#15: Final Course Reflection

This semester in TCF 312, I've learned a lot of great, practical knowledge about working on set and dealing with lighting, as well as some theory that pertains to the particulars of how one chooses to approach a scene or a film from a visual perspective. I thoroughly enjoyed all of the books that were assigned and intend to keep every last one of them as additions to my filmmaking arsenal.

Coming into this class, I'd say that lighting was definitely my weakest area. I had a pretty good grasp of the basics, but had never really had the opportunity to work hands-on with such a wide array of professional lighting equipment as I did in this class. The knowledge I've gained just from getting the chance to work with Kinos, Arris, and other lights, will be of great benefit to me moving forward. A lot of the specifics of F-stops and color temperatures were fairly fuzzy to me at first, but I feel like this class helped bring those concepts into sharp focus.

While I've got a good bit of experience developing and shooting my own film projects, I've typically always worked with a close-knit group of people with whom I'm very familiar. As an aspiring director, it's important that I become accustomed to working with large crews on a much less personal level if I hope to achieve success in the "big time." This class has done a lot to help me in that regard, as I've been pushed into a number of projects with people I hardly know at all. While always awkward at first, I find that a group of people with similar interests working toward a common goal tend to warm up to one another fairly quickly once they're on the ground running with cameras and lights blazing.

On top of everything else, I've gained something else very important from this experience. I've gained the absolute certainty that filmmaking and working within the visual medium are, without a doubt, exactly what I'd like to be doing with my life.

#14: DP Reel 2012 & Artist Statement

Director of Photography Reel - Douglas Dillingham 2012 from Douglas Dillingham - ZombieSquid on Vimeo.

As a filmmaker, my primary goals are to entertain and engage both myself and the audience. Film is a challenging field that has held my interest for as long as I can remember, and I find it to be among the most satisfying of pursuits. I gravitated toward film because it combines many art forms and has the power to reach and impact a broad audience. I hope to entertain by taking viewers on an exciting and compelling journey and engage by touching on issues that are universal to the human experience. Through film, I hope to explore what it means to be human on the most fundamental levels by touching on those issues that are common to us all.

My influences are varied, ranging from the poignant, slow-moving opuses of Stanley Kubrik to the frenetic modern works of directors like Darren Aronofsky. I draw inspiration from things like music and painting, photography and architecture, and classic mythology. I tend to gravitate toward dark imagery and uncomfortable topics and themes. I find no beauty in artifice. I prefer to show things in either a realistic manner, or in a dramatically exaggerated fashion. I try to consider the totality of of the history of human art when I'm in the early stages of a project in an attempt to create works that inspire and engage on a visceral level, something that would have resonated with audiences of 500 years ago as well as it would a hundred years from now.

While I have a strong appreciation of the traditional Hollywood narrative style, I'm interested in finding ways to rethink film and bring new energy into the art form. I look for ways to abstract elements from various inspirations into film, for example the rhythmic structure of a song or  the value scale and compositional proportions of a painting. I'm not interested in any one particular genre, as I enjoy working in different styles and think the tone should suit the film. I am, however, interested in finding ways to blend the aesthetics of different traditional genres into something new and compelling.

One aspect of filmmaking that I find infinitely interesting is the ability to craft a living, breathing fictional world on the screen. In this medium, I can portray the world as I wish it was, the world as I see it, or the world as I would never wish to see it.

Film has the power to influence culture, and I intend to dispense with the reliance on tropes in the current Hollywood style and instead develop nuanced worlds with complex characters who are guided by their principles, rather than their stereotypes. I'd like to work to see women and minorities represented more equally in film, as main characters rather than set pieces, in hopes of inspiring others to keep dreaming of a future where equality for all can be a true reality.

#13: The Money Shot/Reels

This example from the beginning of David Fincher's Panic Room is my kind of "money shot." It's a long, complex take that adds up to a very detailed and effective sequence.

By having the camera creep around the house, peering out through the windows at the men attempting to break in, the director gives the scene a creepy and sinister feel. There's also an element of voyeurism that comes with this sort of camera work, leaving the audience to feel as if they're getting a secret peek into something private or the inner workings of a character or their space. 

Another thing I really love about this sequence is the nearly transparent use of CGI throughout. Many of the walls and beams were added in post, digitally, to tie all the different takes together and to embellish the set on screen in a way that couldn't be done practically due to the realities of having to move a camera through the space. This is the way I feel CGI can best be utilized in film; as a way to augment the reality on camera and to create a more fluid and nuanced visual world, rather than as a means unto itself to create characters and worlds.

#12: "Hide" - Scene Assignment Film