Creating a Fight Scene

 

Before filming a fight scene there are many fundamental things that need to be taken into consideration. Firstly, the actors need to either know how to fight, or know how to move their body with control, uncoordinated people cannot act in fight scenes because it will not look realistic and will come across as fake or sloppy. Choreographing a fight scene is probably one of the hardest and longest steps to creating a fight scene. Not only does the thought of where the camera needs to be in mind, but the fight needs to seem natural and realistic. When it comes to cinematography the camera needs to be placed in the right place to catch action from the right perspective. With a shot such as a punch to the face the camera needs to be placed at the right point, a fist should be able to go across, in front of someone’s face, this makes it seem like the face is being punched because you cannot see the gap between the fist and the face.

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The fight scene we made was put together extremely quick, within about half a day. We ran through some choreography a little before filming and then made some stuff up when we were at the location. The editing when quite quickly too, just needed to add SFX and music.

 

Here is the final result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Making a Music Video in Isolation

 

During the isolation period for COVID-19 I worked on editing a music video. Because of the isolation the group I was working with had to find free stock footage online as well as some vlog footage from the artist. The idea behind the track was that it was made in Byron Bay on one of the artists holidays, because of this the idea for the video was to focus on a journey. It begins with vlog footage from the artist of him driving to the beach, then it changes style to stock footage that has a variety of effects on them. After each change in the music the environment also changes. Going from the beach, then to the forest, traveling closer into plants, then bugs, before macro footage, after that it expands out to the sky and the universe before finishing on a shot of the artist sitting by a fire. The effects used were found by trying different things and experimenting with each clip, we all had different strengths when it came to the effects, so we worked on it and then put each of our sequences together.

 

Here is the final result.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Editing a Monologue

 

When asked to edit a monologue I was a bit nervous as I have not really done anything like it. I have edited interviews before, but they are a little different, mainly because you need cutaways, the monologues however had no cutaways. When I started editing I realised that the different angles were not filmed at the same time, instead they were filmed with one camera multiple times. This was probably the most difficult part of putting these together, when lining up the audio and footage as the dialogue would be said slightly different and the way the subject was moving would be hard to line up with the cuts too. I found that for me the best process was to use the wide shot to create the full timeline, then I cut close ups and put them in certain places throughout, some to cover up cuts, but most of them were in specific places to help with the story telling. I then added side on profile shots to fill dead space and make the shots and dialogue flow a lot better. Even though it was my first time editing something like this I enjoyed it and I wouldn’t mind doing it again.

 

Here are the final results.

 

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Directing a new style of film

 

In 2019 for an assignment we had a group of 7 students, and we all needed to work on a short drama film. As we were going through crew roles, I stepped forward to be director, luckily for me no one was opposed to the decision. This would be the first major project I would direct. After going over ideas I decided to go with an idea about an online streamer, the story was then written by our writer, who I helped during the process. After talking about the story and script, then meeting with our lecturer we realised it would be a very difficult task to do. We went into the University edit suites to do a test shoot and came to the conclusion that there would need to be a lot of planning for the film. We did a large amount of planning and brainstorming for the film as we would need a visual mix between a stream website, chat, screen capture, webcam shots, gameplay shots, as well as regular mid shots, wides and close ups of our main character. In the weeks building up to the production stage I got in contact with many independent game developers from Australia and overseas, who gave permission to me to use their gameplay footage. We also needed a website for our ‘stream site’, it was worked on by the production designer, but the night before shooting I was told it would not work. I then went onto Wix.com and worked on a website, bought a cheap domain name to use and thankfully it was ready by the morning. On the day of filming I worked well with the cast and crew and the whole experience was amazing, being on set helped me remember why I started the course in the first place. Even though we had planned the shoots there were still a couple of improvisations on the days of shooting, but they worked extremely well and the whole crew worked together to make a very great film. The post-production process was extremely long and there was a huge amount of VFX that went into it.

 

 

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Here is a screenshot of the timeline for the chat only.

 

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The reason for this short film being as difficult as it was is because there were no films out that had the same style, this made it extremely hard for us to plan out the process from past experiences and instead we had to create something new. I am very happy with how the film turned out and I am extremely happy with the cast and crew I worked with.

 

Here is the final result.

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