Lighting workshops

This was our first lighting workshop in which we learned the importance of good lighting because it helps to set the mood of the scene and makes the view less flat. Even though for most of the workshop I was being blinded by the lights, I did take a lot from it. For starters, don't forget to focus the camera no matter how excited you get about finally positioning the lights right (Michael bits). Also, we got to see what a gel can do to tungsten lights.

The second lighting workshop wasn't easier as we had to choose and recreate one of noir looks. We chose to only illuminate the eyes, to achieve that look we tried shaping light with barn doors on the tungsten lights, but it wasn't working as well as we thought it would, then we tried using foil to shape the light and that didn't work as well so in the end we ended up using a flag which gave as the look we were going for. After that we decided to just play with the lights and see what the each light positon gives to the image. Because Lauren wanted to film an extract from her script we got the router light and found out that it has TV mode which we found to be interesting and usefull.

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DIRECTIONS

The magic 2 every director has to think about is: 1) what's in front of the camera 2) where's the camera positioned. It's important to read the script and break it down to questions: How? - style, mise-en-scene, mood. Who? - cast, crew, collaborators. Where? - locations, set. What? - production, costume, sound design, editing. Key director moments: How you pesent the character. Where you set the story. How you position the light. How you edit the story (rhythm, tone, mood). For our first Directions unit lecture we had to get into groups and have a go at directing a short scene. I found it to be very difficult to direct my DP instead of handling it myself. I ended up with a lot of spare shots I didn't need or couldn't use (mainly because it was hard to get the ball of paper to land into the bin) but the end result didn't disappoint me.

Camera workshop (coverage)

In one of our camera workshops we learned about the importance of coverage. It doesn't matter that in the end we won't use all of the footage and maybe even end up using just few shots, it's important to have multiple shots from diferent angles so that we would have options while editing. During the workshop we had two exercises. One of which was "The Chair": It ended up being pretty short video and I ended up not using half of the footage I got for it. For next exercise we were given scripts and had to interpret it in our own way. While editing I wished I would have filmed few more close up shots and to have actually filmed the whole scene from fixed camera positions.

Studio Idea

Personally, I found it really difficult to come up with an interesting studio production idea. But because "one idea is not enough" (Brown and Duthie, 2010) I came up with 3 initial ideas: 1) Guess the song type of game show, but instead of guessing pop songs, the contestants would have to guess classical music. I got this idea from a game my friends and I loved to play and the way my music teacher used to test my class. 2) Travel guide about how to make the most of your trip, places worth visiting and places that are overrated and not worth your time. I got this idea from my sister who travels a lot and from the way she does loads of research about each and every place she visits. 3) Debate/Game show where 2 groups of people debate about nerdy topics ( whats better Marvel or DC, which Doctor was the best etc.). The idea comes from noticing how much rivalry there is between comic book lovers and overall 'nerds'. I feel like this idea is the stronge...

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