A scene

Martin Scorsese is one of the most famous directors in the world having made some of the most iconic movies ever. Taxi driver is a gritty, neo-noir psychological thriller with a superb performance by Robert De Niro. In this particular scene, De Nero’s character, Travis, is trying to flirt with the female protagonist at her office. It is a very simple yet beautiful scene with a lot of innocence and bound to put a smile on your face. She finally falls for his charm and agrees to go out with him later in the day. I’ll talk about different aspects of this scene below.

 

Production design: The film looks quite majestic with a lot of effort been put on to give it a New York feel in the outdoor scenes. Inside the office, a lot of effort has been put to show it as a busy workplace with all the necessary props, the background actors and the wardrobe.

 

Camera

The camera work has been quite great as well. I really like how creative they were back in time as well. For capturing expressions and emotions they’re mainly used close ups or mid shots. In one of the starting shots when Travis is walking towards the office, a dolly shot is used. It looks lovely. When Travis walks in to the office and is walking towards Betsy, the shot is taken from his perspective which was quite clever and very interesting to see Betsy’s expression. The camera is shaking a bit in this shot giving the impression that he is walking. I also love the gradual zooming in in some of the shots while both of them are talking. Also they’ve use the mid wide shot during the conversation to show how the guy in glasses in listening to them and it is quite funny how he keeps changing positions. The environment of an office is well established.

 

Sound

One of the main strengths of this scene is the sound design which is quite amazing. The sound effects of the outdoors, taxi, footsteps and especially the working environment of an office and the noises heard in the background give the scene a very realistic feel. The dialogues sound nice amid all this and theres a little background music at the end of the scene which shows Travis is happy.

 

Editing:

Editing of this scene has been kept quite simple, since there is nothing dramatic or unique happening in this scene and it is based of a conversation. The scene was shot in a way that not much was required to do in the editing department. The camera is usually panning, moving around or playing around with zoom. The cuts are sharp and crisp and couldn’t have been better.

Keyboard shortcuts

I have been using Adobe Premiere Pro for a while now. At the start I was not a fan of using keyboard shortcuts because I found them hard to memorize but then over the time I realized how they can make my work very quick and they are not that hard to memorize either. It’s not necessary to learn all of them, just know the ones that will help you out very often. Some of the ones I use are:

 

Ripple Delete: Shift+Forward Delete

Duplicate: Shift+Cmd+/

Select All: Cmd+A

Speed/Duration: Cmd+R

Zoom In: =

Zoom out: –

Effect Controls: Shift+5

Selection Tool: V

Pen Tool: P

Razor Tool: C

 

Some of these were never used by me before and I only recently started using them. They are:

 

Zoom in/out: Believe it or not, I did not know about this one at all. I used to use the zoom handle to zoom in or out but using the shortcuts for it makes it so easy and quick and I don’t lose the flow of my editing.

 

Ripple delete: Another very useful one. I used to right click and then select ripple delete earlier. Using this shortcut again makes it quick for me to delete the ripples between the footage and audio.

 

Razor tool: This is one of the most used tools in Premiere since you use it to cut the footage. Everyone should know about this one, and also the other tools in the main toolbar like the selection tool and pen tool since they are used very frequently and if you learn to toggle between them using shortcuts, your work will be quicker and you will be able to edit smoothly.

Crew roles

A crew for a movie or a production is basically a team that has to work together to achieve the desired results. More than a team, they have to live and work like a family when on the set. When developing a crew, you should maintain that all of them have a strong level of commitment and involvement in the project. Also exchange your ideas with them and make sure they have the same ideology about the product as you, if not then it’s always good to have input on how to make it better. Everyone should be treated with respect and according to their temperament in exchange for their reliability and love for their work. One aspect of production that I’ve always been interested is direction. This is something I’ve always wanted to do. As mentioned earlier, the film is basically the director’s vision. He has the toughest job of working with the scriptwriters, developing a cast or sometimes even the crew, working with cinematographer, being on the editing desk and also largely responsible for the promotion of the film through different mediums. If a film does well, the director is the first person to be praised and vice versa. I want to direct feature films in the future. Some of the traits a good director has and I would want to develop as well are:

