The writing exercise itself didn’t really start a huge epiphany for me. I will talk briefly about what I found interesting about it thought. Following this I will talk about the thoughts and ideas I have been noting and manifesting since.

The writing exercise: For real life actions, I just wrote down a few actions I could remember from when I had went to the pub the night before. I wrote down things such as “Someone waiting for a tram in frustration” or “Someone taking up too much personal space when sharing a seat.” I thought these would be nice simple things to film that portrayed an action yet also an emotion.

For imaged Actions I wrote down things that had to be completely imagined just because it was a rare opportunity to think of something I’ve probably never seen in real life or at the cinema before. I wrote things such as “A giant eating a star”.. Wait no, I’ve seen that.

The people you find interesting section was the the section that got me thinking the most… Do I find people interesting? Yes, very much so. Who do I find interesting and all importantly.. Why? Yep.. I’m still thinking about this.. Why are some people so interesting to me?

And also I found the class discussion around this exercise probably more interesting than the exercise it’s self.. I felt like the conclusion I drew from it was to take note of those little beautiful, weird or funny moments in life and roll with them. If only this was as easy said than done.

So this exercise was supposed to inspire us to make a little experiment the next week.. Nothing really struck me. I was thinking I could do people doing simple actions and portraying almost opposing emotions. Like someone brushing their teeth.. and crying.. or Someone rolling up their sleeves and and laughing.. But to be honest I didn’t give it too much thought because I had all this other stuff going on. Anyway I must have watched this film clip the day before class:

Yep, no need to watch the whole thing if your not into it, but what I liked about it was that “long take feeling.”  The camera is on for the whole song or at least they attempted to make it look that way, and at each level of the building they bring in a new character, a new element, a new colour grade, and a new verse. Interesting..

I know this is not the best example of a long take, but I guess that’s why it got me thinking.. How did they make this? How many takes did they shoot? And also, how do you keep a long take interesting and introduce more ideas? And also, how do introduce new material without making life too difficult for you and your crew?

So, when I came to class I was just sitting there and all of a sudden I was just like “I want to do a long take!” and that’s how it happened. Later, when reflecting I realized the idea must have come from watching this video.

The Long Shot: learning curves and ruminations

Places you can and can’t film with a student crew. One of our group members wanted to film in the train station, but this is a no go. We decided we would like to film in the state library. One of our group members expertly talked to reception and got permission for us to film there. For us it was enough to kindly ask reception, but I imagine this would not always be the case. Further more, no tripods allowed.

The shot I attempted was quite difficult. Firstly, it was in the reading room, which is a beautiful place to shoot. But it is also a study room, so we had to be very quite and respectful while shooting. I decided I wanted to shoot the actors face as she walked which meant I had to walk backwards to shoot her, and have someone spot me. I could not have done this without someone spotting me. On top of this I felt rushed and awkward because of the location. On top of this I could see the take was going to be shakey because it was handheld. By the end I was sweating.

So I did one take from the front and then another from the back. Although the camera settings are nicer for the the take from the back (amping up the settings being an afterthought after the first take) I decided to roll with the face forward take. I like it better because you are more involved in the character’s world. Also you seem be seeing the world from her eyes, rather than from the eyes of someone following her, as the behind shot portrayed.

I have colour graded and chosen music for this shot. I believe I have worked the shakey cam to my advantage. I think it’s got something going on now.

I hope to gain permission for the music I want to use, and I will write more about how I plan to go about this in my initiative post.

I want to further this practice in future assignments in this course, perhaps filming on a trolly to avoid the shakes and introducing more elements to the take to keep it interesting and further the story. I also want to infuse this idea with some of Andrea Arnold’s and her DOP’s (Robbie Ryan) techniques.

Oh shit I’ve written a mini-essay.