Golden Age Cinema Assignment #5 Final Reflection on Studio Experience

Consider in what ways you hope your final work engages its audience and communicates a key concern of the studio? Draw upon your experiences from attending the studio exhibition.

Ahemad (2024) stipulates the cultural and artistic legacy that the Golden Age of Cinema brought, offering timeless narratives and storytelling techniques, enduring as a important touchstone for contemporary filmmakers. I believe that our work follows these guidelines, offering a timelessness to our story through the universal experience of loss, and with common filmmaking techniques via shot composition and colour to communicate that loss. I feared that the non-linear storytelling and lack of dialogue may have been confusing, however from questioning the participants of the exhibition, all of them understood the premise and narrative of our film quite easily.

 

Cagle (2007) points out the crucial role that cinematography plays in “lending an air of realism” to films. For example, I believe that the use of black bars to mimic a widescreen look for our film greatly improved the aesthetics of our film, as it matched the wide field of view we often see out of our eyes. On the topic of aesthetics, I also believed that the framing of our characters added to our storytelling, as many scenes had their silhouettes highlighted by the sunlight behind them, isolating the two characters more starkly in certain scenes.

 

Lastly, though our sound design was fairly simple, I’m satisfied with the result we ended up with, as it appropriately set the tone for the mood, atmosphere, and emotion of our film (Babbar 2024). The choice to cut out diegetic audio aside from the last scene in place of music was much more appropriate compared to our initial dialogue. Through the music, the proper emotions that needed to be invoked in the audience was communicated, and it allowed the audience to engage with the film and fill in the gaps through their own imagination. It also made the memories much more abstract and out of reach, suggesting the loss or inaccessibility to someone, further communicating our intent.

 

Overall watching our film on the big screen was quite reassuring, as I did not feel as positively to our final product initially. Although there are undoubtedly improvements that could be made, I believe that our film did succeed in engaging our audience in the ways we intended to.

 

Outline the singular most successful and singular most problematic aspect of your process/finished work

The most successful aspect of our process had to be the brief feedback sessions we had with our tutor. From 2 short feedback sessions, our product had changed drastically and for the better. My only regret about this part of our process was that we had not contacted our tutor prior to our in-class sessions for additional feedback, as we had 3 weeks of editing available, and most of it was done on the third week due to this oversight. If we had engaged with more feedback, we might have been able to add more polish to our final product. I believe that this experience highlighted the importance of constructive feedback to me, and I will seek more feedback from my peers and professionals for my future projects.

 

The most problematic aspect during our process were the long intervals between our communication process. There was a lack of feedback between groupmates on many of our drafts during the first 2 weeks of editing, which ended up creating a lacklustre product that had to be rushed in our final week for it to be presentable. I believe that if we had a quicker feedback loop, we could have smoothed over much of the editing process and achieved a much more satisfactory result for our drafts. Furthermore, I should have experimented beyond what the script had entailed, such as how we eventually decided on a completely different structure than what we had intended and even cut out most of the diegetic audio that was intended to be used as dialogue. In the future, I will take note to smooth over communications in a group setting for a quicker feedback loop, and take personal action in experimenting with different formats and styles.

 

Imagine you are going to keep working on that media piece, what would be the core things you would want to improve and extend and why?

I believe that more close-up scenes that could tell the story of our characters visually could improve the cohesiveness of our story. It would be much clearer what had occurred in the narrative, and improved audience engagement. We had initially planned to do this, through environmental storytelling with messy clothes, close-ups of photos and more. However, we didn’t end up having the time to prepare these props and film them on shooting day.

 

I would also love to rerecord the diegetic audio we used. We had used a boom mic to record our audio, however the dialogue that was recorded ended up having quite a bit of reverb and was quite echoey. If I could do it all again, I would have chosen to use lapel mics instead of the boom, which would make the audio used in our film less jarring to hear and more realistic.

 

Outline one key thing you’ve learnt from your studio experience that you will take into your future thinking and practice

The most important thing I learnt from my time in this studio is the preparedness. Good planning is involved in virtually all steps in media creation, from pitching, pre-production, shooting, and editing. The areas that we succeeded in were usually the ones we prepared for the most, and the areas I found lacking tended to be ones we didn’t give much thought too. In the future, it will be important for me to put a great degree of importance on the planning process of any project I work on, including as many details as I can come up with.

