Term 2: Week 5: I vote we install a bed in the Fyfe

It's very strange to think that this time last year I was balancing being stressed about my upcoming French speaking prelim and being stressed by the fact I had no ideas for my interview, and what ideas I had were appallingly bad. Thankfully, both were set straight in the course of a bus journey to and from Edinburgh, after which I spent a night writing the tv show I ended up bringing rather than learning my speaking assessment. I think on balance I made the right choice.

Monday

Another very interesting lesson with Kim, talking about our own character ideas and the art of storylining. I learnt the valuable lesson of not making my characters likeable, because who ever likes a likable character? (*cough*Riley Finn*cough*) I'm very happy with the idea we came up with in groups, combining a couple of characters to make an even worse situation for the poor Websters.

And in the afternoon we re-capped the history of cinema up til sound, including the ridiculously successful but also incredibly racist Birth Of A Nation. I'm glad we didn't watch the whole thing, since I'm not sure if I'd be able to ignore the glorification of the KKK for three hours just for the sake of some tracking shots.

Tuesday

A full day of three point lighting! I say this every week but I still can't get over how pretty the pictures look when they're lit, it's really what I've been lacking so far, both in resources and knowledge. Something I learnt from being a subject: whatever you do, don't put 3000 watts of light tight on them, it may look fine but it makes whoever you are shooting miserable and squinty.

I feel confident about the assessment coming up: I know I can do the camera set-up by now from practice in class and outside, and hopefully I will be able to manage the lights as well. Getting a basic three point set-up should be ok so long as I remember how to do the stands, fine tuning may be a little trickier since I'll be on my own running back and forth, and the timing will be the trick - getting it all up and still leaving time to disassemble.

Tuesday is also notable for the TPA installation in the Chandler Theatre, where they made a massive bed complete with pillows and duvets and invited people in to watch movies and drink chocolate ovaltine. It was divine, and I really think they should do the same to the Fyfe. Permanently.

Wednesday

 The bittiest day in the calendar, and I'm not even sure I'm getting this in the right order.

In the morning we had several hours of sound, learning about the mixers and the microphones and the myriad switches and cables involved. It's very tricky stuff, but I reckon it'll go the way of putting up the tripod finding the record button on the camera. I do hope someone's imagination was fired up by these sessions, since surely we need at least one sound recordist in the class. Anyone? Bueller?

Then we had open day sign-ups (I'm bouncering again, and no doubt I'll drop into "Your Favourite Film And Why You're Wrong" again because it's a tradition by now) and a meeting with TPA to discuss collaborative projects. We didn't come up with anything conclusive but it was nice to meet more of them, aside from the few we got to know through the Inner Space project and Maisie, who I've known since the days when I didn't know about the RSAMD.

Then, bizarrely, we had another Creative Beginnings lecture. It makes sense that the best one would come after the module is actually over and assessed, and Richard Holloway was actually brilliant. He was clever, and funny, and he mentioned film! For the first time, we filmmakers got a shout out. Hurrah for that, and hurrah for most of what he said, talking about the historical record of storytelling and its role as an act of defiance.

Finally, we had the showdown of the century: Team A vs Team B. I think it's pretty obvious Team B emerged victorious, but we all acquitted ourselves well on the subject.

Thursday

While fresh hopefuls turned up to be interviewed, we got on with more sound. This time we did more practical stuff: spying on each other with the microphone, competing to hold the boom up (I passed the one minute test!) etc...

I was surprised by how close into the frame you can get with a boom and disappointed at myself when I had to sit and talk, finding I'd forgotten so much of the text which once populated my brain. It seems the names of lights and safety protocols have displaced the monologues and poems I could once call on.

On a side note, we played "consequences" that night at halls, and to our shame, the resulting stories were far more coherent than when we'd done a similar exercise for Richard, only then we'd been able to what had come before. How that happens I have no idea.

Friday

I've already written about Singin' In The Rain so I'll just leave it at saying that I still love it.