Wednesday, 21 October 2009

8-Shot Journey

I was asked to create an 8-shot journey. I worked in with another person and we took it in turns to film the other person. Our task was to show a person getting from one destination to another just using 8 shots.
I decided to open on a close-up as I didn’t want to start my piece with a long shot as many other people had done. I opened on a close up of my partner lighting a cigarette. I did this because it gave the audience an idea that the piece was not simple, as fire gives the audience connotations of danger. The next shot I used was an over the shoulder shot of my partner just after she had lit her cigarette. I wanted the shot to be mainly focused on the background, which in this case was the bridge round the back of college by the steps. So I decided I would film the bridge and have my partners head in the bottom left of the screen so she was still visible, but wasn’t the main focus as this gives the audience an element of mystery. I then had my partner get up and walk under the bridge in this same shot, so she goes from being mysterious and hidden to being able to see her whole body.
The next shot was a close-up of my partner’s foot as she walked past. There were several problems with this shot as I found it really hard to get the shot steady as whenever she went to step the camera wobbled, so I decided to move the camera back and zoom in on her feet, but when I went to edit it a realised that somehow the camera still wobbled slightly which I did not realise whilst I was filming. Also I noticed that there was a continuity issue as the speed of her foot step didn’t quite match the speed she walked away in the last shot, when she stepped it seemed a lot slower. The next shot I got was a long shot of my partner walking from behind the wall where the bridge is and walking at an angle towards, but past, the camera. This shot was pretty much just used to show her moving from around the corner, as when made without this shit it didn’t appear to make much sense. I think the only thing wrong with this shot is that she appears to look at the camera slightly as she walks past.
The next shot I used was a wide shot of my partner continuing this same walk but shot from a slightly different angle to show her moving across quite a large area.
The next shot I used was a mid shot of my partner walking through the entrance of the college. I used this shot because it shows that she is entering the building so when we next see her and she is in the building there won’t be any confusion.
The next shot I used was another close-up of my partner scanning her student card at the turnstiles. I was a little worried using this shot as the turnstiles hadn’t been seen in the previous shot and I thought th3ey may appear to come out of nowhere, but it seemed to work ok once it was all edited together. Although I had the problem with this shot of stopping the camera from wobbling at the start of the shot, but I didn’t notice this happen until I was in the editing suite.
For the last shot I was just going to have a long shot of my partner walking up to the table and sitting down, but I decided I would do something a little different by using a Dutch tilt, and I also decided I would use a chair to make up the foreground of the shot, so that when my partner walked in she came from the background of the shot to sitting in the chair which put her directly in the foreground of the shot.
The editing of my piece was very quick and I wasn’t able to put much though into it as there was some technical difficulties which left me with almost no time to edit my piece.

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