pre-assignment 1

I'm drafting some sketches and ideas for the first assignment:

Idea 1:
A woman is working on the computer at home (wide shot and back angle camera shot) and receives a text, that reads "would you meet me after work today?" (close up of the phone and low angle of her, reading and smiling). She gets ready to meet him (close ups of her dressing and making up, using mirror reflections and back angle cameras) and goes to the bus stop.
In the next scene we can see her waiting outside of the building and he going out (very wide angle). They smile happily (subjective PoVs of both their faces) .  

I like the story, it's simple and nice, but it doesn't give me the opportunity to use all the abilities learnt. For instance, using the low and high camera angles would be difficult as the story has no room for appreciate a status of the two characters, or a situation of risk. It  allows to use different frame sizes, though, and some natural angles. I can also use the subjective and objective point of views studied in the first part of the course.

Idea 2:
A girl wakes up at home. She is alone, and sits in the edge of her bed, meditative (wide angle of the room, and medium shot of the bed, where you see half is perfectly done).
She looks at a photo in the room, where you can see a guy (close up of the photo).
Then she goes on with her typical day, cleaning, having lunch, working on a laptop... (wide shots, high angles can work OK, as she will be somewhat sad and helpless, and I need to show it with the framing).
In the next scene we can see her crying, seating on the coach, muffled music can be heard (low angle and a mid shot. The low angle will help to show her anguish .. or would it work better with a high angle? I'll try both of them).
The next scene shows here watching the TV, on pijamas. It's late at knight (wide angle). And she seems surprised when hears a knock on the door. Image of the door while someone timidly knocks again (very low angle... who is calling? is it the guy in the photo??).

This option not only gives me the opportunity to use the low and high angles, but also different frame sizes and I can do it by myself, which is an advantage, considering that I'm running late on the assignment already.

exercise: an objective POV

Look back at the sequence you produced in Project 3.
You will now record the same scenario but from an objective point of view. 
Again you will need to think very carefully about what you wish to frame; you will then also need to consider where this is seen from and what camera angle would best suit your purpose. Also consider what other meanings and feelings will be implied by your choice of frame and angle.
What to do:
• Sketch out some basic storyboards. Ensure that each new angle is justified.
• Record the shots.
• Edit them into a short sequence.
• Upload your sequence to your blog.
• Look back at your finished sequence and reflect on its success. 

I decided to be fairly faithful to the first sequence (Project 3). Here is the sketch of what I had in mind to shoot, with annotations below:

Frame 1: 
Sarah is at home, she just woke up and is about to prepare coffee. She looks ind of bored/sad.

Frame 1':
High angle shoot of Sarah preparing the coffee. The high angle implies that she is fragile and vulnerable. 

Frame 2:
The camera angle has changed to low angle shoot. The idea is to show Sarah now as a threat (a threat for herself). Here we can see her drinking the coffee by the window.

Frame 3:
Or bored (low angle), zapping while watching TV. After this shoot she sees the bottle.

Frame 4:
Subjective shoot of the bottle of wine location, and low angle of the bottle, which looks huge and menacing. 

Frame 5: 
She finally wakes up and takes the bottle. The camera has moved to high angle again as the subject is weak against the powerful desire to drink. When she's about to pour the wine she hears her name

Frame 6: 
and looks around, but nobody is there... is she hearing voices?? The camera shoots she from behind in a full back angle, which intends to show that there is a possible danger again. 

Frame 7:
She finally pours the one and drinks (high angle again). 

I decided to take a first test take, but the result can be analysed for the exercise, therefore it's attached below:






What works?

• Angles - I think that even when what I want to imply is not always clear, the angles work fine with the sequence, most of all the high camera angles when she is preparing coffee and pouring the wine. 
• Closing scene - even when the scene repeats an action and I don't really like that, I like the shoot, the movement of the drink and the focusing game, along with the end titles. 

What doesn't work?

• Light - the images I shot in the kitchen had very low light, therefore the result is high noise and a different colour. 
• Focus - shooting with the DSLR gives a nice image and generally good quality, but the manual focus was not possible as I working alone, and the auto focus was noisy. I ended up turning down the audio in many of the scenes.
• Subjective PoV - I think I haven't achieved the feeling of the change between objective and subjective PoV.
• I was not very faithful in the end to the sketched scene, and this sequence is slightly longer. 

How could this be improved?
If I was going to take a second sequence, I would:

• Use my new camcoder, so I don't need to use the autofocus on the DSLR and can avoid the noise
• Prepare lighting and the scenes in more detail - because this was only intended to be a test, I was not paying too much attention to lighting and composition
• Some of the shots could be shorter to give the film more dinamism