Reflections on Exercise 5: Camera angles

I have had several responses direct to my learning log (see “Comments”) and below by email. I was happy with this, my second attempt (the first was badly done and not planned properly).

My fellow students seemed to like it but remarked on the distraction – I maybe could have included the mans face reacting to the door bell (see explanation below) and there was a question about whether an alcoholic would have been using coasters. This particular individual has two problems, the second is OCD! I did point out that for continuity, they were great for re-positioning the bottle and glass between takes.

Ideally I would have included turning my head in the pouring shot but I couldn’t get the camera low enough so there was a compromise here. (dropping the bottle cap) The low angle with the bottle dominating the frame worked well. From behind the table, the whole shot was one take that was divided to insert the doorbell sequence. Had I used an actor I could have used differential focussing for the end of the last shot, bringing the bottle into sharp focus at the end as the man consumed his first glass of the day.

Other comments:
From Vaggelis:
“as for you video i have to say it's guite good i can't tell any comment cause mine is not so great but i believe you did a great work .”
From Stuart:
“I think you've done a really good job here, Richard! I felt the edited shots really go together well, too!
I was going to suggest that you would have have had the opportunity to add more depth to the shot in storyboard no. 7 by moving the angle and pointing the camera from the door towards the character (so that the character was looking towards the camera). That would have helped show the distance between the character and the 'interruption'. However, I see that you never ending up using the shot like that. But - you ended up using a similar technique when your character is seated on the sofa and the wine bottle is close to the camera. I like the feeling of depth within the frame that they create. Someone's been reading Grammar of the Shot, haven't they? ;)”
Vaggelis, Stuart, thank you for taking the time to look at my work and also to Emily, Nico  and Margaret for their contributions. You are right Stuart, “Grammar of the Shot” is proving very useful.