I have a plan. My plan is to delve into each of the five or six different styles of coverage that really inspire me. So far, I’ve looked at close-up concealment, subtle concealment, and dramatic disregard for continuity. Close-up concealment will have a part two. And there are more coverage styles to come…
This is me studying the work of my favourite directors and cinematographers (and editors). I’m not going to look at sound coverage as much as visual coverage. My elective is sound design, so, for this studio, I’d prefer to dedicate more of my focus to visuals. Sound certainly won’t be ignored, I just won’t be studying it as thoroughly as I will visual coverage.
I used a couple of those aforementioned topics for project briefs 1 and 2 (I was already going to do the scene deconstructions for my own research, why not make them count for something?), but I hope that they’ll still be able to count as part of my portfolio research/planning.
That’s what’s difficult about this new “My Method of Working” and “portfolio” thing. I want a lot of the work that I’ve been doing for the past five weeks to also count for this. For me, that work is my research, practice, contemplation. Those weekly reflections are the same as this new “MMoW” task. They should be part of the portfolio. I will comply with the new name and more focused guidelines, but I want the weekly reflections I’ve been doing to matter as well.
What I’m thinking of doing for the practical part of my project is shooting a single scene, but shooting it in each of these coverage styles. So, I’d shoot the scene multiple ways. I should probably choose a scene from a film that I haven’t seen. Or I could get someone else to write a scene for me to use. I don’t want to have a personal or preconceived idea of how it ‘should’ look.
Then I’d evaluate the scenes. I want to see how the different coverage styles change the scene. I want to see how the different coverage styles change our response to the scene.
This is all still very loose though. I may not have the time or resources to shoot/edit all coverage styles. I may not have time to study all coverage styles. I may completely change my mind about what I want to for this studio project. (Probably not. But it might alter.)
Upcoming steps: deconstruct the next few coverage styles that inspire me.