 

What’s one key takeaway about working collaboratively?

The key takeaway I had about collaboration from this studio was the importance of communication. I believe that we were not always on the same page in terms of how the project should proceed, and while that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, our lack of consistent communication created an environment where we lacked efficiency, as without a consensus things could not move forward as quickly. For future projects, I believe I should put emphasis on the importance of regular face-to-face meetings with a group, and outlining clear goals and deliverables for these meetings in order to keep things on track

(996 words)

 

References

Ahemad, I.(2024). Shadows and Light: Exploring the Legacy of Golden Age Cinema, The Seybold Report, 19 (1): 854-862

Babbar, I. (2024). Evolution of Cinema, International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research, 6(1): 1-4

Cagle, C.(2007). Two Modes of Prestige Film, Screen, 48(3): 291–311

Golden Age Cinema Assignment #4 Reflection

A) Key takeaways of from the studio and final work engagement. (455 words)

Golden Age Cinema was concerned with exploring traditional cinema and various cloud software and apps to learn from the techniques used, so it could be implemented when creating elite entertainment and exciting visual narratives.

Throughout this studio, multiple important aspects that make a great film were highlighted to me, such as visual storytelling, sound design, and editing. The studio also provided me with a blueprint on how to introduce these aspects into my own films, through shot composition, set design, colour grading, music, foley, and various editing techniques.

Our final work is a short film based on grief and loss, as it explores the characters processing the death of a beloved friend and the bittersweet memories they shared. Their relationship was designed to be ambiguous, allowing the audience to interpret the meanings and feelings of the film themselves, as they are given time to stay on intimate scenes between the characters

To achieve this, various techniques were implemented. On the front of visuals, scenes were divided into two types, coloured (with a warm undertone), and black and white. This was used to differentiate scenes that take place before and after the death of the friend respectively. It was also used to invoke different feelings within the audience. Black and white scenes communicated a numbing, oppressive depression while coloured scenes would communicate warmth and happiness. We also added black bars to the top and bottom of the film, to give it a faux widescreen look, making the film more cinematic.

For sound, we had sparse use of diegetic audio. Instead, the film’s audio largely consists of music. Similar to the colour grading, we used a numbing ambient soundtrack to invoke emotions of solitude for black and white scenes, and a calming, bittersweet soundtrack for the scenes depicting their memories.

As for editing, we went for a slower, more paced approach to allow the audience to sit and ponder on the scenes presented, and to allow the audience to appreciate the intimate moments between the two characters. This can be seen most obviously in our montage scene, as bittersweet memories shared by the pair are given ample screentime to achieve this effect. Scene transitions like fades are also extremely slow, in order to match this approach.

If we were to keep working on this piece, I believe more footage would be useful, as I believe the main weaknesses of this film is the lack of context to what is happening. Context clues to imply the death that occurred could have been implemented more with the use of more scenes to provide visual storytelling. Additionally, I would focus on recording better diegetic audio, perhaps using a lapel mic to capture the actor’s dialogue instead of using a boom.

 

B) Work development since Week 8 + Collaboration Reflection (840 words)

Pre-production was initially concerned with drafting an idea and story for our film. The main concerns were based and choosing a story that would be simple to execute yet give enough variety of good quality shots for the work to feel cinematic. Eventually we settled on the current idea, which would be easy to film location wise, and could be cinematic via focusing on the emotions of the characters. Following the studio presentations in Week 9, we laid out a rough idea of themes and visuals by media that inspired us, so we had a clearer picture of what we intended to film. When choosing a location, we eventually chose an apartment that was big enough to allow us to capture the cinematic shots we wanted. Once the ideas were set in stone, we finalised our script and selected our actors, and pre-production materials were created in preparation for production.

Call Sheet

Location Agreement

Shot List

Once all pre-production materials such as call sheets, location agreements, and the shot list were finalised, we moved into production. Before filming, we conducted a tech scout, plotting out what we wanted to film for each shot of each scene, and setting up the lighting just the way we wanted it. We took pictures of these setups, so we could easily copy our setups on the day of filming.

