Since the beginning of week 4, more stringent collaborative exercises have seen more technically complex work and of course, more focus placed on collaboration. Having been grouped up with fellow class members, distribution of roles has allowed for more creative freedom. Being able to work with other people has meant further ideas and suggestions are seen in completed works. Allowing for more diverse and interesting pieces. It has been very enjoyable to work with a team on longer bits of text, compared to the much shorter scripts from earlier on in the semester. Longer bits of text and more constraints has meant much more planning is needed to figure out execution of the exercises. As someone who enjoys working in groups, I’ve really enjoyed constructing pieces of work with other people.

Exercise 4 saw my fellow group members and I construct an interpretation of the Esme and Eduardo Zoom call script. When given this text, we went through numerous rehearsals to figure out the best casting for the piece, then guided our focus towards designing a camera set-ups and shot list. As part of our execution we decided that all members will take turns recording the zoom call, have over the shoulder shots of both characters in their respective spaces and stand alone shots for Esme’s bathroom scene. This preparation time proved to be very valuable at the conclusion of shooting. When it came to editing the piece we had many shots, with different and angles, which covered the entire zoom call scene. By having zoom recordings and a camera set up in our locations, we were essentially working with a multi-camera set up. This made for a much easier editing process. Once all the footage from the zoom call scene was in the editing suite, I found each shot and lined them up with their respective takes. This allowed me to make numerous versions, with the different takes. Once this was complete, the only thing I needed to do was select which shots I wanted to use and cut between. A lot of emphasis was put on the technicality of coverage, we unfortunately missed out on the entire scene of Eduardo looking at the library books online, following the end of the call. This mistake was made because too much focus was put on how we were going to capture the call. I definitely learnt my lesson. Always read the script properly! 

One of my favourite parts of this studio is watching each other’s work and the discussions that follow. This is a very informative part of each class, as it helps view my work from a different lens. After each discussion, I am usually left with different suggestions that I can think about and consider implementing in my future work. Not only do I gain insight from analysis of my work, I learn just as much from hearing the thoughts of other students on other work.

In exercise three, I gave my interpretation of the Carol and Jim script. It was interesting to see the feedback given on my performance, especially on the subtleties in my performance of Carol reading. It was interesting to find that interpretations of this saw that Carol was moved In some way by what they were reading, however it wasn’t clear exactly how this affected her. Whether this was a weakness in the piece or not, reflecting on this I can see how there was something missing in the nuance of my display. This highlighted that subtleties of performance are not always explicit enough to provide much needed information. It also made me wonder how this could have impacted a story which was more reliant on the performance of this part.