Reflection – Week 11

This week I shot my first film, working title ‘Procrastination”. I shot it alone, at my house, using a Sony EX3. I had no external microphone for this shoot as I couldn’t carry it all home alone, so I used the internal mic, and plan on using my phone to record any other specific sounds. Not ideal I know but a sacrifice I was happy to make to save lugging the boom pole all the way home and back along with the other gear.

I was also planning on shooting my other film this week but I had to delay as I’ve found a new location, my friend’s house, who has an outdoor bench press and appropriate fence, plus he wants to act so we will shoot sometime next week with Nathan.

All in all I was quite happy with the ‘Procrastination’ shoot! I haven’t yet started editing but I’ve looked over the footage and it all looks good. I’m excited to edit this and have fun with the time-lapse effect, chopping the footage up while keeping the same static angle. I faced some of the similar obstacles I faced last time I shot alone, but I was aware of these things going in, and I designed my intended shots with these limitations in mind. I often still had to shoot things, then look at them on the camera, adjust the camera slightly, shoot, look over etc. etc, in a far less time efficient manner than having a separate director & actor. The positives of shooting alone however, is that I could work at my own pace, using several hours across the night to finish it, and could stop for dinner breaks etc. It’s just a more relaxed shooting environment for me.

As I needed a dirty kitchen for the shoot, I decidedly left a mess over the last couple days to build up. I then rearranged some things so that it would work best for the shot. My room however was quite clean so I had to manually throw some clothes on the ground and mess up my bed to make a dirty bed. I also intended on shooting some kind of shot from the washing machine’s perspective, but it was too difficult to pull off, so it had to be cut.

I came into this shoot, less expecting to create a great piece of cinema, but more just attempting to use it as a vehicle for me to experiment with some ideas and techniques, such as the time-lapse / before & after effect. Because we had to make something based off of our reflections, this reflection stood out as one that was achievable and a chance to try some things out. I won’t fully know the results of this until after the editing process is complete.

I’m still thinking about what song I want to use over the fast-forward segments of the film. I want something interesting and not stock-sounding, so I may choose an electronic track I have in mind.