes, I’ve started to get an idea of the various elements that go into making a ‘good’ shot.
For my take, I made sure to take note of the top for improvement that my group was given from last Monday’s exercise. Our shot from last week was slightly tilted and off centre, which was noticeable especially on the projectors, and we were suggested to either pull the camera back so that we saw the whole of the people walking by, or have a closer shot which made their bodies blur by. We also could have distinguished the focus more, as we had the people walking past only softly out of focus which was unclear as it was in-between the two extremes. This time, I made sure to tilt the tripod so that the shot was level, and crash zoom on the couch so that it was in clear focus. I also put more thought into the framing and position of the camera, making sure it was aesthetically interesting and the proportion of the background to subject was a good choice. For the location, the background of the building gave the frame a nice symmetry, and the bright red couch that was placed into the shot was a pop of colour against the grey and green backdrop.
Although my shooting skills are for from perfect yet, I was pretty happy with the outcome of this exercise, so progress is always good!