As all the filming was done in a single day, this experience highlighted to me the importance of pre-production planning more than anything else. If we had not spent the time to do a tech shoot, we would have likely gone over time on the day of shooting. Even with a call sheet, we were slightly behind schedule, and if we didn’t have one, we might not have been able to get all the footage we needed.

Original Edit

For post-production, despite having a well laid out script, our product proved less than satisfactory. From the feedback of our studio leader, our film was heavy on the “tell not show”, and as a result we had to reconsider the structure of the film and the storyline. Eventually, we managed to finalise a version of the video that felt more ambiguous and mature. We adhered to the “show not tell” principle by removing much of the diegetic audio we had originally intended, choosing music instead to promote the audience’s interpretation of the scenario. The complete restructuring of the film also highlighted that we didn’t have a lot of footage to work with, so we focused on a slower pace of shots, which still fit the emotions we wanted to invoke in our film. This is most notably seen in our montage sequence, what was once a fast-paced introduction of the characters was turned into an intimate scroll of bittersweet memories that took centre stage in our film.

Final Edit

The main takeaway I had of this post-production process was the importance of feedback and the need to seek it out constantly. Despite having almost 3 weeks to edit, most of the editing done for our current iteration of the film was done in the final week. If we had reached out to our studio leader much earlier to give their thoughts on our film, the editing process might not have been crammed to the final week, potentially allowing our film to develop into something with more intentionality than it currently has. We might have also been able to get the actors back for filming if we wanted to add more scenes that focused on visual storytelling to provide context to our story.

Reflecting on our group collaboration, during the pre-production process, most of the group work was divided quite fairly and finished promptly. Everyone was involved in determining the idea for our film and the aesthetics of it in preparation of the studio presentations, and some were more involved in preparing pre-production materials than others due to prior experience with work like this. Overall, I feel that pre-production and production ran relatively smoothly, with minor problems coming up, but we were on schedule for the most part.

In my opinion, post-production was when our weaknesses were made more obvious. Of course, as the editor, I was involved more in the post-production process than others, so this perspective is biased. Our main weakness was the long periods of time between communicating with each other. As previously mentioned, we had 3 weeks for editing, more time than most of the other groups, yet our product turned out relatively undercooked towards the deadline compared to the rest of the class. I believe the slow communication was a contributing factor to this result. In the future, I would take this to note and push for more physical sessions with my group and keep them engaged with the editing process by giving them choices to make to influence it.

Overall, I believe everyone did give their best when contributing to this film, and that many of the obstacles on the way were experiences we learned from, to better avoid or mitigate their effects in future projects we would be involved in.

 

C) Studio Presentation Response (566 words)

For this reflection, I will be responding to the studio presentation of 9:13, created by Holland Stanway, Sam Hamilton-Barry, and Louis Larkin. This choice was motivated by the fact that this group seemed to have a much clearer idea for their concept as opposed to ours, and I would like to use this as a learning experience in creating a pitch developed enough to draw attention from potential clients.

Firstly, the visuals of the slides themselves give a good look into the themes and emotions of the film being pitched. The use of splattered blood and red already invokes emotions of violence and hot-blooded anger, fitting their pitch for a story involving a man becoming increasingly manic and irrational as he turns against his loved ones. On the topic of the story, I appreciate that the concept and narrative are separate, with the concept being introduced first in a much more compact manner. The short description of the concept makes it more easily digestible for the audience, allowing them to familiarise themselves with it, before expanding on it by introducing the planned narrative of the story.

With compactness in mind, the use of short, succinct quotes from their inspirations also make this pitch all the more digestible. As I recall, these quotes were expanded upon by the presenters themselves, which provides a much more engaging experience for the audience. The audience is allowed to choose to create their own interpretations of how these quotes inspire the work, and to also listen to the presenters own interpretation of the quotes.

For their mood board, I appreciate the relatively sparse use of images, as many other groups tended to overload theirs with too many images to easily digest. I believe that it shows an intentionality in the vision for this project and allows the audience to get a better sense of the work as they are allowed to spend more time absorbing each individual inspiration.

