Script Frenzy

It's April and that mean's that it's the month for Script Frenzy. For more information, check it out here.

The main purpose of my advertising of Script Frenzy is because on the site, there are some good guides to writing a script or at least starting. They talk about formatting and I would just like to summarize some tips that they have for screenwriting:

1. Support the Draft: Write and re-write. A draft is a draft, a rough. You can eliminate things you don't like and add things you do.
2. Start Reading Movies: Not just on the screen, but on paper/digital copy as well. Finding scripts of movies you love and look at how the scenes were described and how they were delivered. Read a script that you haven't seen on the screen before and try imaging it in your head.
3. Choose an Idea That Excites You: Not necessarily something you know all about, but something that will get you going and you won't stop thinking about.
4. Plan, Pitch, Previsualize: Decide the flow of your story and recite it to a companion of sort. As you're talking, realize what excites you as you speak about it and then imagine what your script will look like.
5. Get to Know Your Characters: Flesh your characters out and decide how they act in response to their situation, according to their personality. Ask yourself what they wear, how they speak, etc. to make them memorable.
6. A Gazillion-Horsepower Engine?: People would be sitting and watching your film for 2 hours or so. Remember not to dwindle because that isn't a lot of time for you to get your point across and get the important things in.
7. Embrace Change: Change helps create a character and conflict. Does the character change and develop?
8. Action: Write a Blueprint: What is said in the script is going to be interpreted in the visuals or sound of the movie.
9. Dialogue: Listen to people in real life talk and interpret that in your script. In movies, the lines can be snappier and more to the point.

The site goes into more detail about it, but I learned quite a lot from these few tips on screenwriting. It is something that is not easy to achieve, but this is just a start.

Call to Dinner

Recently, I went to the McMaster Museum of Art to the exhibition they have there called 125 & 45: an interrogative spirit. One of the most prominent paintings displayed was "The Call to Dinner" by George Agnew Reid.

The painting consists of oil on canvas. The colours are quite cool and pale, the skin of the woman even had a bit of a greenish tinge. The only colours that stand out amongst the painting are the scarf and the hat, both of them warm colours and much bolder than the rest of the painting. Reid obviously wants our eye to draw to the woman character as the colours contrast so much, but one needs to question why. Is she such a prominent figure? Why is there a lack of other people? If there were people, would she still be the focal point?

The woman is also composite in the foreground of the picture, bringing her closer to the viewer. This shows that she must be important as it brings our attention to her even more. She is searching for something and based off the name of the piece, she is perhaps searching for her children to call them for dinner.

This painting was featured prominently in the art gallery. Not only that, but there is also a large chalice of sorts in the stairs as you are going up to the exhibit and displayed inside, if you go up the stairs high enough, you will be able to see this painting carved inside.

The Danish Poet

Another animation I enjoy. The Danish Poet is by the National Film Board and helped launch Torill Kove's career as an animator and director.

The style of the animation is very simple and reminds me of traditional animation. Kove hand drew it with pencil and paper, scanned it and digitally edited it. It brought forward the theme of the story, of coincidence and retelling the narrator's origin. In my animation class last term, I used a tablet to hand draw my final animation project and found it incredibly tedious. I cannot imagine hand drawing it first, scanning and then digitally editing.

There are little quirks in this 2006 Academy Award winner from the little cows in the back and to the ridiculousness of the main woman growing her hair out to an unrealistic length. The narration added much to the film, something common in film making and with the mere quirks, make it very endearing.

Count the ones you know!

WARNING: Includes violence, swearing, and sexually suggestive material.

Logorama was created by a collective team of French animators. In 2009, it won the Academy Award for best short animated film.

This entire animation is about branding and how much it overwhelms us. There were so many different brands that I either recognized or didn't, and what I liked about this film is the creative use of each brand, whether it is a building, or the dropping of liquid to make 'Nickelodeon.' Although we pass through our day with brands around us, we aren't usually aware. With this video, it shows people that are equally unaware, but to us, it is prevalent.

