When we first began classes in The Scene, it was a bit different to what I imagined. I didn’t expect that there would be so much practical work and I was also a bit fazed by the emphasis that we were not making a film or films, but rather one scene at a time. Every week we would film one scene at a time and do some post-production work as well. I got used to talking about blocking and coverage. This continued for a while but then the emphasis shifted to individual work.

First, we were told to choose what script and scene we wanted to film, then we were told to create an assignment/investigation for ourselves. Being the indecisive person I am, I fell into a sudden panic. What did they mean we could do whatever we wanted? After some time, I eventually found something I wanted to investigate, but I did lose focus of my initial objective in the process. This might have been because I kept the mindset that everything was a work in process and nothing was set in concrete – but perhaps I should have set some things in concrete, this would have prevented me from straying like I did. I thought ‘Everything is a work in progress so it’s OK if I stuff up or decide to change my mind’.

Throughout the semester I collaborated with my peers many times, working on general weekly exercises and also our projects together. During these projects, I got to observe how other people work. I found that my peers are always very clear on what they want from the outset, whereas I am always indecisive and I tend rely a lot on their opinions. If they suggest something to me, I would most likely try it out just because I feel like the more I try out, the more options I will have later on. I have mentioned this before, but I’m not a great planner; I tend to do things on a whim. Recently, I have gotten a little better when it comes to planning but there is still room for improvement.

Another thing I learnt from these collaborations is what kind of instructions I should be giving to actors. When I am taking on the role as a director, there are a lot of things running through my head – framing, blocking, coverage, camera techniques, post-production – and when this happens, I think I sometimes forget to tell actors what kind of mood I’d like to create or what kind of gestures I’d like them to make. When the roles reversed and I become one of the actors, I realised what kind of questions and curiosities about a scene and its character one might have. While directing, I tried to keep this in mind and give instructions more thoroughly.

My collaborations:

Polly – as Gloria in the living room scene

Lisha – Week 6 Tony’s Office, Dialogue scenes x2

William – Stairs scene x2, Long takes (where I get shot) x 2

Kai – Long take (sound only), Action scene

Henry (from Paul’s class) – fighting scene exercise

In regards to technical skills, I have learnt basic camera operating skills – how to set white balance, brightness and contrast, lighting, how to use the zebra pattern to help you discern exposure, how to pull focus, and how to use the camera parts – the aperture, focal length, and focus ring. It does not sound like a lot, but this is a great advancement from only knowing how to format the memory card.

I think what has helped me most is being in an environment where I can get feedback from others, ask questions, and collaborate. For instance, when I’m editing I have seen my edit so many times all meaning seems lost. So when other people view it from a fresh point of view, they are able to see things that I can’t. The small tips like ‘don’t overexpose’ and ‘beware of unnecessary head space’ have made me consider the composition of shots more carefully.

It is hard to put into words what I have taken from this unit. Yes, it was stressful at times, and yes, there is a lot of outside work that we do, but I think this ‘strictness’ is good because ultimately it pays off. Robin always has a lot of things to say about our work – which made me feel both assured and pressured. Assured because it means that my work is being observed and pressured because I want to perform to standards and expectations.

In the end, it was a fulfilling experience – one in which I learnt about my own work ethic, how to collaborate with others, the ‘craftmanship’ involved production, and the considerations one must think about in post-production. Most of all, I have expanded my cinema production knowledge and at the same time, I have realised (anew) how small my knowledge sphere is.

When I wrote my proposal, I had a good idea of what I was going to do and why:

– Investigate the relationship between production and post-production

– Consider how my conscious editing choices are ‘successful’ in leading audiences to interpret the scene in a particular way

– Evaluate my skills – how do the edits done by non-media students weight up against my own?

Only in hindsight do I realise how I ignored some of these objectives. Though I set out to do these things, after a while, I fell into the trap of just wanting to film something ‘good’. I think this is also because I saw my peers’ work, and they seemed to be producing such ‘good’ things that I wanted to do the same. Nevertheless, I was still able to make some observations from my investigation.

In regards to interpretation of the story and characters, a few people did interpret it exactly as in the original (it was based off a scene from Chungking Express) but others gave much more imaginative answers than I expected. One thing I forgot to do was to decide what story I was trying to convey with my edits, and then ask audiences whether they interpreted that way. Part of my investigation was to see whether my edits were ‘successful’ or not, but I became distracted and forgot to do this completely.

In investigating the relationship between production and post-production, a lot of people edited the footage the way I expected them to – using the establishing shots, mid shots for a bit more detail, close up of the letter for convenience. I think with my selection of shots, I did ‘lead’ them into cutting the scene a specific way which is why a lot of the edits are quite similar.

