REFLECTION (August 28th, 2009)

"Today" was the first day of the Year 10 Film course so we didn't really do much except go through all the basic stuff and review some of the we learned (or should have learned) before. We also went over the rules for the Multimedia Lab. I have only worked in the Multimedia lab once (for a week) when I took this film editing course with Mr. Chiang two summers ago and I liked using the Macs because Macs are cool. I know a little about using Macs because my friend has a Mac and I helped him with some of his video editing problems on Final Cut Express before so I'm really excited about learning more about all those Mac stuff.

Anyway, we mostly just sat there and listened to Ms Wong talk about the basic things about film. I knew most of the things (such as the diagetic sound thing, I actually knew it but I just didn't say it in case I was wrong. Mr Ubly, my english teacher last year, told us when we were analysing films) because I took film last year and even though Ms Riddell wasn't here for a few weeks I still remembered most of the things. But there are still a lot of things that I don't know, such as the 180 degree rule, which is this rule that tells you to only film from one side of an "imaginary line" because if the camera is on the other side of the line the people will look like they are in reversed places. I never really thought of that before, but I know that a lot of films have continuity problems. In one film I watched, called Dead Like Me, there was a scene where two girls were talking and at first one girl's hair is in front of her covering her front part and then it cut into the other girl's face and when it got back to the first girl the hair was behind her shoulders and the third time it was in front of her again. I think editors in movies should really pay more attention to the little details when they edit the scenes together so it would look better because the audience always notices things like that and they concentrate on the little "goof" instead of what's going on next. However, I think it's okay to break the 180 degree rule if you include the part where the camera moves from one side of the line to another instead of just editing two clips together because that would actually make a really cool camera technique in a way.

So far I have enjoyed this course (but my "opinion" might change when we get to the hard stuff haha) but Ms Wong was kind of speaking really softly and my ears are all messed up from too much iPod so I can't really hear but I think the Powerpoint is really useful because I can watch the screen to get the general idea of stuff when I can't hear clearly. I think I should also find a better seat because the Macs are sort of blocking my view of the board and Ms Wong writes on the board a lot. ANYWAY, I have to work HARDER to get a nice looking 6 or 7 in film because I have BIG PLANS for myself. Not really. :)

QUOTE OF THE DAY: HIGH SCHOOL NEVER ENDS