Something about the animation that took be surprise was how light coloured the film appeared for it's darker and dramatic scenes. This made the brands visual and recognizable. What really made the film stand out was as I mentioned, the use of the brands in their everyday life and the creativity used to put them in unexpected places, like the X-Box logo for the crack in the earth.

Reading Response

What I found interesting was the distribution of a film and creating it. It was interesting to learn that films aren’t the same format the entire way through and parts of it can be quite different from the ones in distribution. Perhaps it’s because in our class, I’ve gotten into the habit of using one particular format for filming and then presenting in the corresponding one as well, so it hasn’t really occurred to me that it was possible. For bigger film projects, I would expect that change the format a bit, but I never thought of changing the format for mine. It also depends on the viewing you want as well, such as HD or not. Also, it never occurred to me that they shot in different formats by how smoothly films usually are in the editing process.

It was interesting to read about the difference between film and video since people often associate one with another. Film doesn't necessarily have to be expensive to get good results and for a larger group, video is best. I'm using a little cassette right now for a small group and I think it's quite good so far. Sometimes though, video has an advantage, especially when I'm the type of person that doesn't stop recording when it's not time to and I waste a lot of film and have a lot to upload and go through.

Something I learned from this book was that slow motion was the only option for shooting. It baffles me as now, we don't need to shoot with slow motion because of how our cameras work. As discussed in the text, they needed to shoot many frames per second because film cameras could only achieve these frame rates. From learning a bit about this, I want to be able to experiment with slow motion as we are so spoiled by the smoothness of film now. Even some cirical slo-mo shots are done in film, as mentioned in the book, which proves that it's still quite effective, in cost and in technique.

The Joy of Books

I've always been a fan of animation. Last term, I took an animation class and enjoyed learning more about it. One of the most meticulous types of animation was stop motion. Stop motion, as I learned, takes such a long time to do, having to pay attention to each and every detail in every shot you take. Although exhausting to do and often annoying to know that your 3 hours of photo taking is equivalent to only one minutes, it was rewarding to see the final results.

This video, the Joy of Books is a stop motion piece that I've admired. I first discovered it in an article in the Toronto Star earlier this year and became quite interested. It takes place in a bookstore called Type Books in Toronto and illustrates an imaginative world after the store closes.

It was produced by Sean Ohlenkamp, an associated creative director at an advertising agency. To help with this project, he recruited students from Mohawk College's creative advertising program.

In the world with computers and eBooks, it was refreshing to see the diversity of movement a real book can have. Through this video, you are in awe about the time and effort (especially since I went through the same thing on a smaller scale) spent on the animation and it made me remember the imagination I often grasp from reading a book.

Radiolab and NPR Present Words

Our class viewed this a few weeks ago, but I still find this a remarkable video.

There are transitions in each shot, from word to word. But when we watched Graphical Film Editing in class, there were also connections between the visuals as well.

Each shot only lasts a few seconds long, but convey so much and connects to the next. This was cleverly created, and when there seemed to be no connection with the words, there was one with the visuals. An example would be at around the 1 minute mark, there's a man who splits a piece of wood from the word 'break' and the next visual is of a girl doing the splits. It smartly uses the visuals and connections in order to introduce the next word.

Words is such a vague idea of meanings. What made this such an interesting and strong video is the different interpretations of each word that can connect to each other.

2B03 Sound Exercise

In-class sound exercise

Joris Ivens - Regen (1929)

With my recent search of examples of poetic documentaries, I came across Regen by Joris Ivens made in 1929.

