Director's Reflection
Overall response (2-3
paragraphs):
In 2-3
paragraphs, write an overall response to your film: Were you successful at
achieving what you set out to achieve? What are you proud of? What would you do
differently if you could remake this piece? What did you learn?
I had a few goals for this film. My
biggest, but arguably most simple, was to tell a story in the master and
coverage style that was cohesive and purposeful. I also wanted to convey the
emotion that I read in the scene, including Anna’s reluctance to share, her
depression, and Oliver’s empathy. Other than that, my goals were more
technical, such as getting appropriate lighting, and using line and space
effectively. Overall, I think I was largely successful at all of these things.
They all could have been done somewhat better, but they all had effective elements.
The lighting was generally soft and natural feeling, the transition from using
horizontal and vertical lines to using diagonal lines in the POV shots felt
effective, and my transition from somewhat deep to very flat space also worked.
People told me that the emotion conveyed (especially by Emily’s performance)
was effective, and everyone was able to follow the story without any
unnecessarily jarring cuts.
I am very proud of the performances
in this piece. I spent a lot of time understanding the scene before shooting,
and I felt that I effectively conveyed my vision and goals to the actors at the
times they didn’t understand already. Specifically, I spent some time making
sure Emily stayed connected to the scene and the emotion of the character
throughout the phone call portion of the scene in which she didn’t have anyone’s
face to look at. I am very happy with how this turned out. I am also happy with
my ability to use some fairly dramatic cuts/angles without alienating the
audience (specifically the cuts to the bird’s-eye view shot and the POV shots).
I am also proud of its overall effectiveness in conveying the story and emotion
to the audience. There are, still, plenty of things I would do differently if I
remade it. First, there are a few technical issues that I would be sure to
correct first thing. The biggest one is that we somehow neglected to check the
shutter speed before filming and ended up shooting at a shutter speed of 200
the whole time. This would be changed immediately. Additionally, there are a
couple shots toward the beginning in which the lighting is a little bit hot,
making them feel out of place among the rest of the scene. I would tone down
the lighting on these shots. I would also shoot on a wider lens for the wides,
and possibly try to get a bigger room to film in. There are also a couple more emotional/narrative
things I would do differently if I did it again. First, I would probably have
directed Spencer just a little differently. He was going for a very “understated”
presence, which I liked, but at some points it led to him feeling somewhat
disconnected, which was not as effective at showing empathy as it could have
been. I also would have tried to convey more comedy in both actors toward the
beginning of the scene, with both of them trying to make something difficult
into something lighthearted.
I learned a lot about shooting for
continuity and how to make it work out. I also learned the comfort of shooting
an entire master shot—it made everything else so much less stressful, even
though I didn’t need to rely on it much. I, again, learned the importance of
checking every detail on the camera to make sure that its settings are what
they need to be. I learned a few techniques that helped me to direct my actors
to stay connected for the entire scene, even when they aren’t looking at
another person.
Briefly answer the following:
What, specifically, did you want to
communicate? Were you successful? Why? Why not?
I wanted to
communicate the narrative information in the scene (specifically what Anna’s
relationship is with her father, that she is telling it to Oliver through this
phone call roleplay, that he empathizes with her, and that he tries to cheer
her up at the end after she has a hard time with it). I also wanted to convey
Anna and Oliver’s emotions during the scene. I think I was successful for the
most part. When we watched it as a class, everyone seemed to follow the story
just fine, which I was worried about because it’s somewhat convoluted in this
scene. They also complimented Emily’s performance, saying that it was
emotionally evocative. I believe that my success came largely because of how I
shot the scene. We began with a master, so that I and the actors understood the
blocking, flow, and purpose of the scene. From there, we shot coverage of each
other shot. For these shots, we captured one or two lines before and after the
portion of the shot I intended to use in the edit, allowing the actors to get
into the same place they were the first time they performed it. I also directed
them to be very specific in their actions, allowing their actions to match from
shot to shot.
A couple
places I was less successful with emotion were in Spencer’s performance during
the phone call and in my use of POV shots. I explained Spencer’s performance
above in my overall response. In regard to the POV shots, I think they were
somewhat less successful because the actors moved their eyes during them and
didn’t spend enough time connecting directly with the camera, making it harder
for the audience to realize that they were POV shots. This made them confusing
for some viewers.
How, specifically, did you try to
say this? What
visual elements, techniques, etc. did you use?