The provision of pre-production materials, such as a script, shot list, task delegation, equipment list, timeline, intended location, and chosen actors also give a sense of preparedness and vision. To a prospecting client, it communicates the fact that the only thing stopping this production from moving forward is their answer, and that if given a “yes” everything should go smoothly from there. Overall, much of the positive qualities of this presentation is the succinctness and preparedness shown by the group, which implies a strong vision and passion for their chosen project.

As for criticism I can come up with, the slide for their narrative is quite hard to digest. Not only is it a lot of words, but black text over a red background is also  quite hard to read through, and getting a firm idea of the narrative was mostly reliant on the presenter. I also believe that blending the inspiration and mood board slides could have provided more visual interest when explaining their inspirations, as quotes by themselves need time to be digested and understood. Finally, a more detailed timeline would have served to show more preparedness, such as dates when the group will convene to discuss the project, or dates when the rough cut and fine cut are expected to be completed. Nevertheless, I believe this group did a phenomenal job in creating a presentation that covered everything important within the limited amount of time that was given to them.

Golden Age Cinema Assignment #2

https://rmiteduau.sharepoint.com/:v:/s/GoldenAgeCinema/Ea2x9C7sLR9IizWRsYEYGzUBmjXLXTwD_FFg-u1g9UOm4g?e=NmkHEV

 

As a brief introduction, the In Media Res sequence produced depicts someone taking a pill, going into a dream sequence where he is forced to face his past, ending with ambiguity if he has escaped the dream or not.

 

What you were trying to achieve in terms of critically communicating about Framing in Film and explain the method in which the editing process was used to attempt this? 

Similar to my first assignment, I am following Cagle’s (2007) citation, emphasising the importance of “lending an air to realism” when framing the shots for my film. However, due to this work depicting a dream sequence, I had to also depict some ambiguity using asynchronism according to Hayward (2000).

 

I accomplish this sense of realism by using cuts that chronologically follow one after another. The first part of the scene follows the protagonist picking up a package, opening it, looking at the pill inside, and promptly passing out. Him passing out and awaking in the dream world is linked through a jump cut of him passing out on a park bench in a similar shot. Long establishing shots are then utilised to capture the new space the protagonist is in, making it more realistic as the protagonist explores the new environment he is in. He then returns to his room as he collapses on the ground, facing upwards similar to where he is facing as he lies on his bed.

 

To create asynchronism, I decided to make the “real-life” scenes black and white, and the dream sequence to be fully in colour, lending the audience to associate the “real-world” with mundanity and lifelessness, and making the “dream-world” more wondrous and mysterious.

 

How did your preproduction/production/post production process go and what would you do differently/improve next time?  

The pre-production this time around was much more turbulent than before, as I had a much weaker vision of what I wanted to create this time around. On top of that, I fell ill for about a week this time, which not only prevented me from working on pre-production, it also meant I was not in the workshops for a week, preventing me from bouncing my ideas with my peers and receiving suggestions before I had to solidify my concept and proceed with filming. With the benefit of hindsight, I believe that in the future, I should be more proactive in pre-production and be much more open to sharing my ideas with my peers or friends in order to strengthen my concepts before moving on to production.

 

As I was using the Sony FX3 with a tripod for filming this time around, I had to plan out a shot list in advance, as I only had limited time and daylight to film all my scenes. This became a blessing in disguise, as the filming process went much more smoothly than previously, and I did not have to refilm my scenes like I did last time. I believe this experience emphasised the importance for preparation prior to filming, and I hope I will keep this diligence up and expand on the details I include for pre-production in the future.

 

Filming was also much easier, as having a tripod made shooting a variety of scenes at various locations much easier than using a mobile phone with a phone stand as I previously did. The Sony FX3 also made it much easier to capture close-up shots and film in darker lighting, which expanded the range of what I could film drastically. This experience emphasised to me the usefulness of professional equipment, and how the use of better tech drastically improves the quality of the film.