Regen is a documentary about the rainfall in Amsterdam as people interact with it before, during and after it. What I do love about this documentary are the angles taken and the variety of different shots. Some of them are interesting to see, especially when you have different angles of the same object or when you see it through the eyes of a viewer inside a bus and you see it as someone peering from under an umbrella Another thing I like about this piece is how the music and the scenes seem to flow together very well. At around 3:07, when the music is different from the first few minutes, the guitar strums seem to match the rain drops falling to the ground. It moves seamlessly as the first three minutes or so, there was the anticipation of rain coming, and when the music change, you could tell that the rain had come.

This documentary has many scenes that don't tell a cohesive story, but at the same time, the theme of showing the rain is the same. This is non-linear and helps me develop an understanding of how non-connecting scenes can create a story. It will be interesting when Lisa and I create our documentary with this type of style in mind as it allows us to open up to the possibilities of different scenes.

6 Types of Documentaries

For our final video project, Lisa and I decided to do a documentary. When researching information about them, I discovered that there were actually 6 types. Examining each one, I found that they were all very interesting and helped us narrow down what type we would like to do.

1. Poetic: appeared in the 1920s, it was against the content and 'grammar' of film editing and preferred images with association and patterns. Films like these are more impressionistic and are more fragmented. More non-linear than modern cinema today. Fairly abstract.
   
2. Expository: speaks directly to the audience, often arguing something and trying to prove their point of view. Rhetorical and sounds 'objective' as it tries to make us view the images a certain way.
3. Observational: like someone who merely observes someone else, this type of documentary observes life with as little intervention as possible. Viewing the human character in ordinary life.
4. Participatory: it appears to me, like the opposite of observational. The filmmaker alters and changes the events happening. We can also see the reactions of those that know that they are being filmed as well.
5. Reflexive: draw attention to the constructiveness of documentaries. How documentaries represent the world and allows the audience to question the authenticity of documentaries.
6. Performative: stress experience and emotional responses. They are personal and might include some poetic elements as well. There might be some hypothetical enactments.

(Source: http://collaborativedocumentary.wordpress.com/6-types-of-documentary/)

With this guide, Lisa and I were able to examine which ones suit our interest and help us develop our purposeful for the class. We chose poetic documentary because we thought it would be interesting to create something abstract, while at the same time, document someone's life and gain a representation of that in film.

Exploring Sound

Part 1:

Location: In my bedroom

Setting: I sit on my chair at my desk where my computer and books are; my bed is on the other side of the room and my doors are closed.

Sounds: humming of my printer, the TV from the next room, family chattering, a ball bouncing, typing on my keyboard

Response: The TV sounds were always heard with the occasional bounce of the ball as my brother is in the room playing. The printer is also a constant sound and the conversations always had a response. I didn’t notice that my printer actually made a sound when it was on because I was so used to hearing it and the keyboard is actually louder than I thought it was when I’m typing. The quality of the keyboard was exceptionally good as I am at a close proximity to the source of the sound. The sounds from the other room were a bit harder to hear because my door was closed and the TV was on, therefore I couldn’t really hear the conversations going on. I realized that a lot of the sounds in my room seems to be from some source of media, whether it is the computer or the TV. A lot of them weren’t very natural except for human voices.

Location: On my porch in the front yard

Setting: The door to my house behind me as I sit on the stone steps; a large tree in my front yard, a sidewalk and street in front of my house

Sounds: rustling grass, snow crunching, wind blowing, some birds, odd scratching on the tree

Response: The wind was constant throughout the entire time, even though it died a few times, it always returned. With that, the rustling from the grass could be heard, but every so often, there’d be a crunch from the snow. This was fairly prominent because it was so out of place because of a squirrel passing by. The quality of the sound was not as good as I was expecting as the wind caused it to be a mediocre quality to a fairly good quality. There are actually a lot more sounds than I expected, especially when the squirrel appeared, which helped create a bit more interesting sounds.

Part 2:

Location: GO bus

Response: Focusing on one conversation at a time helped me hear better and helped me take note of the different nuances in people’s voices as well as their different speech patterns. The loudness of the people helped me to hear clearly into their conversations as well. The higher the pitch of the voice was, the better I could hear the conversation.

