Improvements I! (Reflection)

Being a cinematographer 

When I first chosen the role of cinematographer, I had little to no experience on it. Cinematographers are responsible s for the team’s creative vision/visuals. Over time, I began to feel more confident in my cinematography, but I do understand there is still a lot of things I need to improve on before I can be “good.”

What I could have done differently/improve:

One of the main things that bother me while working as my handheld movements. Though I researched about it, I had underestimated the amount and difficulty of handheld movements (especially tracking shot!) there were in the scene until it was production time. One part I struggled with was filming the shot were Forrest’s braces falls off. Since it was sideways, I struggled with working with the environment which led to very snarky and uneven shots. 

Here is one of shots, we were running out of time to reshoot so we used this one in the final film. One thing I could’ve improved on was planning my route more carefully and did more practice runs before production.. and also wear better shoes.

Another skill I want to further develop is technical preparation before filming, especially with using equipment. There were many times where I took way too much time to adjust the tripod or any other equipment, which made our already slow production, even slower (which I will elaborate further on in a later blog). Since me and my group prioritize all the shots with the bullies first, it met there was a lot of changes within the shots. For example, still, to held hand and it required aloft of resetting equipments. 

Although I do not have much imagery to show, setting the equipment up for the first time took me around 5 minutes!!

Some things I should do next time, if I do get the role of the cinematographer again, is to definitely get used to all the equipment and be able to set up and pack up in a short amount of time in order to dedicate the time over to other much more important things… like blocking.