Quote about ripples screwing up your reflection or some thing.
I've included below my reflection from in class which I think covers a lot of what this Blog asks for. Overall I'm proud of the product and although I had troubles with people in class I feel like I dealt with them in a mature professional manner. It's hard coming back to school after you've gotten a tiny bit of life experience because people will always think that they are right. Playing chess with a pigeon amirght. I know I can be wrong and speak out of turn and be a dick but I usually have the best intentions at heart. I'm looking forward to the rest of what's to come. Sorry for this subpar Blogs, Rikki, I really did intend to make them better than what they are now. I just ran out of time. And that's on me. Honestly, I feel like if we didn’t have as close a working relationship this try as we did, I’d feel more inclined to really work on them. But you know me and what I’m about. Thank you for making this Tri worth coming back to uni for.
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For those who don't know I'm Axel. I was Director of Photography on a little project called cleanliness of Dirt aka Colours of the Dirt aka Cleanliness of dark aka COD.
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For this project, it was my aim to bring the story in Sam and Jordan's head visually to life. I as the DOP worked closely with everyone to make that happen through framing, storyboarding, filming and the misc-on-scene. We wanted to make a festival level short film and I feel like we achieved that.
As for my contribution, I believe I am worth a Distinction. Here's why.
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Despite the fact that I'm a student, therefore, know jack shit all really. There were definitely areas of my performance where I recognise I need improvement in.
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So first off, personal growth wise I think I have grown a fair bit. I think my working in groups skills e.g my communication has in particular improved drastically. Usually I like people. I think I'm a people person but god working in groups shits me. Mostly because then you have to rely on other people and if they don't do the stuff they are meant to it just screws you over. I'm guilty of it 100% so I understand it. So I think I have been mu=ch more patient and approachable and communicable then I have been in the past.
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I decided I was going to pitch for Director or Dop because I really wanted to challenge myself and my abilities and show you all what I got. I think I might have achieved that. I don't know I feel like I did. You can tell me if I didn't. But the fact that most people in this room think I'm a camera guy now is kinda I think a good sign of that. Before this trimester I hadn't really worked with cameras. So like no real clue. I'm primarily a writer/producer/editor so to be able to look back and know that I have worked almost exclusively in the camera department is really rewarding for me. So before and during production, a lot of my focus went into impressing 2 people. My director and producer. I think I handled that fairly well. I know there are only a select few shots that are actively disliked so I count that as a success. They don't hate the whole thing. Yay. Everything else when it comes down to the lighting and camerawork, there were a few issues but we collaborated as a team and my wonderful camera dept. and I think overall as a team we nailed it. Hit next
I mean look at this shit. Its kinda pretty honestly.
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There are lots of issues from my side of things. That are all kinda hindsight things. Like in the opening dolly shot of Mrs. L its shaky in parts and that's because we used the wally. So I didn't successfully employ the right use of equipment. There are light flares and inconsistencies. There are plenty of soft frames, continuity issues, frames that don't cut together properly. There are shots that straight up just don't fit with the film's tone and flow. The clapper was a mess. We missed shots. Just didn't get them. And regardless of decision making or other peoples influence, these things were all directly under my sphere of influence on the shoot so I am directly responsible. It's kind of a hindsight thing and an experience thing. Something I couldn't really catch until after the fact. So it's a massive learning experience for me to see all these things and know how hard I was trying to focus on the shoot and having it all still slip through so It's woken me up that not only do I need to work even harder as a DoP on set, but also have to use the resources available to me, e.g my crew to really excel overall.
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That brings me to my onset attitude and behavior because it's something I wanted to address. I thought, in general, I was pretty professional. After some comments got back to me however about some people being particularly unimpressed with the way I was on set I had a bit of a look back. And I did this because regardless of other people's attitudes on set, and the way that I felt about that, my views on those attitudes. I shouldn't have let that affect how I act. So it's kinda like the whole you can't decide if someone is offended or not. If I upset one person on set that means in some way I wasn't performing 100% professionally. I, personally, know I overstepped my bounds a bit as DoP and stepped on Sam's toes as a director at times. I didn't mean to and mostly I caught myself and the other times Jordan did. But I shouldn't have had to be caught at all. So I need to actively work on not allowing my passion for a project dictate my behavior and let others perform their roles. I need to let go a bit. And I need to make sure that I don't let other peoples behavior and work ethic affect me on set. So I believe this experience has actively opened my eyes to that being something I need to work on so time will tell.
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I think overall the product we have is something to be proud of. It's was and still is a bit of a shitshow post-production wise and I know people have had issues with that but a lot of it directly comes down to what we filmed which overall I had a lot to do with so I take the blame for that on myself. If we had nailed the frames and the flow of the shots there wouldn't be as big a challenge in the editing room. So overall I take that on myself. But currently, I'm quite proud of it. I think most of it looks pretty good. There are definitely lazy frames in there that have nothing to do with Cain's acting. Continuity, Soft Frames, bad shots, Lighting fuckups. So I take all that on, learn from it and will go forth stronger I hope. So I want a D. I wasn't perfect but I think I worked hard to be as close as I could be.