Bottle Rocket: Test Clips

Well, today was our first attempt at getting behind the camera and actually seeing if we’re up to this. There are two Media students in our group, myself and Matt, and neither of us are particularly apt at using camera equipment, to our eternal shame. It was actually good to get a refresher of sorts, to familiarize myself once again with the basic functions of the camera and tripod, such as connecting the two.

Today, we focused on how to achieve the mockumentary style that we’re shooting for with this project. The appeal Trams, Rentals & Instrumentals rests upon how successfully we can emulate the genre, its specific quirks and idiosyncrasies. Some of these we were aiming to create coming into the test shoot – having the interview subject flick between the offscreen interviewer and the camera, for example. However, others were discovered spontaneously.

This clip has an example of one of those spontaneous discoveries. We found that, in a comedic awkward moment (Martin’s script is full of those), using a slight crash zoom really added to the scene. I should say that Jess actually found this, because she just did it naturally. I think that it works as well as it does (the comedic crash zoom in general, not our particular attempt) because the slight shifts and zooms of the camera make it feel as if it’s another character, which it is, in a sense. As a viewer, I can’t see the look of bafflement on the interviewer’s face, but a slight zoom sells that confusion – which I hope is kind of funny!

This was a fairly straightforward clip, but we used it as a chance to see how our words translate to screen. While we’ve had a fair amount of pre-production material for a while now, we haven’t yet had the opportunity to film it, so it was good to see whether or not our words (which made us all laugh on paper) would work on the big (tiny) screen. The verdict? Hit and miss. While some jokes landed, others didn’t, meaning that we need to do some more script revising. Which is actually excellent, because we’d rather know that now than in a week or two when we’re filming with actual actors in our actual set. I think that this whole exercise has to be taken with a slight grain of salt though, because we’re all a little close to the work at this point. What I mean is, we’re invested in these characters, and there’s a bit of a thrill in actually seeing characters that you’ve helped create being performed for a camera. So, I found that we tend to be a little too enthusiastic – possibly not objective enough. Something to work on, methinks.