What prevented me from hearing was combining the conversations. It became hard to hear which voice came from which conversation and what they were saying as they all merged together. Some voices also overshadowed others because of the proximity of the people to me. This created loudness, muffling out the others. There was much more difficulty hearing the lower voices.

Part 3

A sound that evokes an image:

• Train passing à concert band
• Wind blowing à summer
• Doorbell à school
• Pen clicking à shoes
• Train rumbling à dragon

An image that evokes a sound:

• Tree à cracking
• Soccer post à “ding,” as if hitting metal
• Bridge à river rushing
• Dog running à rustling grass
• Poster of The Lorax à spring-like bounce

A sound that provokes a feeling:

• Glass breaking à fear
• Bell/alarm à pain
• Dropping rain à anticipation
• Sneezing à sluggishness
• Zipper à coldness

A sound that provokes a thought:

• Repetitive, monotone drone – “I’m sleepy.”
• Shovel to the ground à “It’s too cold outside.”
• Yawning à “I hope they brushed their teeth.”
• Humming of computer à “I’m too poor to buy a new one.”
• Cell phone ring à Long distance call

A sound that competes with an image:

• A “Sale” sign and a stampede
• One chicken clucking frantically in a pack of wolves
• Construction zone and crashing
• Screeching and a petrified deer
• Dramatic classical music and a royal entry

A sound that works counter to an image:

• Racing noise and a turtle
• A bomb explosion and a flowery field
• Fast-paced rock music and a couple doing waltz
• Paper crunching and someone planting a tree
• A ball bouncing and a cat sleeping

The easiest to find was an image that evokes a sound. It was the easiest probably because I always hear a sound with an object/image. Often, I would also know what kind of sounds they make as well, or if I don’t know what the sound is, the colours, shapes and context of the image gives me an impression of what it should be like, given the details it gives me.

The hardest to find was a sound that competes with an image. This is because I don’t usually think that sound and images compete; I think they work cohesively together to create the final product. It was also hard because it was difficult to determine how a sound can compete with an image as depending on how you interpret it, they can usually work together fairly well.

Nobody Loves a Penny

The second assignment, creating a narrative with 5-6 shots. It was really difficult.

Assignment 2 Reflection

The other day, my partner for our second assignment for my video class, Lisa and I shot our narrative. The catch with this project was that we had to attempt each shot once on our tape. This turned to be incredibly difficult and time-consuming as we had to make each shot perfect, therefore, we had to plan each and everything before. This was part of pre-production.

I never realized how difficult it was to do the pre-production part of film making. We created a storyboard yes, but by the end of it, we had to get much of the lighting correct and in developing our skills, we had to make sure everything was on purpose, which was a lot to consider. I have found online a pre-production checklist that I wish I found before that would've helped me with this and would be helpful to anyone else: here. The list is as follows:

1. Make a Production Schedule: making notes on when to shoot and taking notes on the way and planning carefully on when to edit and such
   
2. Crew up: make sure you have all the crew members you need for this
3. Visualize your project's "look": the mood, tone and colours of your piece
4. Find and secure locations: make sure you have access to the location you want to use, especially on the day of your shooting
5. Casting: age-appropriate and decent actors (as I learned during our first project) makes your grade go up
6. Production Design: theme, props, set, etc. that have to be taken into consideration
7. Prepare costumes, props and set
8. Developing/shooting the script: the POV, what you want to establish, your "super-objective"
9. Floor plan/lighting plot for each location: this was IDEAL for our shoot. Franci mentioned in class that we should make a floor plan and she is very much right about it! It was so important for us to know exactly where the lights were placed and conscious of what can be moved and what cannot.
10. Make a storyboard: I can't go into a shoot without having one!
11. Make a Shooting Schedule: similar to the Production Schedule, but the actual shoot!

