Reflective logs
Week 1:
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In this reflective log, I will explain what I discovered about the nature of screen motion and analyse any practical work for its limitations and benefits. I will show the strengths and weaknesses of my practical exercise, if there was one, and at the end of the log, summarise what I have learned and what I need to improve to ensure accuracy in my shots.
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Our first task was to learn what the nature of screen motion is, how it affects the narrative and how we can implement it into our own work. Before experimenting with the cameras ourselves, we studied into Akira Kurosawa, a Japanese film director, and how he composed movement as well as clips from films such as Amelie, a French romcom film, and Run Lola Run, an action thriller, which both included impressive camera movement which helped tell the narrative. For the mini practical/experimentation session, we had to film a simple action and explore different movements with different equipment. The three different equipment we used in our experimentation video was a camera slider, glide cam, and a gimbal. For our simple movement, we decided to film a girl walking into a room, and logging onto a computer.
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We then were given a secondary task. It was to choose a clip from a movie or television show which used movement and take inspiration from it. Using the equipment which we experimented with in the first task, we have to attempt to demonstrate the essence of the scene, even if we adapt the original to our own style. The clip we decided to go with was from American Psycho (2000), of Patrick Bateman walking through the office with headphones on. I believe our group was successful in creating a video that showed our knowledge of how to use the equipment that was shown to us. However, we had one problem which was that the camera was quite shaky despite not looking like it when watching it back on the camera. To fix this, I learned to how stabilise image in Avid to minimise the shakiness in the video.
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Overall, this week helped me understand the nature of screen motion, how it affects a narrative but also how to problem solve quickly and efficiently when something doesn't go to plan. This will help me excel in future projects to do with documentaries and allow me to generate new skills.
Week 2:
In this reflective log, I will explain what I discovered about the different approaches to lighting and analyse any practical work for its limitations and benefits. I will show the strengths and weaknesses of my practical exercise, if there was one, and at the end of the log, summarise what I have learned and what I need to improve to ensure accuracy in my shots.
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Our first task was to learn what some approaches to lighting are. We were given a task to film a simple action and use lighting to create the illusion of these scenarios. The actions we had to film was a character sat in front of a fire, a character driving a car, and a character watching TV. Before experimenting with the lighting ourselves, we looked at some examples which could provide inspiration and context to us. These clips included The Game, a BBC 2 series which used lighting to create a metaphoric narrative. For example, the scene included a man who knew a secret and before he exposed it, he was in dark lighting, then when he did say it, he moved into the light. This is metaphorical because it's almost like he is bringing the secret to light. We also looked at Star Wars: The Force Awakens, a 2015 film in the Star Wars series which uses lighting to show the emotion of the characters and their views. In the clip, Kylo Ren is covered in red light, showing he is on the dark side, and it could also show is anger.
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We then were given a secondary task. We had to create three scenes exploring approaches to lighting for different types of production. These three genres included horror, fantasy and film noir. For our examples we used Nightmare on Elm Street, Narnia, 1917 and another example for Film Noir that was on our reference PowerPoint. I think we were successful in this task, especially with the Film Noir genre as we captured the mysterious, moody effect that Film Noir is famously known for. We only had one problem with our task and that was we didn't have the exact props as the original version had so, we had to improvise to solve these problems. For example, we just used a normal hand in the position of Freddy Kruger rather than creating long fingers for the Horror take, and we used a curtain instead of a wardrobe for the Narnia/Fantasy take. I think we could've improved slightly on highlighting the characters in our images more as they seem slightly underexposed, ruining the true effect of the lighting.
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Overall, this week helped me understand the different approaches to lighting and how lighting helps support the narrative and build the genre and how to convey that through small clips and images. This will help me excel in future projects to do with documentaries and allow me to generate new skills.
Week 3:
In this reflective log, I will explain what I discovered about focusing techniques and how it can help direct a narrative and analyse any practical work for its limitations and benefits. I will show the strengths and weaknesses of my practical exercise, if there was one, and at the end of the log, summarise what I have learned and what I need to improve to ensure accuracy in my shots.
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Our first task was to learn what some focusing techniques are and how to experiment with them. We had to film a simple action and use different focusing techniques to practice working with focus. They included a focus pull, otherwise known as a rack focus, walking into focus, following a character and rack focusing. Before experimenting with focus ourselves, we looked at how focus is affected by the aperture and how it can be used in film to help tell he narrative without explicitly telling the viewer. We also learned how different lenses can affect the depth of field and the focus of an image.
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We then were given a secondary task. We had to create a short narrative sequence that incorporates these approaches by using an example which can be adapted. For our narrative sequence, we looked into recreating the Hot Fuzz (2007) "Good Luck Nicholas" scene. The point of this task was to get us to use focus techniques in a narrative setting. I believe we were successful in this task as we included subtle focusing techniques within our Hot Fuzz recreation. This is because we efficiently used focusing techniques to support the narrative in our adapted scene. Next time, I think we could improve the amount of focus techniques we use. Even though we used a couple in this video, I think we could've used more in different shots to really accentuate what we experimented with in task 1.
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Overall, this week helped me understand how to use focus techniques and why they are important to use when it comes to my own films. This will help me excel in future projects to do with documentaries and allow me to generate new skills.