Generally, I found that media people were much more accepting of non-conventional shots and editing choices compared to “non-media” people. Especially for the CU shot of Kai and the glass I used in ‘Weird’, every single editor and non-media person I surveyed did not like that shot – it was the only shot that remained unused by the other editors – even Daniel didn’t use it and he managed to use almost every other shot available. In contrast, my peers from The Scene found that it was unique and still an acceptable shot, they responded much more positively to it. Furthermore, most editors seemed to have a ‘the more, the better’ mindset when editing and I guess thought that they should use as many shots as they could.

Another thing that was constantly brought up was performance. While filming, I directed my actors to perform neutrally (although in a few shots, I did direct them to look sad or nonchalant), but people were often distracted by this. They would tell me the acting is robotic and emotionless, and that it detracted from the scene. I do agree with them that it may have been emotionless, but that was apart of my plan. I guess this was my way of using the ‘Kuleshov effect’, I thought it would help to garner some mixed interpretations of the characters and the mood of the scene.

In terms of their engagement with the material, some editors were more earnest than others – but sometimes this is not reflected in their final edit. For example, my sister, Lena, was much more engaged and spent longer contemplating her editing choices, reviewing the edit, and re-doing things, but all this contemplation didn’t show in her edit. Other subjects, for example Jessica and Stephanie, spent probably a third of the time but received much more positive feedback than Lena.

When I surveyed people asking them to guess which edits were mine – most of them were able to spot 2 of 3. (Robin, you were the only one who guessed 3 out of 3). These results are quite surprising, I didn’t think people would identify Less Weird as mine because, for me, Weird stood out more between the two. Also, my media peers didn’t expect the One Take to be my edit because I didn’t cut/edit the scene at all. So for non-media people, they expected more conventional editing  (maybe it’s because they are used to this) and for my media peers, they expected less conventional edits.

All in all, I would say my observations are more or less common-sense type things. I think I would have been able to get more out of this investigation if I actually followed the proposal I set out in the beginning. If I were to do this again, I would follow a similar process but have different versions of the scene where the actors are blocked out in a few ways and perform with different tones and gestures. Of course, the most important point would be to follow my plan.

When I showed the edits of my second scene to my friends who don’t study media, they had a much bigger reaction than I expected.

For ‘Nothing’, they thought it had something to do with school-work. Lisha is worrying about something, she is a bit annoyed hence the nagging. On the other hand, Kai is laid-back and optimistic about it. The mood is not severe. When they watched ‘Off’, they had a really big reaction to it. They thought it was so dramatic – someone is going to die soon, and the only way to save that person is to finish the research. In comparison, for ‘Sad’ they felt like it was slower and there was not as much drama. Here, they thought the story was either about separation or loss – the characters are in danger of losing something that is meaningful to them. They didn’t make any comments about the technical side of things, so I’m guessing they didn’t notice the jarring sound editing I did in Off. I’m really surprised they interpreted Off and Sad so differently, I was expecting to hear comments about how they’re similar or how only the mood changes, but the story doesn’t.

My media peers also liked Off better – but they were divided on the sound. While some say it’s better to have continuous ambience like in Sad, others think it’s acceptable to edit the sound in that way. A lot of them commented on how the tempo of Sad is a bit too slow and drags out for too long. William thought the establishing shot I used towards the end of Sad focusses too much on the pillar – it takes up too much space in the frame. In terms of the editing, they thought that Off was more stylistic whereas ‘Sad’ was more ‘hollywood’ style – A B A B A B. Kai said the isolated dialogue cutting of the sound is ‘acceptable for weirdos’ – if it’s my style then it is acceptable, but if it’s unintentional, then it should be fixed.

I showed the edits to more people Xiao Chen, Christine, and Judy.

Xiao Chen, media RMIT year 2

STORY:

The boy broke up with his girlfriend, they had a big fight last night. The letter contains a letter to the tune of ‘Come here if you want to find me’. But the boy doesn’t take the letter because he wants to end the relationship.

GIRL: not an important character

1. A little bit strange, second cut (Jennifer)

2. Might be (Jessica)

3. Mine, chose good angles (Less weird)

4. Definitely not, too obvious (Daniel)

5. No, after first transition (Lena)

6. Might be, continuity good, needs to be closer to the actors (Priscilla)

7. Close up unique, stylistic, might be. (Weird)

8. This one is not mine, because there’s only one pan (One take)

9. Not mine because too many shots (Stephanie)

 

Judy, non-media student

STORY: BOY and GIRL are friends, he is a regular at her bar . The letter is from his ex-GF.

Judy picked Jessica’s, One Take, and Less Weird as my edits.

