In this weeks lesson we were introduced to the cameras that we will be using throughout the first year of the course (Sony X70) as well as other camera related equipment such as tripods, white balance cards etc. I found the workshop extremely useful as I am used to working with DSLR cameras such as the Canon 700d, so when I was approached with the Sony X70 I was a little overwhelmed! I have never used equipment of this standard before so being taught the ins and outs of all the functions of the camera etc was really eye opening.
After the group had been shown how all the equipment worked we were split off into our smaller groups and went out onto campus to shoot cutaway footage for our 1 minute videos on either 'My First Day at Sussex' or 'The Pitfalls of Independent Living'. My group and I ventured out and got various little cutaways around campus, we all took it in turns using the camera to record things like the Sussex University sign, general goings on around certain busy areas of the University and students going about their busy schedules, while the other group members kept an eye on the time as we only had 20 minutes to do this exercise. We then went back to our lab and put all the equipment back where it belonged and have since planned to meet up again during the week to finish shooting any last pieces of cutaway footage as well as our main interview!
The first Creative Production Video lesson was really interesting this week as we were introduced to the course itself and most importantly the world of documentary video! We started off by watching a few examples of past student documentaries either on 'a portrait of a place' or 'a portrait of a person'. We saw a wide range of different approaches and techniques in order to explore the chosen theme of the video and discussed each after watching them as a group. There was one documentary video in particular that stood out for me, it was called 'Blue' and explored how the colour blue has different effects on different individuals. A few of my peers disliked the way in which the piece was shot and found it very repetitive and thought that the talking heads distracted from the video and made it feel slightly disrupted. I actually really enjoyed the cutaway shots being repeated throughout the piece because in the first half they fitted perfectly in time with the music and flowed nicely, in the second half the clips were reversed and gave the video a cyclical nature and I liked that it made the piece feel like it was coming to some sort of resolution. 'Blue' really inspired me and I would like to use techniques that I noticed in this video in a documentary of my own.
After being sorted into groups of 3/4 we were then asked to plan a one minute video on either the theme of 'My First Day at Sussex' or 'The Pitfalls of Independent Living'. My group and I chose to plan out ideas for 'The Pitfalls of Independent Living' as we felt it would give us a little more creative freedom in what we could explore through the video. As a group we met up (23/09) and discussed our individual ideas and then decided on the ideas that we would most likely be able to film in a short space of time without it affecting our artistic visions. We then went away with clear ideas of what exactly we wanted to film and planned to meet up in the next few days to talk about filming times etc.