 

As for post-production, I had actually filmed much more footage than I needed, and I had to cut an entire sequence out to fit the scene under 2 minutes. Luckily, the scene still made chronological sense after the cuts, but I believe this to be a lesson in properly planning out the amount of time a particular scene should be given so this doesn’t happen again. As for sound design, the audio captured by the Sony FX3 was much more useable this time around, however audio that I recorded in post was subject to a lot of background noise, that I had to denoise myself in Premiere Pro. In the future, I hope to be able to record audio in post in a more appropriate and sound proof environment, especially when it comes to dialogue.

 

Your reflection should also include commentary on what you thought the most and least successful parts of your In Media Res sequence were, and why so?

Babbar (2024) outlines the evolution of cinema across various dimensions, on how each served to shape film as a multifaceted art form. While the use of better equipment with the Sony FX3 helped me achieve this goal partially, I believe that much more could have been done in terms of utilising a variety of tools, such as sound design or visual effects to enhance my product. Especially for a dream sequence, I believe if I had utilised more distortion for the audio and visual elements of the scene, I could have enhance the feeling of distortion that the audience feels, fitting the tone of my film to a greater extent.

 

Beyond this, I still believe I achieved a sense of ambiguity according to Hayward’s (2000) definition, which states the use of jump cuts and asynchronism between image and sound as key aspects. Not only did I utilise jump cuts, I used smash cuts in particular, utilising the loud disruptive sounds to transition between the dream and real world to disorient and confuse the audience. Asynchronism between image and sound was also used, as the dream world had little to no background noise, just music and a distant distorted voice beckoning the protagonist to explore the space. Overall while a sense of ambiguity was achieved, I believe it could have been more successful with the implementation of more techniques.

 

As stated in the previous segment, the most disappointing aspect of this film was my relatively weak concept. I confess that the use of an ambiguous dream sequence was mostly used to mask my lack of vision, so I could focus on creating a mysterious atmosphere without actually delivering on the mystery. While this may work for a short 2 minute scene, I believe that a stronger concept will be needed for my next assignment. This flaw was emphasised by my lack of socialisation with my peers, and I hope that I will be more effective in coming up with ideas with the help of peer feedback and discussion.

(1034 words)

 

References

Babbar, I. (2024). Evolution of Cinema, International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research, 6(1): 1-4

Cagle, C.(2007). Two Modes of Prestige Film, Screen, 48(3): 291–311

Hayward, S. (2000) Cinema Studies: Key Concepts Second Edition. Routledge, New York, USA, 9-10

 

Pre- and Post-Production Proof

Adobe Premiere Pro Timeline

Pre-Production Planning

 

Weekly Blogs (Week 4-6)

COMM2628 – Weekly Blogs (Week 4)

COMM2628 – Weekly Blogs (Week 5)

COMM2628 – Weekly Blogs (Week 6)

COMM2628 – Weekly Blogs (Week 6)

What key learning did you do in this week’s workshop?

This week’s workshop was focused on the structure of a film, such as utilising the 3 act structure as a guideline tell a more dramatic and consistent story. We also discussed the use of cuts and transitions to evoke certain emotions, such as how smash cuts can be used to disorient audiences, L cuts to tie 2 scenes together, and J cuts for smoother transitions and building anticipation. More ‘outdated’ cuts like wipes and irises could also still be used in the right settings as well, such as for comedic purposes or evoking an older time in filmmaking.

Reflect and describe the main conceptual elements of this studio that you learnt.

This week we focused on David Lynch’s directing style, giving us a more wholistic view of how sound design, editing, colour theory, and shot composition all relate to one another to create a coherent final product. While I might not be the biggest fan of Lynch’s visual style, learning about his intentionality of his filmmaking gives me a greater understanding on how to create prestige film, as it emphasises the importance of keeping in mind all aspects of what goes into a film to create an outstanding product. I personally find that I tend to neglect colour and sound quite often, and hope to improve this in the future

Reflect and describe the main media making elements you experienced and completed.

