Coming into this semester I was hoping to focus on one thing – improving my ability to work as a cinematographer. I was slightly unsure of what to expect from my studio (The Scene In Cinema), but I definitely felt I’d gotten lucky by receiving a place in it (as it was my first preference).

In our first class we were split into groups of 4 and given scripts, which we were tasked with blocking and then performing to the class, with one of our team operating a camera in order to display our scene to the audience on a big screen. This required us to make decisions on how we wanted to frame our action for the screen, which felt slightly overwhelming at the time. I think as a group we were slightly uncertain as to what steps we should be taking in order to complete the task – there was no well-defined step by step process we were familiar with. We didn’t really define who was acting as the director, and kind of lost some potential because nobody stepped up to take charge. Once we regrouped as a class to perform our scenes, it felt like we were mostly ‘winging it’, and it was a miracle we managed to somehow not totally blunder.

I think this was an incredible learning opportunity, mostly because I realised the importance of certain things we were lacking. These things include:

• Someone being in charge (a director)
• The ability to rehearse in the space in which you are performing/filming
• Good blocking
• Knowledge of how the scene fits in the wider context of the film

In the coming months I would like to get more experience working as a director on narrative short films – something I pretty much have no experience in to date. Where would be a good place to start would? I don’t consider myself a great screenwriter, so maybe I’ll need to find someone to collaborate with.

As a whole, I was very pleased by the ‘hands-on’ nature of our first class and am greatly looking forward to the rest of this semester.