On the second workshop for the week, we were given a little “writing exercise” by Paul. For the first time since week #1, we actually stayed put in one classroom for the entire duration of the workshop, which is very rare, as most of the time we would head out for a shoot or to the edit suites, or to record sounds around the campus.

During this exercise we were given a blank piece of A3 paper and some texters to write some of our ideas. Most of us, if not all, are not born writers and we might find it hard to get started on writing something for a short film or maybe even just a single scene. Hence, we were given sort-of-like-a crash course to writing, which I found really unique. As Paul said for himself, it is not one of the courses where we will walk out of the room feeling like we’ve just written a world-class novel or script, but just a simple exercise to get the juices flowing. And I thought it was really just that, getting the right juices flowing and starting on something. Even if it’s just a little spark, it could ignite to an explosion of ideas.

Over the timespan of 2 hours, my brain was bombarded with ideas and topics I wanted to explore for our final assessment in Week #12. One of which may sound like a rip off from Paul, as he did mention about trying out the use of action cameras in a sequence. And I have had place an order for a Chinese made action camera (too poor for an original GoPro), and I feel like there’s a whole big cloud of experimentation and exploration right there, on the uses of an action camera, right from the basics of how to use it, when to use it, how to mount it, where should  you mount it, what should you shoot with it, and a whole lot more.

Another idea would be the use of lighting for different scenes, Paul touched on off side and on side lighting on a particular documentary he showed a segment in class. Lighting is something I feel I have never really gotten the chance to explore or get a good basic foundation on the functions of lighting. Hence, I thought maybe this would be a good opportunity to shed some light on that technical issue I have with myself?

One more, and I think this might be a winner, I can’t entirely remember when or what sparked this idea, however, I got into thinking what makes a particular shot cinematic, and the first thing that came to my mind was the letterbox. These days, the letterbox has been used widely by filmmakers to give a cinematic look, and they are not the only ones using this visual tool to achieve the cinematic feel. Music videos are employing the letterbox too, which I believe are aiming to achieve the same outcome of the cinematic look. Personally, I have very little knowledge on the letterbox and how it came about, so I believe I have substantial amount to research and experiment on. The history of letterbox-ing a shot, the science that gives us that cinematic feel, the uses of the various letterbox, as I do know it comes in different sizes, and the standard being 2.35:1. So, I would say I’m quite excited on gathering these knowledge by the end of this semester, hopefully.