This week I filmed and edited the final cut for my second assignment. Filming went very smoothly, as the Sony FX3 with a tripod allowed me more flexibility for shots in terms of positioning and lighting. In the future I hope to continue taking advantage of the use of high-end equipment for my projects. This time around, my biggest disappointment was my concept for my film. I didn’t have a strong idea of what I wanted to do, so I defaulted to a dream sequence. While disorientating as intended, I found that there wasn’t really any solid story that could be followed, which left the film unstructured. In the future, I hope to be able to plan out and discuss my ideas with my peers at a greater length for a stronger concept.

(340 words)

COMM2628 – Weekly Blogs (Week 5)

What key learning did you do in this week’s workshop?

Unfortunately, I was sick and could not attend the workshops this week. From what I could gather, we discussed colour theory and colour grading this week, and was introduced to tools such as Da Vinci Resolve for more effective colour grading, and the Blackmagic Camera app for better filmmaking on a mobile phone

Reflect and describe the main conceptual elements of this studio that you learnt.

This week was focused on how hue, saturation, and brightness could be used to effectively change the look of a film, and in turn, affect its tone and mood to better fit the story. Hue determines the ‘colour’ of the film, often used in order to give a film a monochromatic look, which audiences may associate with certain things or emotions. Saturation was described to have a similar effect, such as how many war movies used a desaturated colour grade to emphasise its grittiness and associate the films with the monochromatic pictures that were common in the past. For brightness, a brighter scene could emphasise cheeriness, while a darker scene could be made to be more dramatic.

Reflect and describe the main media making elements you experienced and completed.

This week was when I determined what I was going to film and my planned shot list. As I will only be renting the Sony FX3 for a day, I had to make sure that I had all the shots planned before I went out to film. I had to make sure I had enough time daylight and time for filming, which meant filming certain scenes at certain times. I have planned certain scenes that rely on natural light to be filmed earlier in the day, while scenes without daylight to be filmed later.

(264 words)

COMM2628 – Weekly Blogs (Week 4)

What key learning did you do in this week’s workshop?

For this week we mostly focused on sound design and how we can utilise sound to make our film’s more immersive and impactful. In particular, we focused on Ramin Djawaldi’s perspective on soundscapes on his work, such as how he blended “organic” and “inorganic” instruments to create the opening for Westworld, in accordance with the show’s themes. We were also introduced to free tools to help us create these sounds, such as Vital Synth, AR Synths, and Infinite Drummer.

Reflect and describe the main conceptual elements of this studio that you learnt.

This week was mostly focused on the importance of sound design in order to immerse a viewer into the atmosphere of a story. Sound design can be utilised to create make fictional objects more realistic, the prime example being the Batplane from the Dark Knight series, and how sound designers used a variety of foley in order to create the sounds it made. We also learnt of the importance of music, in setting the tension and mood of a scene, ensuring the audience feels what the director intends them to.

Reflect and describe the main media making elements you experienced and completed.

This week was mainly focused on coming up with an idea for Assignment 2 and planning how to shoot it. I am determined to rent a Sony FX3 from AV Loans this time for my project, as I was dissatisfied with the shot quality last time. However, I am still unclear on what I am planning to create.

(227 words)

Golden Age Cinema Assignment #1

https://rmiteduau.sharepoint.com/:v:/r/sites/GoldenAgeCinema/Shared%20Documents/Student%20Submissions/s3992585_Hao_Wen%20Chan/HaoWen%20Chan_s3992585_Assignment1_MediaStudio_2025.mp4?csf=1&web=1&e=8EpjK0

 

As a brief introduction, the opening scene I produced for this assignment is meant for a dark comedy depicting a student’s struggles in the job market.

 

What were you trying to achieve in terms of critically communicating about Framing in Film and explain the method in which the editing process was used to attempt this? 

Cagle (2007) cite cinematography as a crucial part of film that reviewers attribute to “lending an air of realism”. Through my shot composition, I aimed to capture this realism for the topic. I wanted to emphasise the small and cramped room the student lived and worked in, which also worked as a metaphor for how “trapped” the student feels in this situation. I utilised medium shots with visible walls to convey this information to the viewers. As the room this was shot in is essentially just a rectangle, incorporating two shots from both ends of the room was a quick way to establish the space the scene was taking place in. With regards to the shot of the bathroom, filming through a doorway, with the wall obscuring half the shot, further achieved the cramped feeling of the room. Outside of establishing space, I also utilised close-ups frequently in crucial moments to emphasise the student’s emotions and feelings in a particular moment, such as disbelief and frustration.