Having a list like this was vital and I will be making use of such in the future. Especially when you have such a short deadline, this is very helpful. Time is of the essence and in order for me to do my best, I need to organize my time and plan out each of the things on that checklist in order to be successful.

Establishing a Character

Just adding to my objection with Mamet saying that establishing a character isn't as important, I think this advertisement from Coca Cola proves the opposite.

What I like about this ad that made it successful (in my eyes at least) is the characterization. There are two others, but I wanted to use one that used the puns to make it humorous. Each character, the Eye, the Tongues and the Brain are given a character based on what they are -- the Eye can easily spot that the Coca Cola Zero is not actually the original and the Tongues taste it and can't read the label, indicating that it is the same. The Brain comes in with the humorous, "You're giving me a headache." which fits it's character very well. The characterization is important for the Brain because it gave threats to the Eye and the Tongues because it is in control, like our brains are typically in control of us.

I feel that something like this would help with scriptwriting as we reach to the stage of developing our narrative video in a short amount of time. For me, character and plot has always been important, even in film. What was so successful about this is that they were able to establish such in a short amount of time, less than the maximum our second assignment is supposed to be. This makes me wonder how I can make my video effect with a developed characters (or character). With this ad, they used a literal representation to get their message across along with things only those literal objects (Eye, Tongues, and Brain) can do.

Reading Response 3

A superobjective is what the objective of the main character is. Mamet tries to explain this by giving a situation and asking others to think of a scene for it. In the case of On Directing Film, it is a student trying to earn the respect of a teacher. That is the superobjective and the concept of the scene. Establishing the character does help the superobjective, as the character is what is of pursuit of the superobjective, but it doesn’t need to be established all the time. As long as the protagonist wants something, the audience will want it as well.

By ‘cutting’ in different parts of a film, typically changing shots, the film can create a sense and climax to the audience. The example used by Mamet is the House of Games when there are two guys fighting over a gun. The next shot, or cut, is of professor looking on with the gunshot in the background. We don’t actually see the two characters fighting and the hot, but it is implied what happens through the eyes of the professor. This gave the sense of helplessness to the audience as they watched on while something major happened.

In the section “Where Do You Put the Camera?,” they came up with a variety of shots for one main concept. Each one of those shots was trying to convey the same meaning, but at the same time, there were many that portrayed different meanings when they proceeded along. I realized that you have to be careful when planning your shots because of how many different meanings you can take from one scene.

The concept of clichés popped up in the reading as well, especially using the clock to indicate earliness and time. Clichés have been used many times in the film industry and are a lot of times, unavoidable. Mamet mentions that you shouldn’t shy away from clichés, but try to make it better. I agree with this, but then again, it would be hard to determine what is ‘better’ considering clichés have been around us for so long and used many times.

What struck me the most in the reading was on page 24, when Mamet says that narrative weakens the film. I actually disagree with that, along with how he said that you don’t really need to establish the character. What keeps me paying attention to a film is the narrative and how well the characters develop through that narrative. I feel that it’s an essential part of creating art work, especially if you intend to have some sort of storyline. If you do not have a decent storyline or a character that can grow, there’s not much you can do with the film and, in my opinion, it can turn out to be a boring and maybe even cliché.

Source: David Mamet's On Directing Film

The Scream

Our group's first assignment for mm2B03, the video tableau!

I found this a very enjoyable assignment and I loved showing people this. I know there are some flaws in there, but I'm still quite please with what we did.

The quality of this video YouTube provided is horrible though.

Honda - The Cog

The past week, my group and I filmed our first MM2B03 assignment, the Video Tableau. We had to adapt a painting or photojournalism picture into a 30 second film. What was interesting about this assignment was that there were no effects or editing done to it and it was to be done in one shot. Although it was really challenging, I felt that we got a good result as we depended a lot on the quality of the camera, our planning and how we adjust it manually to create a result we were satisfied with.

