April 06, 2009

Today we completed most of our filming and are hoping to finish the rest before our next class. This entire period was dedicated to filming, but with a single period we only managed to film two scenes: the student/teacher chase sequence and the DT room dialogue scene. I am please that we finished both in good time and am content with the quality of our work. Despite this, each task came with its set of problems. Through the of our filming process, the most important tool was the storyboard which we constantly kept referring to and proved to be most helpful in maintaining the continiuety between shots.

When filming the chase I used a variety of camera angles and types of shots, however, I used them specifically and in what I thought were the right places. I used close ups either when it was necessary to point something out in detail or else to hide something that was close to the subject. A good example of this would be when Justin is standing seemingly alone in the corridor with an expression on shock. This may seem odd to the audience however, on zooming out it reveals the teacher standing just in front of him. This technique is very effective in creating suspense and is an alternative to cuts. Like a cut, this method reveals something completely new to the audience, however this method also shows the direct relationship between the previous shot. Another type of shot that was unique to this scene is the hand held technique. I liked this technique very much because it was simply so compatible with the subjects in that particular shot. During a scene in which Justin is being chased by the teacher, I had them run towards the camera which I will be holding and moving backwards keeping my distance from Justin. Originally, in my storyboard I had intended to use a dolley for this shot, however, due to the bumpy tiled ground, Ms. Wong advised against it. She also further explained that in movies, whenever a dolly was used, it would be on a track as well to negate the uneven surface of the ground and thus make the shots smooth. However, as it turned out, hand holding the camera was more effective that if we had used a dolley because the jumpy unsteady characteristics of a hand help camera helped add to the effect of disorientation and urgency. This helped establish the atmosphere more throughly and demonstrated that the more sophisticated methods to approach certain things (using a dolley) may not always be the best way.
The DT scene was very different from the chase scene in the sense that it was mainly just dialogue with little actions. With low action scenes, the camera angle is vital in maintaining the audience's full attention. A variety of shots have to be used as well in order to keep the film interesting and to aid the dialogue. In this particular scene I paid close attention to the 180 degree rule as well as the rule of thirds. Both these rules came in play during this scene and I had to constantly keep moving the camera around (to the annoyance of the actors as we had to redo many shots before I was satisfied). Another problem that we encountered was the unevenness of the tripod. Despite the fact that the legs were either fully extended or retracted, the tripod was never exactly straight. This meant that I had to constantly check the "bubble" to make sure that it was in the center before filming. Occasionally we had to slip pieces of paper underneath the tripod to even the legs out, however these tedious step were necessary to produce a perfectly horizontal shot. One possible improvement that we could have made in this scene is to improve the lighting of some of our shots. Because the angle that we filmed at was indirectly aimed at the window, there was a lot of back light which made our subjects very dim in contrast. Two ways we could have improved the lighting is to either have an artificial light source which is not on location and the other is simply to use bounce cards.

Today was a very productive lesson in which I learned a lot through the different situations that I encountered as camera person. Although I had learned the skills used today in class, the applications skills where through experience and I had to adapt to different situations. Today's lesson exercised my ability to be "knowledgeable" in what I have learned through my experiences and in class and discover how to apply these techniques into our film. I learned to "think" of ways to improve my film and to do things differently (as demonstrated with the hand held camera technique) and lastly being a "risk taker" and "reflecting" on the ways I faced and solved my problems. Through solving problems I think that i have gained a lot person growth as an aspiring film student and IB Learner.