Transitions: Project Evaluation

Lighting was key to this Project. One scene had an abundance of yellow light and one is an exterior night shoot. We were going to try and counter act the yellow light in the hotel room by using the rotalight on full power and bouncing it off the ceiling.  The night scene will open to darkness and the two characters dialogue will begin with the sounds playing on the outside. we wanted to experiment with lighting a bit more in this scene, but after testing the different light sources on a test shoot we found it didn't come out as accurately as planned. The red and blue lighting would be inconsistent to the rest of the shoot and would be difficult to recreate with every shot for continuity. Also, the scene would need to have a natural light source in order for it to make complete sense but there would be nowhere that the colours red and blue would naturally come from.


Overall I have found this unit to being really beneficial and a great way to explore different roles. With the pressure and workload of studio production and our commission pieces, working in a smaller group project and focusing on specific roles has been insightful. From doing this unit I have been inspired for things to come for my third year project i.e. learning how to light at night and further improving my producing skills, especially when talking about the project with contributors. This will be a short evaluation of what I have learned form this project, what worked, what didn't work and what I would do differently had I the chance to do it again.

When we first started this unit I was very worried about finding what job role I wanted to take on. I was stuck between DoP and Editor. In the end I decided to undergo the role of DoP which turned out to be a good choice and was a role I truly enjoyed doing. Whilst this was my main role, I also shared other roles with the team that we weren't specializing in (i.e.Transcribing).
Overall we didn't have very long to complete this project, and though stressful, I don't think it was a bad thing. It was genuinely really challenging and tested my resilience, resourcefulness and how to cope properly under pressure when things go wrong which they did on multiple occasions (the second shoot being the most stressful).

I hadn't attempted being a DoP before for any projects so i knew i was at a disadvantage before we even started. This didn't matter however as it just meant that i needed to do lots of research and find what "my own style" would be as a DoP. After looking at several inspirations i decided i loved the style Roger Deakins had in his work. There was an abundance of videos written material and columns on Deakins and his work, but one of the first things i saw and helped me was the video below.

 

The work we did on The Firm Awards has really helped me to on the set of The Wrong Mans through the way I've decided on colour, shots and the atmosphere we want to put forward in the piece. Although being two completely different projects (one corporate, the other television), both have helped my style and I feel in moving on from this transitions unit, I can collate all that I've learned and create a third year project I will be proud of even in years to come. In fact I have come to the realisation now I'm doing this evaluation and critically reflecting on everything that I thoroughly enjoy. On reflection looking back on all my work even to now I have always wanted to tell a story through the visual medium of Television. When I first heard about this unit I had very mixed opinions, and thought because of all the other work I needed to do this was just adding to the work load. However, now that I have experienced it and learned from it i can't wait to help tell stories through my work and be able to completely change the mood/intention of a scene by working as a Director of Photography.