It was tricky doing something in one shot as you have to focus more on the actors and how they can get through the thirty seconds and less on taking multiple shots with different zooms and angles. When I received this assignment, a famous ad by Honda popped into my head as it too was done in 2 shots (but made it seemed like one), but it was certainly not done in one take!

When we were shooting our tableau, I felt that our shoot went fairly smoothly. it was nothing compared to the Cog advertisement by Honda. The Honda ad took over 600 takes in order to get that 2-minute ad and they had to set up each time when something very small didn't work. Our shoot took a few days as we had to go through much planning, costume searching and having to go back to the beginning because we ran into issues. To get this 2-minute ad, it took 3 months in order to complete, going though night and day to get it just right as they did it all in 2 shots and seamlessly combined only because their studio was not big enough to do it all in one. Although there was CGI added to create the smooth transition, other than that, it was all done without it.

This ad is one of my favourites just because of how much time and thought was put into it. While our class suffers with doing a thirty second film in one shot, this was two minutes, and all though it wasn't done in one shot per say, it used as little CGI as possible to try to create it.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/advertisements/hondacog.asp

Personal Learning Goals

One of my personal learning goals for this semester is to learn how to use and operate a camera properly. As of the middle of January, I have learned more about the operations of the camera and the differences between manual and auto operations and how they affect the image. Through the month of January, I want to be able to use the lighting kit effectively as well as learn more about using Final Cut Pro as thus far, I only have amateur experience with it. In order to do this, I would use a variety of tutorials I will search for on the web and ask frequent questions to peers and my instructor if I get stuck on something. To reflect my success, my work will have smooth handling with the camera as well as wise choices when it comes to editing. My ideas will be planned out well in advanced and before the actual shoot, I will prepare what will happen so it will go smoothly.

In the month of February, I would like to get more acquainted with sound integrated into video as I believe it is an important step in this learning process. I would like to learn how sound has an influence over various situations and how different sounds appear to make a video tell a different story. I would like to continue learning more about Final Cut Pro, eventually getting to a more professional level as well. Throughout this month, I would like to learn more about scriptwriting to develop a good story or idea for the amount of time our videos need to be. The main goal of this is to think of a concept that can be accommodated and will be fulfilled within the short amount of time.

In March, I hope to master Final Cut Pro to a certain level and manage to make professional looking videos. To me, my success will be determined by how much my videos have improved throughout the term from being an amateur looking video to a more professionally refined one that will aid me in creating my portfolio. By the time I reach the end of the course, I hope that I will have learned more about using a camera, gain enough knowledge to edit and create my own videos and have a better appreciation for film in general.

Reading Response 2

In order to create focus, you use the lens of a camera. Using the lens, a focal length can be created -- it measures the power of a lens to bend light rays coming from the subject. Focus is used in order to enlarge details, such as expression or minor objects and making it clear and sharp to the viewer. How far a subject is and how you adjust the lens greatly influences how sharp the image is. When the camera is 'out of focus,' the image is blurry and softer in appearance. When a camera is 'in focus,' it is the opposite: the image is much sharper. Focusing through looking at the viewfinder is preferably. It is usually more accurate and faster to use your own eyes. When the subject is closer to the lens, the farther it has to be from the film plane.

Lighting influences how we understand a scene and how we experience it emotionally. Ir directs the audiences' attention, since we are naturally more drawn to the brighter areas. Lighting also establishes the time frame the scene takes place in. Taking an angle lighting shot gives us the dimension of subjects, creating shadow or flattens it. There are 2 qualities of light: hard, which makes shadows crisper, and soft, which makes the shadows appear gentler. Hard light creates more defined shadows, while soft light can be used as a strategy to hide facial imperfections. Lighting contrast is expressed in ratios called Lighting Contrast Ratio and the results come from a combination of the key light (casts main shadows) and fill light (fills in key's shadows). Sometimes the intensity of light can get in the way. This is why they have reflectors, something white or silver, to help diffuse the light or even practicals (such as a table lamp on a set) to help as well. Using a scrim (circular wire mesh screens that is placed on the front of a lighting unit) are the best way to reduce intensity. Light is defined as a 'form of radiant energy which is visible.'

