Trial #2 take1000000 Further exploring pace, space and the camera as a character.

Zeon and I with a combined 5 hours of sleep (for separate reasons) managed to shoot another version of assignment 3 today, and had a blast doing it.

We have come a long way since the first take and it’s been too much fun. After spending many hours together it has become a lot easier to predict the subtle movements and timing that of my actor and we seem to be very in sync.

REVIEW.

After speaking with Robin about trial #1 a few things became evident.

Things to improve on:

One

Trial #1 contained a lot of elements that I was interested in exploring without much thought on why I was including them. For example, I wanted to have Zeon walk across the room to establish the space. Originally his walk from the microwave to sitting in the couch seemed achieved this, but seemed awkward and unnecessary. For trial #2

Two

So far our method had been to just shoot over and over again with improv and very minimal planning. This lead to some inconsistency in the dialogue. For example, was had Zeon completely forgotten the date of the wedding or was he simply late? Being more decisive about the details of the scene helped us concentrate on more important things like pacing.

FOR TRIAL #2 

Happy mistakes

Gizmo the dog featured in our scene this time and it was great. Gizmo, an amazing talent, had been following Zeon around all morning and it was quite unnerving for me as the camera operator. I was so afraid I might accidentally step on the poor little pup. When filming the take that ended up being our ‘one shot wonder’ I was extremely bummed out that I had JUST missed zeon leaving the room, after getting everything else almost perfect. After reviewing the footage I noticed something that made me smile. Our new shining star Gizmo had stolen the scene and left us with an excellent dramatic effect.

Another happy mistake I made was my “sliding” camera movement which I tried to sync with the door. I ended up jumping the gun and moving to the left too quickly. After reviewing this I actually prefer this look because it brings us to the next room much smoother and faster.

Things I would fix: The timing of the phone being called: I had to do this with one hand

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1codXosplDlCRISxmY-9Gi2eLOEO3p6sp/view?usp=sharing

Final of trial #1 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nDEG8MdaJa18W-DxN1izm9_MqWZSo62k/view?usp=sharing

final of trial #2 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1codXosplDlCRISxmY-9Gi2eLOEO3p6sp/view?usp=sharing

I found this shoot very educational and fun. I’ve always been very nervous about picking up any camera, but this exercise helped me realise that to make something you just have to shoot it. It has helped me loosen up and become more ok with mistakes and imperfection. What I enjoyed most was rediscovering the pure joy of filming whatever comes to mind. In future I will definitely replicate this exercise to get a feel of a location and break into the mindset of my actors.

This exercise also helped me remove the awkward ‘in between’ moments of trying to film a scene. For example having to yell “CUT!” to create a new camera set up, which might cause actors to lose momentum. This “run with it” approach also made it easier to think of new ideas on the fly and become more flexible!

This was a very rewarding experience. Syncing up with my actor and really being in the moment is was so exciting and irreplaceable.

Interview with the actor:

1. How did you find the shoot?

“It was good, it only took a few hours and a lot of the planning aspect/preparation for the scene was a process of elimination, Brainstorming movements, dialogue, improvisations, pacing, camera techniques and spacial construction. I found the lines pretty easy, considering a lot of the lines weren’t planned beforehand, a lot of the communications with the director/camera operator were loose and easy to follow along, i felt like at times the movements that i needed to memorize (although simple.e.g. sliding a door) came to become complicated when compiled all together to complete the one shot. at times i would perfect the opening section, to completely neglect what i had to do immediately after, which in turn.. due to human error on my behalf, lead to multiple takes being ruined. i’d like to believe that with each mistake, i would improve on the following take. Another interesting element, i might add, was the camera operator/actor dynamic, i felt very comfortable working in this environment where there was opportunity to build or cut back on aspects of the project as the day went along. i never felt like an addition or subtraction of dialogue or movement was unnecessary, and given the time that i was present, i feel like we landed on the best possible outcome, and in reviewing the final take.”

THE SHOOT

In this exercise I acted as Gerry in a gender bending, passive aggressive scene out of the 90’s. The main challenge for our group seemed to be finding a prop in RMIT that even slightly resembled a home phone. I got a real shock when the younger members of our group asked what a “receiver” and “dial tone” were when reading the script.

I learned that it might be good to ask the director what kind of shots we are doing as an actor. I thought since this scene was focused on the looks the two characters were giving each other that there might be a few mid shots or close ups but there weren’t any of me in them.

I felt like a bit of a prop since my only role for 99% of the shoot was to sit there and pretend to fill in a crossword. In the end I had enough time to draw up a custom crossword from scratch, which ended up not being in frame.

After we briefly talked about the special unnoticed skills of actors in a previous class, one being the art of doing “nothing” well, I have certainly developed a new appreciation for how hard it can be. I found that if I tried to really become someone bored by the situation, with only a crossword as entertainment, the waiting became a lot easier. It was very funny realizing how meta it all was. Especially since Natalie was pacing around nervously as part of her role, but was between takes nervously checking the time trying to hurry up the crew as we only had about 15 minutes left.

Our group took a while to actually get filming and I think it was because of some confusion between our roles. We had some very vocal actors who probably shouldn’t have been commenting on how to shoot the thing (me), the director occasionally operating the camera leaving our actual camera operators confused, and a sound recordist with no dialogue to record.

REVIEW

After watching both versions in class we were all really happy with how they turned out. Neither of them were rushed and they both had a lot of thought put in to them.

Here are some thoughts I had:

Acting: is it non naturalistic? Does it matter? As an audience we accept the established tone I think and that becomes the new “naturalistic” within the world of the film.

How do u have the actors get in sync and on the same level of naturalistic? For example in our version Natalie’s movements were very gestural and concise while I looked like I could have been accidentally in the shot; some unknowing random who happened to be in frame. I thought that the instructed back and forth pacing seemed like an non naturalistic activity in itself which sort of established that the rest of it would have to be slightly theatrical.

There were some interesting differences between the two groups.

group 1: excellent lighting and use of space. The scene was all about Julia but Gerry seemed to be in it with her because of their close proximity. I really like the way he looked back at her instead of our version where Gerry just looked up and it wasn’t as noticeable and important.The close up of Julia on her phone looked great against the dark lighting, the phone screen wasn’t too bright  and added the perfect amount of contrast to the scene.

group 2 (our group) 

There was a lot more tension between the characters because of the framing. Both versions started off with Gerry in a midshot which acted as an anchor for the rest of the scene. Julia seemed to be orbiting around Gerry, but he was bored and stubbornly uninterested.