Edit Demos Critique

Shot Duration


Axis Match

1.Concept/Script

I think that both stories fit, for they emphasized the concepts pretty well. The cowboy scene, originating from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly film from 1966, is a classic example of long shot durations and short shot durations all in one. The axis match piece placed the two characters on opposite ends, with the tension building with each shot getting closer, and this of course showed axis match used to tell a story more intensely. I think that we did a good job portraying both concepts, but the Axis Match one is not as obvious as the shot duration one, for the shots that are on the same axis on the same shots are not usually directly after each other to show the idea as strong as possible because of the story involved, but there is still axis match in the way that shot is one the same axis for each actor despite the shots switching between the actors.

2. Camera Work

We shot the characters well most of the time, but the camera was probably not as steady as it should have been, sometimes changing the shot. Some of the challenges were trying to keep the axis correct because the camera kept moving each time we moved the tripod, so it left an unsteady shot. Also, it was hard to keep the same angle on the cowgirls in the shot duration piece, because they were at different heights and it was hard to visualize the same angle on their faces for both, so that neither looked bigger or smaller than the other. It ended up that Dazzy still looked a bit smaller than Nellie, making their power relationship unequal, but it worked out because Dazzy lost in the end of the fight anyways. The best shot was probably the pan in the shot duration piece, becasue it really showed how intense the scene between the two cowgirls was, but it could have been a bit shorter. It is very tense, a bit like a cowboy movie.

3. Edit

Some of the challenges I had in the edit were trying the keep the shots matching, because either way there was a lot of cutting between two characters in a conflict. I had to cut a lot of shots at the right time so that there would not be any jump cuts. In the axis match, I had to make sure that the characters and the camera were in the closest position to being the same as the last shot. Overall, the edit was not too hard, just a lot of cutting and putting the right shots in the right places, to create the correct power relationship between characters and to make sure the topic was being demonstrated clearly. In the shot duration, I just had to find matching shots, and switch between them at the right intervals to show either long or shot duration. In the axis match, I just had to cut with increasing closeness to each character as tension increased, then backing up at the resolution, but I had to cut some shots with bad lighting, but it still worked.