PDP Reflections – 1st Year

For each new topic we came across during our Professional Practice module I have written a short synopsis and chosen a photo to support. This document will help me in the future to approach projects using the professional approaches explored during this module.

[I wanted to keep my instagram very professional and focused on the filmmaking and photography I do outside of college, beyond just being a student as I have found this most effective to network. Specifically, I really want to use the platform to tap into surf filmmaking culture and as none of my college work so far has fit that brief, I wanted to keep it curated and focused to help me progress in the real industry]

1. Arts – In this session we discussed the foundations of what the ‘arts’ are, including key elements and categories. Art categories included; Literature, Music, Painting, Sculpture, Theatre & Architecture. The key elements explored were; Form, Space, Line, Colour & Light. I particularly found listing the key elements down very interesting as it is absolutely crucial to film, every frame of professional films have had every single thing on that list carefully considered and executed to achieve the right tone and atmosphere.

2. The Chase – Today we were set the task of creating a short film with very limited time, operating in a small group. The only stimulus we had was that it had to be based around a chase of some sort. I found this task quite difficult at first, as it was hard to find clear direction in the group. As a result, I realised just how important it is to divide into clear on-set roles as quickly as possible or else the focus of the group and pacing of the work is negatively affected.

3. Archival Footage – I feel that as a student, the creative potential of utilising archival footage in film is sometimes overlooked. Using old bits of footage and knitting them together to portray a theme or tell a specific story is a challenge, but can be very rewarding and I find sometimes captivates an audience in a new, more focused way.

4. Lighting – I have always found lighting and it’s significance in film very fascinating. In PDP, we have been looking at 3 point lighting, along with high key and low key lighting and how this changes a shot. It was also helpful to gain more insight into the technical side of lighting subjects, for example, developing a solid understanding of Watts and Kelvin. Practically exploring this alongside the theoretical learning help to solidify this understanding.

5. Constructed and Altered Space – This was the first time I have ever experimented with production design, the task we were set was to film two coffee shop/cafe spaces, one that was constructed from scratch and one that we had just altered. Constructing a space was more challenging than I initially thought as there are far more details to consider once you start to film it, I found that lighting and sound design can also be very useful tools when constructing a believable space.

6. Sound Design – We defined four different areas of sound design as being Dialogue/VO, Music, Ambience & Foley/Effects. Sound design is an intricate process that is responsible for building tone and atmosphere, while playing a key part in storytelling and conveying emotions. The task we were given was to take someone else’s footage and totally recreate it, the result proved just how sound design on it’s own can change and make a scene so different.

7. Documentary – Looking at documentary in this session was extremely useful to me as my Box project is a documentary, and so familiarising myself with key concepts and tools that can be used helped boost my confidence for the project. We planned, developed and created a documentary about one of our colleagues, we chose to do a ‘mockumentry’ and explore how to execute comedy in this format, something we had never tried before. I was very happy with the result but unfortunately the footage was lost shortly after completion, however I am still pleased with the process as I think I learnt a lot about a format of film that I hadn’t had a great deal of experience with.