PRELIMINARY EXCERCISE

TABLETOP

 Our film opening began with a picture of three men, all with squares drawn around their face in red pen. This could reflect on how the man wants to kill them through the red coloured ink, implying the blood. The camera then pans slowly to a brown briefcase being opened, showing inside the gun, a passport and some money. The showing of a gun, and also red boxes around mens faces connotes a man may be trying to kill the three men and has a plan with his passport and American dollars. The camera then pans to a deck of cards, which the man spreads out on the table, and by coincidence the combination AK47 is the outliers of the deck and is what is seen by the camera. This gives a much stronger sense of death.

CONTINUITY EXERCISE

We based our film on football, capturing different shots such as, POV, arc pan, reaction, over the shoulder pan up and a tracking shot.

Our group included me, Matt, Ben and Sam where Matt, Ben and Sam all were players and I was the camera man, who put in an exceptional shift.

The film took us a double lesson to film and edit, due to the fact we had to retake some shots as there were problems on set. 

In the end our film turned out well, as we showed off multiple camera angles, and post production made it better.

ON THE SET

Brief account of learning to use the cameras and tripods, what filming terminology to use on set and good practice in editing

This account is about what I learnt and what equipment we were shown when we were shown how to use the Canon cameras and Manfrotto tripods. 

Cameras and tripods. In groups we passed the camera around and each of us practised how to handle the camera, insert the battery and memory card. When you pass the cameras around you should say 'yours' and 'mine' to avoid the risk of dropping it.  We learned how to set up a tripod and to 'bubble' it using the spirit level to help make the camera balanced and in focus. We explored the camera such as how to focus.  The exposure on the camera is adjusted by moving the dial up and down. 

White balance (WB) is the process of removing unrealistic colour casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in the photo. Proper camera white balance has to take into account the "colour temperature" of a light source, which refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light. You adjust it by selecting the ‘WB’ on the camera, it will then come up with little pictures representing difference colour tones that are used in different lights which will give a more realistic effect.

180-degree rule. We learned about the 180 degree rule.  The 180-degree rule is a cinematography guideline that states that two characters in a scene should maintain the same left/right relationship to one another. When the camera passes over the invisible axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line and the shot becomes what is called a reverse angle.

On set We then learnt the terminology used in the film industry on set. The director shouts 'Standby' before filming to ensure that everyone is ready and when they are, they reply 'Standing by.'

When the director shouts ‘rolling’, everyone on set must be quiet, then he /she shouts ‘action’ which tell the actors to start. After the shoot, the director has said the last ‘cut’, he / she will say ‘strike the kit’ which is the film crew's cue to pack away, put the batteries on charge and ensure that the footage is uploaded. 

Good practice in editing. We are using Final Cut Pro and iMovie on the iMacs in the media studio. When uploading our footage, we should create a folder to keep the shots. These folders are called bins and the unedited footage from cameras are called rushes.