 

As for editing, I utilised longer uninterrupted shots at the start to emphasise the mundanity of the scene and how the character is slowly getting ready for the day. During the internship application montage, there were more cuts to emphasise the amount of work the character is doing, and to subconsciously hint that more time passes despite the shorter real time length. During this montage, I used similar shots repeatedly to emphasise the repetitiveness of the process the character is going through. The scene ends as it begins, with slower cuts to focus on the character’s frustration with the lack of reward.

 

Babbar (2024) note the importance of sound design in filmmaking, pointing out its ability to create mood, atmosphere and emotion in films. Similarly, I used audio as the primary way to achieve comedic effect with contrast. The scene starts slow, with constant background noise to emphasise its mundanity. It then changes in mood to a more exciting and upbeat song with lyrics, portraying the characters initial enthusiasm which is quickly contrasted with their growing exhaustion of the process. The music abruptly cuts to the character receiving bad news and abruptly starts again when they physically and verbally express their anger.

 

How did your preproduction/production/post production process go and what would you do differently/improve next time?

I was light-handed on the pre-production of this scene. I wrote down the general themes, tone, and story of the scene, as well as the shots I was intending to film, however during production I soon realised that I would not be able to follow my initial vision due to certain complications. These complications included the gear I was working with (I was simply using my phone propped up on various objects as my camera), as well as the space I was working in (cramped, hard to move around, not much space to set up shots).

 

During production, as I tried to follow my initial shot list, I quickly realised that some shots were not feasible, which led to me entirely refilming my footage, and I had to get creative and work around these constraints. I gave up on filming on low light settings because of the noise, and experimented with a variety of shots to make my footage look more interesting.

 

For post-production, I worked on audio and colour grading. In terms of audio, I largely stuck to a royalty free background noise, as the actual background noise recorded varied too much from shot to shot, making it jarring. I also used my own condenser mic to rerecord dialogue after the fact, so the audio was clearer and more intelligible. For colour grading, I tried to make every shot as cohesive as possible, to emphasise that all events were taking place in the same space, as to not take the viewer out of their experience.

 

In the future, I believe that I should pay more mind to lighting, not only by using better and more varied gear to increase my ability to capture footage in varying light conditions, but also by taking the existing conditions in mind, such as the time of day and existing lighting in the space. Working with a camera and tripod should give me more options in terms of shot composition, so I can make the film more visually appealing.

 

Your reflection should also include commentary on what you thought the most and least successful parts of your Prestige Cinema Opening Scene were, and why so?

Ahemad (2024) lists the portrayal of cultural norms and values as well as the reflection of political climate and ideologies as one of the aspects attributed to the golden age of cinema. I believe that I was largely successful in this part, as I was writing about the shared experience of difficulties in the job market that many are facing right now, aided by the experiences I am currently going through. Through the openings comedic take of the experience and my framing of the scene, I believe I accurately depicted the feelings of the experience, while also making it light-hearted enough as to not be too pessimistic about a situation many audiences might relate to.

 

I also believe that my editing helped significantly improve the quality of my product. I believe I chose an excellent song to contrast the characters mood, which allowed me to express a comedic tone more easily. Many of the other choices in editing that I outlined previously, such as the use of repetitive shots and quick succession of cuts, had the intended effect of simultaneously putting you in the mood of the character and emphasising the scenes comedic tone.

 

I believe my least successful parts of the opening scene was the shot quality and composition. Not only am I an amateur in terms of shot composition, I was utilising poor gear on top of that, which I believe led to a rough and potentially half-hearted product.

