Saturday 6 October 2012

Project 11 – Screen Space


04/10/2012

Exercise 14: Two people communicating

Having read the script and briefed my actors, I have planned my storyboard based on two old friends who recognise each other across the street. This time I have scaled my storyboard to the 16:9 frame of my camera to illustrate positions in the frame.

Frame 01Frame 02
Fade in - Medium shot, Sarah on bench next to road on left of frame.Medium shot, Dan waiting at bus stop across the road.
Frame 03Frame 04
Medium close up, Sarah looks up and across the street at Dan, flicker of recognitionExtreme close up, (try zooming in from the previous shot) as Sarah tries to remember.
Frame 05Frame 06
Dan looks up and across at Sarah. Medium close up.Sarah smiles at Dan and remembers him.
Frame 07
Long shot of Dan starting to cross the road - fade out.
06/10/2012

Many thanks to Julie and Cavan for their help in putting together this sequence. It happened remarkably quickly and we avoided the rain.
I think I got what was required and as this is my first time using actors, it went quite well. The depiction of communication across a space (the main road) works.
Because of the different levels of traffic noise behind each shot, I recorded a separate sound track once I knew how long the sequence would be, I lowered the volume and added it to the audio track. Please give me your feedback on this sequence.



Screen Space from Richard Down on Vimeo.

6 comments:

  1. Great that you've managed to find some actors, Richard!

    I really like your framing: the establishing shot (of the lady) sets the scene, and the road showing in each person's frame helps links the two people together - as does the way you've balanced each actor in the frame; I can tell that they're on opposite sides of the road and placing them to the side of each frame pushes me to look to the opposite side of the frame - which is where the 'other' character is.

    And the little shoulder shrugs and smiles from the actors work perfectly! Looking forward to seeing them again in your next assignment. :)

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    1. Thanks Stuart,sorry to hear your IT is out of commission. I owe it to you that I've got some actors to work with. At your suggestion I joined the local group and have just completed a very successful run of 'Allo 'Allo. Julie and Cavan were more than willing to help once we had finished the show. I'm pleased that you liked my effort and it all made sense. I'm reworking assignment 2 next as I seem to have missed the point completely on my first attempt although Robert did like most of what I did.

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  2. I like the framing also. I clearly understand that they communicate across a road (without a wider frame) and maybe they know each other. They are smiling and the man is walking to her. At the last shot when he is walking to her I had a feeling that a car must hit him, he did not look around and the road is close to him. Just my thought.

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    1. Thanks. I get your point about the car hitting him. Completely unintentional but it raises a question in the mind of the viewer which is left hanging, did he have an accident or did he stop at the kerb? I may want you to watch the next instalment!

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  3. Hi Richard
    I thought I had posted here yesterday but the message doesn't seem to have got through even though I tried to prove I wasn't a robot! Really liked your sequence. It's very believable. I thought the close ups of the expressions of both actors' faces worked really well. I liked the sound too. Well done!
    Margaret

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  4. Thank you for the positive comments Margaret. What amazed me about this sequence was not only how easy it was to accomplish but how quickly it all came together. Multiply that by the number of scenes in a move though, thirty minutes shooting for 30 seconds on screen, then you start to realise what a massive undertaking film making is.

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