ARTS3061 Portfolio
On this page, you will find a collection of my exercises and assessments completed throughout the term in ARTS3061.
On this page, you will find a collection of my exercises and assessments completed throughout the term in ARTS3061.
This term my team and I created Delayed, a short film written and directed by Alexander Harry Rawley. I was the director of photography, Will Wang was the producer, Rae Xu was the sound designer and Jane Ho was the art director and editor.
My role in preproduction was to storyboard, and work closely with the director to plan every shot we would need. I ended up playing a big role in finding our set (the bus). We were visualising shots with a tight timeline and almost no rehearsal due to scheduling conflicts and time constraints. We started planning for the second shoot immediately after wrapping the first, and that started with finding a set. This was the first student film I’ve worked on where we’ve had to find a set, as opposed to just shooting outside or in someone’s home. We contacted two depots across the Northern Beaches and once approval came through, we realised we would have to work quickly to finish preproduction, and get all our shots during our narrow hiring window with the bus.
As director of photography, I had a minimal camera setup (all my own equipment, just a camera, three lenses, rig handle, a monitor and a tripod) and felt like it was enough. I learned quickly that looking like a “legitimate” filmmaker with lots of bells and whistles seemed fun, but I felt light, portable and accomplished when getting hand-held shots with just a camera and handle. Harry helped me compose shots that used my skills and still felt like they thematically served the project. Sometimes I felt like I could be a little more stable, but it all contributes to feeling like a shaky bus (which we still needed to achieve in post-production).
On set, we had only a few hours of daylight to get everything because of scheduling, which was stressful but motivating. It meant that we could rehearse blocking but not actual positions because we didn’t know what kind of bus we would get or where it would be parked. Natural lighting ended up being of huge importance and we were able to capitalise on the time of day.
Of course, the project was not linear in progress or success. We had an intense, compressed preproduction window leading to shooting our proof of concept (I had roughly two days to storyboard and compose a shot list). Our second shoot had a long buildup of uncertainty over whether we would secure a bus to shoot in (our fallback was Webster 335, theatrically constructed in a bus-seat format using extras and chairs). Our shot lists for both shoots were not configured properly into a shooting schedule, and this was a big difficulty to overcome on set as we could have used our time more efficiently. In saying this, both shoots wrapped ahead of schedule, which was a fun and unexpected surprise. It is a testament to the hard work of the team.
All the crew came from very different skill levels and backgrounds. I had never been a director of photography before, and I had some confidence issues to begin with. Alexander Harry has industry experience and has also directed before, and Jane is a total editing wiz. Finding my place in the crew was difficult to begin with, but now I have every faith in myself that I can do it again (with help, of course).
For this project, I stepped into the role of Director of Photography, using mostly my own equipment for the first time. Our film shows the opening and closing scenes of our full-length script. The team was really switched on, and we had a lot of fun on set despite the bad weather. My job was to storyboard and create the shot list for the day, with the help and guidance of our director, Harry. I wanted a lot of warm colours, and our set choice of Fitzpatrick Park had some beautiful greens to contrast the warm yellow costume of our actress playing Cass. With the help of some reflectors and light rain, I am really happy with the result. Also, I tried some panning and zooms which were much more difficult than they looked, requiring stillness and concentration. I think my slow zooming needs some work, but I’m very happy with the pans and focus pulls. Throughout the experience, I learned a lot about my own equipment, and the value that everyone brings to a set in their own roles. Most notably, the shoot wrapped well ahead of schedule with Will’s help as producer and first AD. Harry directed and was a great support, especially our very short window between pre-production and shoot day. The shoot was a big success because pre-production was done properly and in an orderly manner, and we were punctual and prepared. For example, the schedule was mocked up by Will as soon as I had storyboarded, and Harry had revised the script with enough time to ensure that our talent was well prepped.
This week, we created an interview set-up about our favourite movies, experimenting with the presentation and improvised dialogue. It was fun to work with the Blackmagic cameras again, and it was nice to learn more about each other through the magic of film!
This week, we created an interview set-up about our favourite movies, experimenting with the presentation and improvised dialogue. It was fun to work with the Blackmagic cameras again, and it was nice to learn more about each other through the magic of film!
This week, we created a "chase" scene, and were inspired by comedic techniques seen in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The silent film style adds to this aesthetic while allowing for tension build-up with a lack of sound recording equipment. The chase continues because it keeps cutting back to the same scene, which was a technique we wanted to emulate as The Holy Grail is a low-budget classic. It was a successful imitation and a lot of fun to film.
This week we experimented with three different lighting set ups, to understand how they're used in genre conventions: single point, three point, and noir. We liked the slides and "blinds" effects we achieved in emulating the noir "look" that is the genre convention, and so I edited a story together that supports that creative choice.
Today, we decided to make a mockumentary about two frenemies who really can't play chess. But the stakes are high - they are both very hungry. Inspired by Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair, we had a comedic take on the subtext of Chess (especially when no one knows how to play).
Today was about working together to act out a range of emotions. Although we are evidently not trained actors, it was fun to practice mimicing and improvising, in the hope that we get more in sync. It gave us ideas and strategies to bring out the best performance from our actors for the final project.
In this exercise, we tried to communicate a range of emotions without speaking. We were challenged by questions of framing and composition, as well as colour balance in the edit from shooting outside on a sunny day.
Our final exercise for the term was to shoot a comedic script on campus titled "Convenience" about one desperate person and the ineptitudes of everyone around them. We took turns acting and operating the camera and boom, and had a lot of fun improvising and embellishing the script. We overcame some technical issues like positioning the mic around furniture, and capturing a wide shot above a very tall staircase (a balancing act). It was challenging but hilarious activity.
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