For my seventh reflection I have decided to complete the practical class given to us in part 14 of our online lessons, and will do a breakdown of my decision making process for the creation of this piece.

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I chose to work from the “No Word” script we were provided with. Originally, I had hoped to cover the whole thing in just three shots, but when shooting I changed my mind in order to allow myself more control over the timing. I figured I’d rather have the extra footage than not. Here is my original shot list and floor plan:

I am quite glad that I got the extra footage, as I found some of the shots really beneficial to the final edit. I was able to drastically change the timing of the sequence because I had an over the shoulder shot of my letter, and a close up of the mailbox, however, I feel like both of these shots looked slightly awkward and could probably have been improved on.
In particular, there was a lot of dead space in my over the shoulder shot. I actually did the whole indoor scene twice, one with my feet on the pouf and once without. The composition of this shot works a lot better with my feet up, however I felt like it looked a little bit too weird from the master shot to use in the final cut (foot presence is something I have become acutely aware of after watching Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood). I regards to the letterbox close up, I think the shot could’ve benefited from the use of a different focal length or angle, as the only difference between the close up and my master was the position of the tripod. I quite like the look of the shot, but I don’t think it cuts particularly well into the sequence.

My performance definitely doesn’t live up to what the script requires, but I feel like I get a get out of jail free pass for that one because I am clearly not an actor. I’m pretty happy with the result, I didn’t want to over complicate the scene, and I think I managed to achieve that goal.
I think my biggest complaint would be my colour grade on the outdoor master shot, which gives the impression of the sky being blown out. It’s not blown out, I just did a bad job of grading this shot. But also, that’s a pretty minor detail, so I think if that’s my biggest complaint then I’m ok with that.

I would’ve liked to have filmed this at golden hour instead of midday, but I didn’t want to risk having the weather turn sour. I don’t think the direct sunlight caused any major issues, but I think everything would’ve looked a lot nicer if I’d waited for nicer light.

I really appreciated the opportunity to get my camera out and film something. It’s something I would like to do more of during isolation. Hopefully I can rope my cousin into writing a script for a short (as discussed in a previous reflection, my writing skills are pretty sub-par).