Experimental Film Screening (31st May)

aNEW (David, Derik, Arif)

- Loading a gun vs. taking pills

- Repetition of the same shots - reliving same events 

FRAGRANT HARBOUR (Gio, Jamie)

- Comparison of countryside vs City life

- Good use of slow motion to highlight the rapid pace of life in HK

- Cool Time Lapses and transition between shots 

- Mainly consists of Time Lapses

- From outside a tram to inside a tram - smooth transition

- Gets too repetitive after a while

- Time Lapse / Hyperlapse / Slow motion 

FML (Alex O, Isaac Y, Kevin, Ocean Pak)

- Great transitions between shots and interesting framing (harbour shaped as a square)

- Great cinematography

雨過天晴 (Ryan C, Arnold, Chris B, Jeffrey)

- Slow motion of the close ups of Jeffrey at the restaurant 

- About sickness / abuse?

- Theme: Occupy Central 

- Yellow umbrella in the end unveils the theme of the film - I like how its not revealed until the very end 

RETROGRADE (Isaac Um, Wing Kwan, Trystin)

- Rose as recurring motif

- Silhouette shot is cool

- Great cinematography

- Last part of editing was interesting

- Theme: Unrequited love?

YIN YANG (Chih Ning, Kaia)

- Shots in the beginning are noticeably grainy

- Comparison of two different lives?

- Transition from a drawing of a flag to the real life flag shot was cool

- Water - recurring symbol

- Comparing someone who's good at ballet and someone's who still trying to learn 

- Black and white shots where some parts of the shot has color - interesting 

- Interesting transition from egg yolk to sunset

SINNER (Candace, Tess, Charlotte)

- In the water tank shots you can see the reflection of the camera's light

- Last shot of the fish tank is very shaky 

- Lipstick shot helps provoke sense of disgust 

VISION (Karuna, Celine, Catherine, Lauren, Jackie)

- The feeling of being stalked / followed

- Cool glitching effect

- Sound matches the pace of the subject's action

- Sound reflects the subject's mood

- Fast paced = nervous, being followed

- Slow = calm, peaceful 

- Glitching symbolises the mental state of the stalker?
- Creepy

PULSE (Juliette, Ellen Tay)

- Beginning is really cool - finger gun 

- Heartbreak? anxiety? Suicide

- Words on the wall uncovered by hand - that shot was cool

- Good use of colour filters to highlight emotions

- The contents of the film explain the opening shots - your biggest enemy is yourself when it comes to mental illness

- Eyeball shots overlaid with shot of Hong Kong - cool

- Framing is great - good use of shapes / geometry

- Superimposition is well used - shots go well together to create more meaning

SPLINTER (Bernd, Chris C, Henry Teng, Ian Choi)

- Smooth opening shot 

- Different genres paired with music that doesn't match the genre

- Sound effects help enhance the film

- Different parts of film represent different genres

- Horror, drama, comedy

- Sound is the highlight of the film  

EXPERIMENTAL FILM SHOOTS

13/14 MAY
- Filming white wall shots
- Putting extra effort into getting the lighting and framing right, to make it look aesthetically pleasing
- Props and makeup: preparing gold hands and rotten apple
- Putting the LED light under the water tank so that the reflection of the camera and the lights cannot be seen on the surface
- Putting LED lights from both sides of the fish bowl
- Putting a green filter on the white wall shots - experimenting, will see if that fits the film well (filming two versions of the shots - one with a green filter and one without)
- Need to figure out gold makeup (for the lips) - not gold enough

21 MAY
- Could not get the dripping effect for the lipstick, therefore I told Charlotte to smear it downwards with the brush instead
- Lighting - kept making the same mistake of adjusting white balance when the lighting is already set up, which changes the lighting of the same scene
- Spent too much time on preparing props
- Worried that we won't have enough footage to fill in 3 minutes
- Need to start brainstorming for more shots: shot of a torch shining on the black wall

23 MAY
- Using class time to record voiceovers, added more dialogue to our script to make it longer
- Filmed two shots using film classroom curtain as the black background

25 MAY
- Class time: rushed, black cloth as black background, used white wall outside music classrooms as background, using paper cutouts instead of actual people (must match Charlotte)
- Adding jewellery as props - for the "price tag" idea
- Using lights to create shadows, tried warm lighting and cold lighting, whichever matches the footage problem
- One problem is the black cloth couldn't cover the entire frame if we want to do a medium shot (half body), editor can try masking it.
- Orchid shot taken from Youtube, asked for permission
- A lot of problem solving skills needed - eg. how to make it possible to film the shot? eg. splattering the paint - must do separate shot

26 MAY
- Filming at Tess' house, using paper cutouts instead of people because it would be impossible to achieve the effect we want with real people (we'd need a drone)
- Gold paint dripping was difficult because it was hard to get the paint to drip and move the camera down with only two people
- In the end we just poured the entire container of paint down my arm
- Common problem: lights do not have enough battery so it would suddenly start flickering in the middle of the shoot
- Paint is more yellow than gold
- Kept dripping paint on the white paper, couldn't do the shot properly, needs a reshoot

27 MAY
- Filming last two shots by myself
- I feel that we are making effective use of lights in this production
- Sometimes shots are overexposed? Should use barn doors or would be good if there was someone moving the light as the camera moves
- Apple shots were grainy at first, made lights really high to get rid of that
- Reflection of the light can be seen in the paint splatter shot