1. Jennifer’s is definitely not mine, not cut properly, looks like the person couldn’t be bothered and randomly decided to add a cut

2. Jessica’s is pretty good, she liked the first pan, but doesn’t like the pan back to GIRL

3. Less Weird is pretty good, creative, liked camera movement to follow letter – would have been better if in focus though

4. Daniel’s definitely not, too many cuts, sound and visual not continuous

5. Lena’s is definitely not mine because of the transitions

6. Priscilla’s one is not mine, just doesn’t feel right

7. Weird is definitely not, doesn’t like it because there is no establishing shot until the end so can’t see the set

8. One take is good because it’s simple

9. Stephanie’s editing is not bad, but there are too many shots and angles, doesn’t like the low angle, but possibly mine

 

Christine, non-media student

STORY: BOY and GIRL are friends, he is a regular at her bar. The letter is from his ex-girlfriend, girlfriend, or from his boss.

Christine picked Jessia’s, One Take, and Less Weird as my edits.

1. Jennifer’s one is not mine, edit is random

2. Jessica’s edit is OK, but doesn’t like the panning

3. Less Weird is OK, liked the panning to follow the letter

4. Daniel’s is definitely not my edit

5. Lena’s is definitely not

6. Priscilla’s is a possibility

7. In Weird, there are to many CUs, doesn’t like CUs in general

8. One take is good, simple

9. Stephanie’s edit had too many shots, definitely not

We have finally reached the last week of classes.

This week in The Scene we had individual sessions with Robin to talk about how we’re going about our projects and also how we liked the unit. I really liked this unit because I was able to learn a lot – not only from the tutes, but also from my peers. I will leave the details for my final post.

In regards to my project, I wanted to film a new scene because I felt that I had not done enough. While all my peers had produced a lot of great work, I felt like I was lagging behind them so I wanted to do more. But it did not work out the way I wanted. Initially, I wanted to film a single scene in three different ways – 2 outdoors and 1 indoors – but since the weather wasn’t great, I could not do the outdoor shots. In the end, I just chose to shoot the scene inside. Ultimately, my final shoot ended up being more like a general weekly exercise than a contribution to my project. Nevertheless, I tried to link this exercise to my project by creating a few edits of this new scene which I hadn’t blocked out particularly thoroughly. Sad and Off are quite similar whereas the mood in Nothing is starkly different.

In ‘Nothing’ the conversation between the two actors seems more like an argument and this is purely to do with their performance – not my coverage or editing. I actually named it ‘Nothing’ because there is nothing much/nothing special about the way I blocked/filmed/edited the scene. When I showed my edit to Kai and Aki, they both said it was OK and that there was nothing wrong with it. But for me, while there is nothing wrong with it, I also think there is nothing to be remarked upon. As for ‘Sad’, the tempo of the cuts is a bit slower and the background music adds some gloom to it. The main purpose of having the pillar was to show them separated and also to conceal what Kai hands over to Lisha. I felt the last cut which returns to the CU of Lisha is a bit strange, but I wasn’t sure how to end the scene. In Off, I tried to put the focus more on Kai. I also did something weird with the sound where I isolate only the dialogue parts and cut out all the other ambient sounds. It’s a bit jarring, but I really wanted to try it out.

On another note, I used the Dolly for the first time yesterday and I can see what a difference it makes compared to hand-held tracking. It did get a little shaky at one point but I don’t think it was too obvious. I think it introduces the scene nicely compared to if I just used the static frame with the pillar in the middle. Actually, this was more of an incidental thing because I had not originally planned to dolly. On the day however, Kai who was filming after me had planned to used the dolly so we had it on hand. There was some extra time leftover to do some more shots for my scene while waiting for Kai’s cast to arrive so I filmed some dolly shots in the 5-10 minutes I had. Not only this time, but there are a lot of times where these ‘happy incidents’ happen for me and I get lucky.

This Saturday we re-filmed a scene for Lisha’s project.

I self-appointed myself to ‘prepare’ the camera and I was good until I had to do the white balance. I formatted media and adjusted the brightness and contrast just fine, but when it was time to do the white balance, for some reason, it came out looking orange. After some consultation with Aki, we decided to just use a white wall instead of the piece of paper I had originally used. Afterwards, I put on the zebra pattern and checked the levels – it was at 75 – and adjusted the lighting until I thought it was OK. Compared to the last time I tried to prepare the camera, I think I have improved a lot. For one I forgot to adjust the white balance last time, and I also took (what felt like) 30 minutes in total to adjust everything else.

I was also about to film on the Saturday, but I didn’t think I had done enough planning. I had written up a new script but wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it. I could go two ways – I could continue with my editing theme, and just edit the scene a couple ways myself to change the mood or I could film the one script in a few different ways with different sets, maybe different actors too. This kind of exercise is probably more to do with transforming the script rather than the footage though.

