Week 9: Concept and Production Skills Development (Cinematography)

This week we managed to book out some kit including the following: The Sony FS5 camera, an array of different lights and the Jib, Track and Dolly. With this kit, we put together all our knowledge of the last few cinematography sessions and outside knowledge, to the test whilst also trying to incorporate some experimentation too. We shot various different scenes, tried various lighting set ups, camerawork/ styles and use of the Jib, Track and Dolly creatively. We aimed to keep hold of the videos and images in the hope of using them to depict our points being raised in our upcoming presentations.

My Objectives and Our Learning Outcomes During the Shoot Day:

The areas I wanted to strengthen my learning and demonstrate creativeness are portrayed in my 'Learning Agreement Form' (below),which I have now amended to be more concise to help me narrow down, what I will want to be showcasing in my presentation.

I definitely think that throughout the amount of hours shooting in today's test shooting, that I really drilled down and exemplified all of the three points above on my own, as well as demonstrating this in a collaborative team.

Breakdown of What We Did in the Session

We executed a range of scenes in the session, as well as taking the opportunity to experiment with some more ambitious set ups and camerawork. Some of the scenes we shot include scenes involving:

-Tracking of feet

-Tracking of a subject walking

-Tracking- involving the camera operator smoothly transitioning the camera to another operator on the other side of the jib, in order to continue and track another subject

- News/ studio show style, opening establishing shot

-My table scene I planned on shot designer last week- involving a tracking shot ending on a close up of the subject speaking in the conversation.

-Birds eye/ high angle- of a subject opening a box on a table surface

- Whip pans of subjects

- Over the shoulder shots transitioning, using the jib

-Handheld POV- tracking a soldier/ action scene

-Handheld tilted shots in sync with the soldier

-Handheld reporter style over the shoulder mid shot

- Testing various handheld tracking techniques

-Interview set up on a tripod

-Focus pulling on subjects

Lighting

-Simple three point lighting

-Interview lighting set up

- Creating shadows- by eliminating light sources and playing around with barn doors as well as positioning of lights

-Hard and soft lighting set up's

- Studio style/ presenter style lighting set up

- Tracking appropriate-lighting set up's

-Darker style/ dramatic lighting set up's

Other Learning in the Session:

Along with this however, I also firmed up some other knowledge which includes the following:

- Lens care, knowledge of lenses and experimentation of them

- Other types of camerawork, excluding handheld

-Composition in terms of framing in various scenes we had set up