Dec 9: A list of people who have been shot

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY

Today, the class did individual practices of two film exercises. The task was to create a shot list and overhead diagrams for a section of an episode of The Twilight Zone. This is particularly helpful as a lot of students, myself included, were confused by some of the requirements in the Crit. A rubric. I had had previous experience in making a storyboard before, and I know how to write a script, but I'm only vaguely familiar with what a shot list does (beyond the use of noting good or bad takes during a shoot) and I have no idea what a overhead diagram is. 

I chose the episode that I did our previous analysis exercise on, "The Masks". I used the opening sequence of the episode. 

Before I actually got to do the exercise, though, we were given a helpful packet of information regarding various camera angles, the different scales of shots, different types of camera movement, and overhead diagrams. Once I was finished reading the packet, I started on the shot list as I had more of an idea as to what to do. Conveniently, I found that a shot list requires information about each shot, most notably angles, scales and movement, just as explored in the packet. 

Despite this information already provided, I still found it quite difficult to complete and although I only recorded five shots, it took up the remainder of class. Recording every action and actor movement, every single bit of information- even the duration of the shot- was a practice so thorough I was simply not used to it. 

IB LEARNER PROFILE

As a thinker, today I had to read and understand the packet and use the information that I learned from it in practice. The subject matter was, as I said, something I was not fully accustomed to, but it's a necessary exercise in preparation for the Criteria A assignment.