I showed the 9 edits to Polly, Lisha, and Robin

Polly

Polly enjoyed Jennifer, Weird (W) and Less Weird (LW). She found Stephanie’s edit OK, but the low angle shot with Kai’s arm in the foreground is a bit strange – Robin commented the same thing. She guessed that Jessica’s and LW might have been mine as well as W because she knew I liked that shot from production day.

Comments:

– liked shot of Kai walking towards camera

– should have had a close up on Kai’s face to show his reaction to the letter

– at the close up/pan on the letter, a focus pull would have been good

– maybe having a scene/flashback of another girl passing on the letter would have been good

Lisha

Lisha enjoyed W because she though it was the most different and unique compared to all the others and also more memorable. Also, she liked the cut to the CU of Polly because no one else used that shot in full. Overall, she found the other ones all similar. She thought Stephanie’s one was pretty good because she used a lot of shots. She commented that LW had smooth and fluent transitions between each shot. She thought W, OT, and Stephanie’s might have been mine.

Comments:

– she liked the shot of Kai’s face obscured by the glass

Robin

Robin enjoyed LW and OT, and also W though tit ‘fizzled’ towards the end. He thought that LW was the most dramatic, suggestive, and memorable and it made him curious about the characters. For OT, he thought the timing of the actions and pacing of the camerawork worked well in addition to the performance by Polly and Kai. He commented that although it was a one take, it didn’t seem like it and he imagined a cut somewhere. For Weird, it was going OK until the cut between the last two shots – he would have liked it better if it snappier so the focus would remain on Polly rather than Kai. He also chose these three edits as my edits.

Comments:

– Daniel’s one should not be shown first because it would through people off with it’s ‘insanity’.

– Jennifer’s cut is let down by the second shot she chose – felt unpurposeful

– Liked Jessica’s first cut but not the rest of it, especially the CU of the letter

– Lena’s transitions were crazy

– Priscilla’s beginning wide shot lingered for too long, she used the CU of letter that he hated and he felt she just edited for the sake of editing

– Stephanie’s edit was messy, and he hated the low angle

I got 4 more people to edit my scene: Jessica, Jennifer, Stephanie, and Daniel.

Jessica, 21, never studied media

Story: BOY frequents this bar. He goes there to think about life, uni, problems…etc. In the letter, there is a rejection and he doesn’t want to face it. GIRL is the bar owner.

Similar to Lena, Jessica also wanted to leave it as a one take – she didn’t know what I meant when I told her to edit it. She found it really difficult. She used the back shot because she thought it looked cool, and cut to the front to show what’s happening. She cut to the letter for the sake of it. Used the last shot because she had already chosen the take as the base and didn’t want to re-watch footage. Overall, she didn’t put too much thought into and really just couldn’t bothered with the software.

When I asked her whether she would have added some transitions or music, she said if she had though of it she would.

Jennifer, 20, never studied media

STORY: BOY’s girlfriend is breaking up with him through the letter and he is depressed, GIRL is the bartender at the bar he frequents.

She only used one cut so most of the scene was played out through the mid close up shot. She decided to use the shot where Kai approaches camera because she wanted to his reaction to the letter, but she would have preferred if the frame showed his face.

She wouldn’t have put any transitions, but she would have put some background music – maybe some slow bar-appropriate soundtrack.

Stephanie, 16, studied media in year 9

STORY: Same as Jennifer

Stephanie had a ‘the more, the better’ mentality to her edit. She wanted to use many shots and angles, but there was nothing particularly meaningful behind each cut. She paid more attention to sound and continuity compared to the others (excluding Priscilla).

She wouldn’t have added any transitions though she might have added some background music if she knew what the mood of the scene was like.

Daniel, 26, never studied media

STORY: BOY is a pessimist and has come to his good friend, GIRL’s  bar. GIRL likes BOY and the letter is a love letter from her.

Daniel used the most shots of all editors for a total of 14. Some shots he chose based on sound (such as the first one where you can hear my action call) and others based on visual. If he had more time, he claims he would  have made the cuts smoother and put voiceover over the visuals.

He says he would have added background music ‘See you again’ from Fast 7.

This week I got another group of people to edit the scene for my project.

Most of the time, I was in the same room at the time they were editing so I got to observe their editing styles. Priscilla, Jessica, and Daniel watched all the footage before they started editing, and Jennifer did too, though she scrolled through footage in the imovie program which meant that she did not hear the sound. Stephanie flicked through the footage quickly, she did not watch everything and only chose what she wanted to use when she started editing.

In terms of editing ability, Stephanie probably did the best when it came to continuity and ‘cleaning up’ the sound like cutting out action calls and laughter. Actually Priscilla probably did the best, and I guess the most conventional edit, but I’m going to discount her because she did media in high school from year 10-12. Lena and Jennifer didn’t do that well in audio or visual continuity but they each thought about why they wanted to use a particular shot so everything was purposeful. I find it is a shame it didn’t come through in the edit though.