Wednesday 21 November 2012

Camera Movements Task


TASK

Film a conversation using:

Establishing shot that zooms in

Panning shot to show character 2’s arrival

Shot / reverse shot not equal distance representing one character as less prominent / lower status

Arc shot / 360 shot – character 2’s reactions to dramatic news

Tracking shot as character 2 runs off.

Objective: to practise camera movements and evaluate technical issues around them / pros and cons for their use.

 
When talking through our storyboard initially, we thought of having a lot of tracking shots. These are often used in film as they give a sense of following the character through their day-to-day activites, which is exactly what we want to do. However, the dolly we have in school makes a lot of nose and is very jerky if the surface is not perfectly smooth, and we do not have access to track. This task has made us realise that camera movements are difficult for us to realise well, and we will have to create a sense of movement in different ways as we are not able to use too much without making our film look unprofessional. It's good to have had a try of these difficult shots because at the very least, we will try to make sure we have alternatives on the day, if not a different shot altogether. It's frustrating but it's better to have a shot that looks good than a shot that would have looked better if we had the right equipment but can't be execued properly.

3 comments:

  1. I think that if we were to do this again, we'd should make it more obviously that Rebecca was sad, perhaps being closer to her so the close up will be more effective and show the emotion on her face, without us seeing any of Ellen.
    Also I think we forgot about the height differences, as in shooting Rebecca from a higher angle to make her look smaller and therefore more vulnerable, and Ellen from a lower angle to make her look taller and theremore more intimidating.

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  2. I agree with Michaella, apart from their acting you couldn't tell that Rebecca felt threatened, so really if we use this technique again there should be obvious differences in the distance between the two characters to the camera in a shot reverse shot. Also the 360 shot has to be a bit smoother because you can hear the movement of the camera and the clicks it makes.

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  3. Perhaps we could have shown more vulnerability and inferiority for Rebecca (myself) to make it clear Elena was in superior. Our tracking shot could have been smother although we did pretty well considering it was handheld. Additionally, I would like to use the 180 shot again as it is a good and more different technique of showing a location rather than just using an establishing shot.

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