The main
visual elements I used were line and space. Both of these elements were used
one way for most of the film, and then changed after the emotion in the scene
changed. For line, I used primarily horizontal and vertical lines (the lines of
the bed and characters) during the phone call, then introduced diagonal lines
during the POV shots, and a little bit in the bird’s eye view shot. This was to
show that the emotion was heightened for both characters at that point. For
space, I used somewhat flat space, but with a few depth cues during the phone
call sequence. This turned into much flatter space afterwards, to place the
characters together in the same plane. Other techniques include soft, high-key
lighting because it was a warm, intimate, vulnerable scene. Of course, a lot of
what I tried to tell also came through the performances. Fortunately, the sound
was clear and the actors enunciated well, while still being realistically
connected.
What did you learn about storytelling:
I mainly
learned that emotion is much more able to come through after a few basics are
taken care of (continuity of time and space, as well as good lighting). By
paying attention to these things, the more purposeful things I put effort into
(visual elements and performance) were able to give information and tell the
story much more intentionally.
Working with actors and getting performance:
I focused a
lot on having the actors stay grounded and connected during the phone call
scene in which they didn’t really have anything to look at. I gave them very specific
think about and be motivated by during the times they needed it. This worked
effectively for me. I also found that having something written down beforehand
(in my broken down script) made this process much more stress-free than it has
been in the past when I didn’t have that information written down.
Blocking — camera and actors:
For the
most part, I was happy with the blocking of most shots. As we discussed in
class, however, there was at least one moment (right at the very end) when it
would have been good to have the camera tilt up to readjust frame to keep the
composition nice. I agree with this. It would have been good to do this. This
is something I need to work on when using a locked down camera. Obviously I
wasn’t using the camera, but I should have been attentive to this and made sure
it was happening.
Visuals — composition, framing, visual
elements:
I learned
how effective the human figure can be at conveying line when there isn’t much
else around to do it. The vertical presence of the two people sitting up on the
bed was surprisingly effective at giving a certain rigid style to the phone
call portion of the film. I also learned about framing as I discussed in the
blocking section above. Finally, I tried to be attentive to how wide the lens
needed to be, but due to unusual circumstances, we weren’t able to get the
camera we wanted or a lens as wide as we wanted. As such, I tried to combat
this by just doing more panning than I planned on. However, I didn’t put a lot
of time into preparing the new composition of the beginning of the master,
leaving it to be fairly awkward and empty. This is something I will work on in
the future—making sure that all compositions of every part of every camera move
are interesting and purposeful.
Design & Art Direction:
I would
have liked to have more things in the room, hanging on walls or sitting on
shelves. However, I wasn’t really able to do this, largely because there wasn’t
room in the location we were shooting at. Still, based on how empty the room
was, I was happy with how the art direction turned out. Although the set was
very simple, the direction that was there (costumes and the bed) were
effective. The costumes were largely the only color in the room, and having
them be the only color helped them to
stand out. Additionally, the white and gray bed was a nice space for the
characters to end up at the end.
The Production Process — collaboration with crew, the
logistics of making this piece:
My biggest
regret in terms of logistics was that I wanted a bigger, grander location, but
I wasn’t able to get one. I wasn’t able to put as much time and effort into
location scouting as I would have liked simply because I had a very busy couple
of weeks. Fortunately, knowing this, I had this one as a backup the entire
time, and it turned out fine. Collaboration with crew went fine—I felt like I
was able to give them what they needed to be prepared, and they came as
prepared as possible. They were able to set up in a fairly timely manner, and
there weren’t really any snags that I can think of that came up during shooting.
Unfortunately, Hannah’s car got towed, so I supposed parking was a bit of an
issue. However, I had given the cast and crew information about where to park
safely, and Hannah parked in a different place, so I did try to mitigate this
issue.
What was it
like to watch your film with an audience? Did they understand it? Miss the
point? Why did they respond the way they did?
On this
film, the audience actually spotted a few flaws that I had missed.
Specifically, the biggest ones were the boring composition at the beginning of
the film, the hard lighting on Emily during a couple of early shots, and the
small adjustment that should have been made to the composition at the end.
These were all excellent things to point out, and they are things I’m glad to
know about.
Other than
that, I felt like they responded positively in ways that I understood. They
understood the story and seemed to be pleased with the success of the emotion
conveyed in the scene. I believe one of the biggest reasons they responded like
they did was because of the continuity of movement, space, and time in the
scene, which I owe largely to the master and coverage technique I used.
Other observations:
It was easy
and comfortable to work with actors I was already friendly with for this film.
I enjoyed doing that, and I hope to do it in the future, but I also think it
would be valuable for me to work with strangers a bit more.
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