Group 2(Jacky, Aria, Dan, Brews, Sylvia, Rachel, Kris) – Exercise 3; 5(scene 7)

I think the purpose of exercise 3 is two actually apply what we have learnt so far on lighting into an actual scene. Secondly, by manipulating camera, lighting and sounds etc. learn to connect two shots together that was completely filmed in different places. Lastly, get everyone to get used to working in a team and be familiar with how to deal with unexpected problems during shooting.

Time controlling issue. We all know in an actual filming schedule, time controlling is another key issue that actually exists in a lot of producing team. We shot the exercise 3 externally until 12 o’clock, which left 10 minutes only for exercise 5 when we completed to set up for exercise 5. It is always unexpectable issues happening during the progression, we cannot avoid them coming, something a production team need is collaboration. Collaborate well will allow us to solve a problem as soon as it appears, and this is another challenge we have faced in today’s exercise. Everyone has their own way to film, different thoughts and idea even we are looking at the same script, we are very unused and not even familiar with each other, collaborating to film within a short period of time is actually a challenge to most of us.

Moreover, things usually don’t end up to be what we have expected it to be, for example, since there is a large number of unexpectable things happening during the process so director/ producer need a storyboard before and during shooting. This challenge is what always exist for me, why I have used a storyboard, but things are still continuing and non-stoped changing. For example, Brews is the director of exercise 3, he has decided where he wanted to shoot before class and he went to the spot already.

Reflection as a camera person:

Light management is another challenge for us. Under my understanding, a camera manipulator supposed to use their knowledge on camera to assist what the director wants. Brews was the director of this scene, he went to the shooting location before Monday. However, the lighting was much stronger than want he was expecting from this location, where he was planned to let the two actors sit was facing directly to the sun. I have tried to adjust the aperture to avoid the overexposed, but since the lighting is too hard that directed towards the actors’ face which we cannot control by manipulating the camera. We ended up to choose somewhere that didn’t have sun directed with softer lightings to complete this scene.

Overall, I really like this exercise because this exercise has brought me back to experience what is like to film and work in a production team. The two studios I have chosen last year was 80% individual exercise, it’s been a long time since my last team production.