After i went to class this afternoon, I have learned a lot about how acting and filmmaking from the class. It amazed me how talented and focused the actors and actresses have to be in order to finish their work. And also, it is actually quite fun and interesting being a part of the process while filming.
Firstly, Paul showed us what the director would say and how everything is done before the actual action. There are a lot of steps and talking while preparing. Also, I was quite surprised how close the microphones have to be to the actors to make the sound clear and perfect for the film. In the beginning, I was the camera, my job was to capture the right angle in the right time and also try to avoid the microphones above the actors. I found it quite challenging, which is surprising because I thought it would be easy. Trying to capture the moment in the right time and also to follow with the flow, story and the feelings in the film isn’t as easy as I thought it would be. However, after a few times of trying and changing from here and there, I understood better of how it’s done and also feel more confident with the camera.
I also found that it’s really difficult to not only remember the lines as an actor but also to understand the given situation from the director.
Overall, I am impressed by what we all did in the class. I could see that everybody was a little confused at first by what they had to say and what to do but after a little bit of practice, we got better.
I’ve come to a conclusion that I’ll be experimenting on colour theory as I’ve done some research earlier for my presentation in week 7. I have always been passionate in shooting at a laundrette and swimming pool scenes in my film one day.
As I did a little bit of a research about colour theory before, I found that colouring can be really effective in filmmaking in terms of emotion and the pleasant of the whole scene. I want to experiment whether colouring can really effect the emotion or not by shooting the same location but changing and editing the colours and angles. Swimming pool is a great location to film in terms of the variety of the choices I can lay around when filming and editing such as waves, sound of the water and people swimming etc.. Another interesting place to explore is laundromat. Since a lot of people tend to think of laundromats as kind of a creepy place, I would like to turn it around and lead them to other kinds of views by using colours as my main mechanism. The sound of the machine, the movement when it’s swirling. My ideal of a laundrette I will film would be a vintage kind, where the machines are in retro colours.
Surprisingly, this is the first time I am really excited to do the experiment in filmmaking since I always see it as something vague and really hard to narrow things down. Hopefully, this experiment will give me a better view of colour theory and filmmaking.
In class this week, Paul showed us Mad Men scenes then we copied a scene from the movie to learn about the angles and composition in filmmaking.
The new thing for this class was the monitor. Now, all the confusions about filmmaking is slightly gone as I know what monitors are for. It is so much easier to have monitors to show the cameras’ angles since we had three camera shooting. However, the monitor in my group didn’t work due to the battery, I assume. So we ended up shooting only with two cameras with different angles and focussing on two different people.
It was completely fascinating by how challenging it is for a beginner like me to set the cameras where they should be and also to be able to avoid other cameras to be in the frame. Also, for me, one of all the fun parts was when we tried to tell Gabe and Justin to move camera up and down to get the framing right. I have learnt that changing angle a little bit and effect the whole scene and even the feeling in the scene. It can change the audience’s perspectives as well.
Admittedly, it is challenging to get the framing and composition right when there’s so much going on such as audio, other cameras, acting, and also to not make the audience get confused by the cameras’ angles.
As I am already interested in design and media, I went deeper to the importance of colours to media and filmmaking. Nowadays, colours are effective and powerful how we perceive the film and characters. According to Lewis Bond, who creates a documentary about the history of colour and how colour has become a big part of filmmaking.
In my point of view, colours are really important in terms of delivering emotions and effects. In graphic design, black represents mystery, power and elegance. However, in filmmaking, colours can represent something different basically depending on how the media want to show it. Furthermore, according to the video, it is fascinating how people, as audience, subconsciously use different colours to associate with different characters.
There are three key elements to any colour, which are hue, saturation, and value: Hue – the actual colours such as red, green, blue etc. Saturation – the intensity of the colour
Lastly, value – the brightness or the amount of white in colour, low value means the colour is darker than the higher value colour.
Also, I have learned that colour schemes are extremely important when it comes to filmmaking and colour theory. In the video, Lewis Bond, as well, gives examples of types of colour schemes and how they work. There are four main kinds of colour schemes, which are monochromatic, analagous, complementary, and triadic. Filmmakers use these schemes to make the films effective and emotional.
Throughout the video, it is really interesting and fascinating how colours can be effective and influential. From the example Lewis Bond gives about a movie – Blue is the Warmest Colour – using blue to express the emotions of the lead actress, it shows that the audience assume the emotions subconsciously. However, this leads me to the question whether filmmakers and directors mean to use colours to express feelings or it’s just Bond’s thing about colour theory.
Furthermore, Lewis Bond also shows us that the colours are not only based on the colour of the scenes, it can be anything; clothing, wall of the room, anything. This documentary gives me clearer idea of how designs, colours, and cinematography are important and influential to films. Colours can also differentiate the characters whether they are bad or good as well. Therefore, in order to express the feelings effectively, it is best to use the colours properly. It is one of the fun parts in filmmaking to learn and use, as I am interested in designing, colours are really important and can actually effect people’s feelings and emotions as Lewis believes. However, using wrong sort of elements and colours can give the audience a wrong idea and emotions.
Overall, from this video, I’ve learned that colours play one of the important roles in filmmaking and in order to make the audience engage, it is a good mechanism to use. Hopefully, I’ll be able to use these colour schemes in filmmaking and enhance the skills and interest in design and media together to create a piece of art.
In week 2, we got the chance to learn about sound. Last semester, I remember I had done this part before where we tried and learned to use the sound recorder. This time, it is not so much different.
Before experimenting, Paul showed us a video about people talking and looking at skeletons in the city while people were walking pass. The language wasn’t in English. It was basically a random video of people talking and wondering, however, it appears quite interesting to me how people were really natural in the film. Therefore, it turns out that the video was being shot from far away and the media team basically hid the camera and recorder to make people feel comfortable, as the fact that people tend to walk away from the camera and don’t talk much when they are aware they are being filmed. Furthermore, I found it really fascinating listening to people conversations about people wondering about skeletons and random things under the ground because it also shows different views from people how they think about that they are seeing. It is such a simple video, yet quite rare and interesting how they show different perspectives from random people.
Later on, Paul showed us how to use the recorder properly and how to coil cables. Then, Allison and I went to explore around uni and do some experiment with the recorder. It was quite awkward seeing people looking at us holding the mic and recorder recording random stuff on the streets or around uni, which explains quite well how hard it would be to record somebody without making them feel uncomfortable in front of camera and recorder. Overall, this experiment is interesting seeing people interactions and also how well this recorder works catching all the sounds we wanted. I’m looking forward to using all the mechanisms we will be trying in this semester and hopefully will be able to use it wise and make the filmmaking more fun and interesting.
