Preliminary Exercise

Hello! During today’s session, the class were assigned to take / make 4 images that has a certain meaning behind it. The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate our understanding of composition. We are then supposed to write a commentary, explaining our decisions when shoot and a reflection, explaining how to improve our skills.

1. In this picture, I wanted to do a shot of a person having a hard time studying for their upcoming exams. During the shot, I decided to do the location at a library since that's usually the typical place where students borrow books and study there. I used SAT books as props for this picture. Then I told the actress in the picture to convey an annoyed, sad reaction to the opened book while ruffling her hair as a sign of struggle. I did a close-up shot to be able to show the reaction of the person's face. As for what I could have done to improve it, I should've framed the camera more close to her face to capture even more of her expression. I should have also chose an area with book shelves to further indicate that we're in a library. 

2. In this picture, I wanted to capture someone who is watching a sad show in their room at night. In order to execute the shot, I chose the dark bedroom with low-key lighting as the location because a lot of people would watch movies in the comfort of their own home. As for props, I used tissues as to show how sad the person is while watching their show, a laptop displaying the movie, chips, and a stuffed animals as for emotional support. I also decided to do it in a POV shot for the audience to feel immerse into the scene as they are part of it. If I could improve it, I would fixed the lighting so that the props in the picture could be more visible while the background remains dark. I would've also liked to angle the camera higher to capture more of the setting. 

3. For this next picture, I wanted to capture an altercation between two friends at a library. I used a two-shot for this picture. The location took place. I had the actress on the right grip the hair on the other actress to further enhance the fight between them. To improve it, I should've picked a different location instead of a library, probably more outside. As for the framing, I could've backed up a bit to show more of their body figures. For the action in the shot, I would have liked it if the actresses were more aggressive and have had angry expressions to help the audience understand the context of the scene more.

4. For the last picture, I wanted to capture the scenery of the bright city at night. For the location, this was taken at a a city. I wanted to take the picture at night to be able to visually enhance the beautiful scenery of the lights emitted from the city. I did an establishing shot because I wanted to show the audience the whole, overall location. Since its an establishing scene, there aren't any props to be displayed. To improve it, I could've zoomed the camera a bit to be able to see the city more.