Hey Everyone! For this week's reflective response, I will be sharing with you a 4 part tutorial series on storytelling with cinematography. Part 1 talks about Composition and Framing, Part 2 is about Lighting, Part 3 on Lenses, and Part 4 covers Camera Movement. If you don't know what cinematography is, it's "the art of making motion pictures", or in other words, how you use camera movement, light and compose your shot, and the settings you use on your lens. I found these videos from the YouTube channel, DSLRguide, with Simon Cade as it's host, and I think it offers excellent tips on each of these elements, and how you can manipulate each element to achieve different looks and convey certain emotions. In the following paragraph's I'll explain more.
Composition & Framing:
Just by framing or composing a shot in a certain way, you can be resulted with various types of looks or styles. In the video above, Simon Cade shows you how you can compose a shot in a way so that the audience learns something new about the character, or have the audience pay attention to a specific thing. Of course we all have learned about the basic compositions; the rule of thirds, leading lines, wides, mediums, close-ups, and extreme close-ups, but there are a few things we should also be paying attention to. One of the things he talked about is depth. You can easily achieve depth by having leading lines, or a frame around your subject. I've been doing some research on ways to achieve the "three-dimensional feel", and found this article helpful. As I said before, different compositions equals different feels. If you wanted a flat shot with no depth, that's fine, but you need to make sure it fits the mood. Flat shots can project loneliness, and the feeling of boredom. I won't go into much detail, but he also talks about size, and how the size of an object in the frame can tell more about the character. He mentions about contrast, and how to correctly use it to bring attention to something, but you have to be aware that other things aren't contrasting with your main subject for it to be distracting. He covers balance, which is about the rule of thirds, headroom/lookroom, and level horizons. Finally, distance, to show relationships, and height to establish superior and non-superior rankings.
Lighting:
Part 2 is about lighting, and how you can creatively set up lighting for different looks. He talks about motivated lighting, where light sources imitate other existing light sources (lamps, windows, etc.). As shown in the video, where you place your light can completely change the mood of the scene. You can get the 'flattering lighting' look, a lonely emotion, or even a scary feel to the shot, just based off of where you set up your lights. Here's an article that explains more about the difference between soft and hard light. In class, we don't really use much lighting equipment, except for the LED lights and the light bouncers. Do not underestimate how much the light bouncer can add to your production value! There are many different covers you can use on the disc, and they each do something different. The white disc provides a fill light source (as they mentioned in the video), which can 'fill light' in dark shadows on faces. You would usually bring this to an interview to remove harsh shadows on an interviewee's face. I embedded this video before in a past blog post, but you can see it through this article by Vimeo Video School, which explains a whole lot on using the reflector. Besides using the light bouncer, make sure that your color balance is on the correct setting! If you're filming under white florescent lighting, make sure you're not on the 'Tungsten light' white balance, unless you want that look. If your footage is looking orange, I suggest you check the white balance. I cannot tell you enough how much that has saved me from having orange looking footage.
Lenses:
The next element of cinematography is how you adjust the settings on the lens. Normally, we wouldn't really play around with the setting and we'd keep it on AUTO. For me, I find manually changing the ISO and the Aperture tedious and quite confusing. But this video taught me more about the settings like depth of field, or DOF. Personally, I love shallow depths of field, because I think it has more of a cinematic feel to it, and I love the bokeh it can create. I think this is the main reason why I kept aiming to get these low-aperture type of shots, when in reality, sometimes it didn't fit the scene. I also learned more about field of view, or FOV. Usually if I wanted to get a closer, more in the frame type of shot, I would just zoom. I didn't realize that I was actually taking away from the background and its surroundings. If it works for your film, I think actually moving the camera and the tripod closer instead of zooming will reward you with a better look.
Camera Movement:
Camera Movement is another element you can use to enhance your video. Most shots we take are static, meaning non-moving shots, just on a tripod. Our class recently bought a DJI Ronin, which is a 3-axis handheld stabilizer! I've tried it out once, and although pretty heavy, it can produce really smooth shots. However, there are other ways you can acquire cool camera movements by just using a tripod! You can watch that video from Vimeo Video School here. Yes, camera movement makes the shot more interesting and visually pleasing, but you must keep in mind the reason why you are moving the camera. Do you want a more suspenseful feel? You might want to try using a push in shot, or a dolly slide. Are you revealing something? Try a crane/jib effect. Are you showing emotion? Whatever the reason, there are many different types of movements you can use to get it. Some of them can even be done without using the expensive cranes, dollys, or the Ronin, so check out the Tripod Trix video (the one I linked above) and maybe those tips can help you!
Well, that is it for this week's reflective response. My apologies for it being so long, but I really do hope these videos helped you, whether you're creating a short film, or just any kind of video in general, and you're hoping to improve it's production value. If you're interested in cinematography, some jobs you might want to check out are cinematographers or DP's. DP's are the Director of Photography, and they are in charge of framing, costumes/makeup, lighting, and they work along post producers in color grading and color correction. To end, there is no "correct" way to film; with or without depth, camera movement or a static shot, shallow or deep DOF, etc., whatever works for you and the video you're creating. Play around with it, have fun, and use what you think makes your video better. Thanks for reading! Bye!
Well, that is it for this week's reflective response. My apologies for it being so long, but I really do hope these videos helped you, whether you're creating a short film, or just any kind of video in general, and you're hoping to improve it's production value. If you're interested in cinematography, some jobs you might want to check out are cinematographers or DP's. DP's are the Director of Photography, and they are in charge of framing, costumes/makeup, lighting, and they work along post producers in color grading and color correction. To end, there is no "correct" way to film; with or without depth, camera movement or a static shot, shallow or deep DOF, etc., whatever works for you and the video you're creating. Play around with it, have fun, and use what you think makes your video better. Thanks for reading! Bye!
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