 

Overall, while I am decently satisfied with what I accomplished given my restraints, I have much more to improve on and I am aiming to increase the quality of my next film. To achieve this, I will have to keep the failures and complications of this project in mind during pre-production, so filming can progress as moothly as possible. I will also have to experiment with more gear and a variety of spaces, if I am to achieve higher quality shots that can be called “cinematic”

 

(1056 words)

 

References

Ahemad, I.(2024). Shadows and Light: Exploring the Legacy of Golden Age Cinema, The Seybold Report, 19 (1): 854-862

Babbar, I. (2024). Evolution of Cinema, International Journal for Multidisciplinary Research, 6(1): 1-4

Cagle, C.(2007). Two Modes of Prestige Film, Screen, 48(3): 291–311

 

Pre- and Post-Production Proof

Adobe Premiere Pro Timeline

Pre-Production Planning

 

Weekly Blogs (Week 1-3)

COMM2628 – Weekly Blog (Week 1)

COMM2628 – Weekly Blog (Week 2)

COMM2628 – Weekly Blogs (Week 3)

 

COMM2628 – Weekly Blogs (Week 3)

What key learning did you do in this week’s workshop?

For our third week, our class was focused on how to frame our shots to make them look appealing and “cinematic”, particularly with the use of the golden curve. We also went over the importance of audio: such as foley and soundtracks, and how crucial their role is in cinema.

Reflect and describe the main conceptual elements of this studio that you learnt.

The main things I learnt this week was to be more mindful of how I frame my shots, as I noticed that much of the footage I filmed last week looked unappealing as they were unbalanced and badly framed. I also learnt of the importance of audio, and that while good foley is unnoticable when executed well, bad audio has the capability of dragging an audience out of an experience entirely.

Reflect and describe the main media making elements you experienced and completed.

This week I filmed, edited, and finished my final cut of Assignment 1. I refilmed all of my footage, as I was unsatisfied with how it looked due to low light conditions and opted to film my footage with more light instead. I also colour graded my footage and edited its audio, giving my film a more cohesive look and feel. While I am satisfied with the results, this assignment has taught me the constraints of using inadequate gear, and with this experience I hope that I can be more prepared in the future to deliver on a higher quality product for my next assignment.

(226 words)

COMM2628 – Weekly Blog (Week 2)

What key learning did you do in this week’s workshop?

For our second week, we mostly revisited the lessons we learnt from week 1. In our workshop, we continued experimenting with the Sony FX3 cameras. This time around, I focused more on handheld moving shots, filming either a moving subject or just the space in general.

Reflect and describe the main conceptual elements of this studio that you learnt.

The main conceptual elements I learned from this experience was the importance of planning out shots, as without any concrete goal or vision of the way these shots should look like, a lot of them lacked a consistency in quality throughout the shot.

Reflect and describe the main media making elements you experienced and completed.

This week I finished up on pre-production and moved into filming. For this assignment, I am planning to film everything on my phone with myself as the subject due to personal time constraints, and because of this a few problems arose. Firstly, filming in low light conditions present a huge issue as there was a lot of grain, and filming myself as the subject is especially difficult as I cannot adjust the camera with the subject in frame and must estimate how it will look. In the future, I plan to refilm my low light shots with a variable ISO rather than the default camera on my phone, and in the future, I would like to work with a proper camera with actors other than myself.

 

(214 words)

COMM2628 – Weekly Blog (Week 1)

What key learning did you do in this week’s workshop?

For our first week, we mainly learnt about basic cinematographic techniques such as framing and shot composition. Importantly, we learnt the importance of utilising these techniques, as the way a subject is shot can help with storytelling, conveying emotion, and setting the mood. The main examples of this weeks workshop centred around Alfred Hitchcock’s work and Better Call Saul.

Reflect and describe the main conceptual elements of this studio that you learnt.

Through Hitchcock’s examples, I learnt the uses for both close-up shots and long shots; how close-ups can help convey the importance of an object or centre the emotions of a character, and how long shots aid in storytelling by setting the stage for the audience. Through Better Call Saul, I was introduced to the usefulness of breaking common cinematography “rules”, as they can help convey uneasiness within the audience.

Reflect and describe the main media making elements you experienced and completed

In terms of media making, we were mainly tasked with using the Sony FX3 to try our hand in filming one-point perspective, although I also dabbled in other techniques. My main takeaway during this activity was the importance of where the camera should be positioned, as even a slight change in angle could make shots look much more flattering.