Colour is created by white light going through a a prism (or prism like object) in order to create hues. The human eye sees 3 colours: red, green and blue. There are 2 ways to make colour: additive (adding light) and subtractive (subtracting light). Additive starts with black and starts adding the reds, greens and blues in order to create white and other colours.Subtractive is the opposite: it starts with white and we subtract cyan, magenta and yellow to create black or others. If you mix colours, they will create another colour, like mixing red and blue will create magenta. Using a filter subtracts light as they put more emphasis on their own colour and takes away from the others. If we use a red filter, it will absorb green and blue, also known as cyan. If we use a cyan filter, it will absorb red, giving more prominence to green and blue.

In order for a video image to work, both light and colour must be used. Without light, there is no colour. Without colour, there is no real impact, depending on the type of video you are creating. You create colour from light, so it is only natural that they would be working together in order to create that final image. It is important to note that depending on what kind of light source you are using, the colour of a subject may appear differently. An example would be under a florescent light, objects will appear a bit more blue. Brightness and the intensity of light depends on how we see colours. If we see a colour against a light background, it will appear dark. If we see that same colour against a dark background, it will appear lighter.

While reading about colour, I felt like my education in art was a lie. This is mainly because of the primary colour aspect. I was taught that the primary colours were what the text said: red, blue and yellow. To find out that you can't use those three colours in order to make all the others just seemed to have baffled me slightly.

Used Ascher and Pincus' The Filmmaker's Handbook as well as the Kodak Light and Colour reading.

2B03 Camera Exercise 1

This is the camera exercise that Stuart, Lisa, Jeremy and I worked on in class last Friday to test out the camera. We were looking at manual vs. automatic functions as well as white balance, shutter speed, etc.

Reading Response

According to Google, video is defined as “the system of recording, reproducing, or broadcasting moving visual images on or from videotape.”

Image is defined as “a representation of the external form of a person or thing in sculpture, painting, etc.”

So the term video image itself should be self-explanatory. If I was to define it based on what I read from The Filmmaker’s Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for the Digital Age by Steven Ascher and Edward Pincus, I would say it is a final product of a video consisting of many steps that consists of editing light, contrast and sound.

Ascher and Pincus’ book has given many informative and fairly technical material, including the function of a camera and the many controls on them as well.

On a camera, you can manually control:

• The viewfinder: the monitor that allows you to see what you are shooting.
• The white balance: adjusting the camera to the colour balance of the light
• The exposure: how much light goes through the lens of a camera
• The focus: how clear the image is when you’re shooting

Before this book, I was quite uniformed about cameras in particular. I did not know that a camera had something called a sensor: a chip that converts the light coming through the lens to electric charges. I didn’t realize that the sensor had such an impact on what we see in order to produce the final video and image.

It was interesting to know that there was so much to do before shooting, such as the numerous adjustments for colour, contrast, etc. I am more used to this cheap digital camera and point and shoot. I knew cameras had to be set up, but to bring in a technician to fine-tune settings has never really crossed my mind.

Many of the terminology is new to me, including gamma which refers to the contrast of the image. Although I had an idea about shadows and highlights when it came to an image, to learn the correct term for it was refreshing. Even though I have simplified the explanation, there are many types of gamma such as normal, reduced and cine/film.

Opening Night

"A film is never really good unless the camera is an eye in the head of a poet." - Orson Welles

Welcome to my blog! This is is created for my film and video class, but I think I'll start posting some of my work on here as well. :)

I am currently a second year multimedia and communications studies student in university. There's a lot of things I would love to do in the future, but yet to have found my calling. I'll find something later.