Practical skills

 Over all the units my production skill have gotten better i would say. However due to the covid conditions i would say that outside of the test videos i haven't really had the ability to put much into practice. My first videos i created were testing shutter speed and ISO settings. These tests were important in helping me learn the camera and getting used to using its settings although i did not end up using these techniques much in later films as I tended to use my phone to capture shots as it played into the experimental side of the films and my phone camera was more than adequate at capturing these shots.

These short films were way for me to practice styles and techniques that i could use in my later films. I think that the films following obsession (Me myself and I, Music video) make a better use of editing than the new wave film because of the tests i used in that short.

In my first film The new wave film i was acting on the inspiration of war movies. I chose to take a style similar to that of the opening scene of Apocalypse now, using long shots and close ups of the character to add to the effect. I chose to use a contrast of long shots and close ups as it added to the feeling of being trapped. I also chose to use a contrast of shots of the character running when they were outside and the inside shots being very stationary as again it added to the feeling of being locked in and unable to move. I used the overlaid voice of Boris Johnson on top of war propaganda imagery to link to the war theme and to make the video feel stronger. The production in this first film consisted of choosing the right days as the inside scenes could be shot easily however we relied on the weather to get the shots. In this early film the shots outside shot were to overly exposed which lead to some of the footage being unusable but i had prepared for this and took a lot of shots which allowed for me to choose the least exposed ones to use. The exposure did add to the dreamlike aspect within the first film which is why i chose to leave them it in however i realize i could have darkened them in editing. The biggest problem was that i shot this film on my Sony A99 which i didn't really know how to change the settings on other than some of the more basic options. It is also for this reason why i chose to mainly use my phone in future productions.

Me myself and I was my next longer film and featured the use of me cloning myself. This meant i had to be creative and specific with the angles i wanted to capture. The biggest issue with the camera work in this film is that i was by myself doing all of it due to covid 19 which meant that I had to start the recording, act and then check it was ok. This lead to some compromises such as some shots being not entirely perfect or me having to leave out parts as I had to focus on something else. In this film i had to be very deliberate with my camera placement and it did make me think about my positioning more as i was working in quite a confined area and wanted to get specific shots. Most of the shots in this were medium shots or close ups and it was impossible to get any tracking shots due to the tight spaces and there was no camera operator. I still feel this video came out well as it uses some of my better camera work and made me really think about the placement of my camera. This film changed many times over the course of planning it which made the story i was trying to tell a bit weak and i feel i could have done better had i been able to get out and have more space. The lighting in this film was also controlled more as I only had limited areas to work with i had to make sure it was all relatively the same. The film could have been improved significantly if i had a camera operator as another issue was that i relied on autofocus which kept adjusting the cameras lens and is quite previlent in the video however i did try to cut around it as much as I could.

The final film is my music video which had some of the best shots in my opinion. I chose to use quite a wide variety of shots from extreme close ups for the eyes to long shots of the character running away from the camera. Most of the issues within this video can be drawn down to the lack of planning and the unclear story. I tried to make this film quite experimental however the lack of planning meant that the story was a bit confusing and I didn't really commit to the full concept of being experimental. In this film I used the most editing techniques and the most varied range of shots out of all my films which i would say makes the shots individually quite effective but the link between them was quite weak. If i was to do this again i would spend more time planning where i wanted the filming to go and what i wanted to end with. Overall i would say this is my strongest piece of filming along with the new wave film as this film has the best use of techniques but the new wave has the strongest sense of identity.