there are just no words....

Oh my god. And not in a good way. Well, we all had the camera summative assessment today and I majestically failed it.

The notes were amazing...what went wrong?! I didn't panic as much as I thought I might (that was my goal for today: 'Keep calm in the assessment. Don't panic!' But I still got confused. It started when the tripod bottom locks wouldn't lift all the way up, they kept sticking! The rest of the tripod business was fine and I balanced the tripod head okay.

However the issues really began with the monitor. That small thing really does my head in! But I finally got the bars up and set up the monitor (chroma, brightness check, the 'blue only' button, and contrast) and hit record for 30 seconds. I just hope I didn't go over Sam's bit (sorry Sam!)

Timecode? Pfft. I had it in the notes and I could see the buttons right there. I pressed the buttons and things start happening (or not happening) that are not supposed to! So I (as calmly as possible) left it and decided to go to the next step and hope that I could do the next part.

Which was back focus. Well, I missed that out entirely so we needn't dwell. (I did know though, if the camera was a J12 - it was - to have it 6ft away..)

There was no image on the camera because it was overexposed. So I tried the aperature (it was sitting on 8 so I moved it down to 1.8) but it still wasn't happy so it was onto the lights! The lights were strange. I understand 3 point lighting perfectly well but for some reason I had though the lights would be set up! No no no. Stands are a complicated business..

Do you know something? I would have really enjoyed the assessment if I had just known the smaller details. I did feel myself slowly (oh so slowly) BUT surely getting there, step by step, getting asked what I could change and working out the answer. Some parts I know, some parts I just draw a blank on but I do enjoy seeing the seperate parts and piecing them all together. I just pray I pass the resit. I know I can do better!