Not gonna lie, these 8:30 Friday morning studios are pretty brutal and always have me hating everything when I have to leave my bed at 6:30 on a winter morning. But miraculously, somehow by the end of each seminar I leave with a much brighter outlook, feeling inspired and motivated to go out and experiment. For a generally disorganised and morning-hating human being, I swear there is some kind of magic and/or sorcery involved in this Studio.
Today, the light bulb moment happened for me when Paul showed us a clip from Patricio Guzmán’s 2010 documentary Nostalgia for the Light. As a budding cinematography enthusiast, I was completely mind blown. The amount of careful consideration that went into crafting each aspect of each shot was incredible. The attention to detail, lighting, framing and angles used all helped transform the mundane household items into interesting, aesthetically pleasing pieces of art. One of my favourite moments came from a transition between a shot of a tree and a shot of specks of dust. The dark, monotone dust shot is superimposed onto the colourful tree shot, until it gradually engulfs the frame. Although neither subjects are particularly extraordinary, the way that it is shot and placed together made for a really interesting juxtaposition. Guzman has found a way to make the ordinary look extraordinary, and it is exactly this type of beautiful everyday simplicity that I aspire to create in the future.
Following watching the clip, our class exercise was to create abstract shots that were aesthetically pleasing. I was happy with the technical quality of the shots, given that I made sure to remember the tips for improvement given from previous class exercises. However, in hindsight, aesthetically they could have been improved by doing some more trial and error. I think that some more experimentation with locations, framing and angles could have been beneficial to improve them.
This links back to one of the goals I wrote down in the beginning of the semester to “be okay with not knowing everything beforehand and just going and doing”. In this exercise, I went straight with my limited knowledge of what would make a good shot, but if I did more “doing”, I could have created an even better shot. I realised that it was key to look around and discover places that I wasn’t completely sure about, and try a few different approaches until I got the best shot possible. A future point of improvement would be to settle for just something okay less and explore more.