 

1. Should be knowledgeable about all kinds of genres and films and should watch films from other directors very often. Also should be full of ideas.
2. Able to make quick decisions and clever in case something goes wrong during production or the scene/script needs to be changed on the spot due to any factor.
3. Should have the ability and know about all the aspects of a production whether it is camera, sound, light, edit or script.
4. Should be patient, listen to everyone’s problems on the set and should not be afraid of experimenting new stuff or failure. Also the director should be a team player and have the ability to make sure everyone is giving their best.

Goals and desires

If I were to talk about this semester, I’d say I do have quite a few goals and desires. The three courses I’m doing this semester are Sound and Image, CMWP, and Illusion of life. This semester has been great so far. I kind of wish I had studied former two courses in my first semester. In Sound and Image we started of my learning the basics of Adobe Premiere Pro from the very start, from creating your own project, to making bins and sequences etc. We’re going one step at a time doing exercises for every new thing we learn. Also for the camera, we started learning everything from the basics, all the shots and angles. We then had to make an abstract film which again gave us an opportunity to be creative. This was very useful for me. For CMWP course we were taught about different forms of social media, how to use them, different genres of movies and we formed groups to develop a digital story as our final project. It of course has to go through different stages with the first being the proposal. Illusion of life is all about animation which is very new to me and I hardly knew anything about it. I am however loving this course at it is an opportunity for me to discover new stuff and learn new stuff.

To sum it up, my goals and desires for this semester are:

1. Become a good editor and get a good grip on Adobe Premiere Pro by practising a lot and keep everything organized in a project.
2. Master the different functions of a camera, be more smooth on the panning and dolly shots and the focus-defocus shots since I like playing around with these a lot.
3. Get better at sound and lighting.
4. Do lots of research for my digital story for CMWP. We are only two members in the group. It will be a little tough but we have taken up the challenge. My main role will be the director. I have always been interested in direction. If you’re a director, you’re supposed to have a sound knowledge and experience in other areas of production as well especially camera, editing, lighting and sound. This is because a film is a director’s vision.
5. Talk to and exchange ideas with people from different countries in my class and exchange stories and life experiences with them.
6. Learn about different types of animations and develop something very creative.
7. Learn some new software like Photoshop, After effects, Maya for Illusion of Life.
8. Develop films/animations or other stuff that is worthy of putting into my portfolio.
9. Enjoy doing what I want to and never be too stressed.

Reflect and write

The paper was quite informative.Some of the stuff I learnt from it was that reflective writing is an expression or a response of a person to events or experiences. There are various other forms of reflection such as film, graphic or drawing. It will differ depending on the medium through which it is presented. It depends on other factors as well such as the reason of the reflection, your emotional state of mind during that time, who’s going to see it and what influences you. Reflection is not really a straightforward description of anything. It is your point of view. Some of the points that I found very useful were:

1. Presentation no.3: This was the one which was closest to being a good reflective account of the event. The first two presentations were mere descriptive accounts with little reflective material. In the third version, it is strong evident that this account is way more personal where she is constantly focusing on her own point of view of the situation and how, according to her the motives of others were against hers. She has also mentioned past experiences that were not good at all and how she messes up with powerpoint and also the lack of confidence and fear of mistake that we all have while giving a presentation. They have been describe in much detail.
2. Listen to the view of others: This is basically what reflective writing is all about. Your point of view. Not just a description otherwise everyone’s reflections on a particular event would basically be the same. A reflection is when you write it according to your own experience, what your felt about it, how was it good/bad, compare it with your past experiences etc. You will learn a lot and get enlightened with stuff you never knew about. When you hear other peoples points of view, it helps you in the future in difficult situations or even when you’re making a story for your new film. You can incorporate them into it.

Abstract Video – Sound and Image

CMWP – Melbourne Noir Photo Story