A few weeks ago we were taken into the media suite in school to be taught how to use the video cameras our school has to offer. We were taught how to set up the Tripods, Bubble the tripods, White balance the camera, how to focus and much much more.
The first thing we had to do is set up the tripod, when setting up the tripod you have to start by loosening the nuts to let the three legs be adjusted, once you have reached the height on the tripod you want you need to re-tighten the nuts you previously undid. After you have got your tripod to the hieght you want it at you will need to bubble the tripod which means that you need to make sure your camera is level on the tripod, you do this by unscrewing the bolt underneath the tripod head and then moving the head around until the bubble on the spirit level is in the middle. Remember whenever you move the tripod to a different location you need to re bubble the tripod even if you have just moved the tripod to a differtent position in the room. Once your tripod bubbling is done you can put the camera on the tripod and then you are ready to start on white balancing. The benefits of using a tripod is that the shots will be steady and there will be a difference between your hand held shots and your tripod shots which is a good thing because you will be able to create different feeling using the camera in different ways.
So now you should have your camera on the tripod, you will now turn on the camera and get on with white balancing, expossing and the rest of it. First, white balance. The white balance button is situated on the left of our sony cameras (if you are stood behind them) to adjust the white balance, first press the white balance button, then make sure the switch underneath the white balance button is set to A and then hold down the button next to the switch. Before you press all those buttons you need to make sure your camera is pointed at something white and the only things filling the frame is something white such as a piece of paper, a white t-shirt, a white wall, anything white really. You may zoom in if you need to to fill the frame.
Timecode, the timecode is situated on the LCD of your camera and can also be seen through the view finder. It is situated in the top right hand corner of your LCD or viewfinder and it is the numbers that when you press record changes. This indicates the ammount of time you have recorded for.
Expossure- The expossure ring works in conjunction with aperture and is used to adjust the ammount of light let into the camera, the expossure ring is situated on the lense of the camera, it is the third ring in.
Focusing, when focusing a shot you need to zoom in using the second ring right into your subject as far as it will go then you need to focus the shot by using the first ring on the lens once your subject is in focus meaning oonce you can see your subject clearly you should zoom out to where you want the shot to be.
Using the Camera
When shooting a video of any type you need to rmember a few key points such as, framing, composition, what kind of shot you want, if you want to track in the shot you are doing, the rule of thirds and most importantly the 180 degree rule.
Framing and Composition - is the design of your shot, this is where you will decide where you want your
subject, where you will place your camera and so on.
Shots- there are many different types of shot when using film that can be used, here are some:
EWS (Extreme Wide Shot)
VWS (Very Wide Shot)
WS (Wide Shot)
MS (Mid Shot)
MCU (Medium Close Up)
CU (Close Up)
ECU (Extreme Close Up)
CA (Cutaway)
Cut-In
Two-Shot
(OSS) Over-the-Shoulder Shot
Point-of-View Shot (POV)
Tracking- tracking is used to follow the subject or character through a scene or sequence, this can be done using hand held, Stedicam or Dolly and track. This is a great effect to make the audiance feel like
they are in the scene folowing the character.
The rule of thirds- this ditermines looking space, head space, movement within a frame. The rule of thirds breaks up the frame into nine squares these squares are where we are going to put things in our frame.
The rule of thirds- this ditermines looking space, head space, movement within a frame. The rule of thirds breaks up the frame into nine squares these squares are where we are going to put things in our frame.
180 degree rule- determines where you place your camera in conjuction with your acts. Say you are shooting a conversation between two characters who are sitting oposite eachother and you decide
your first shot is going to be a wide from the left side of your characters you then can not jump to the right side of your characters.
The mistakes we made during our first task where mainley head room, lead room and looking space but i feel we covered all these mistakes in the new video we made last week.
Industry terminology
STAND BY / STANDING BY - ready everyone into position for the take. The AD calls STAND BY and the response tells them that everyone is prepped
TURN OVER / TURNING OVER (Roll film/Rolling etc) The director tells the camera operator to start filming - a few seconds of film is then run as the camera gets up to speed - this is often referred to as LEAD IN
ACTION! - Cue for the actors to perform the take, and the crew to do their jobs. It is good practice for the Director to let the film run on a further few seconds after the take is completed before cutting - this is referred to as LEAD OUT
CUT! - Cue for the camera to stop running film. Industry practice expects that the camera operator does not CUT before being told
I thought the change between stills photography and moving images or photographs to films was pretty easy and I didn't find that many differences. I think the biggest thing to watch it if people are looking into the camera because in stills it is a cool effect for people to look into the camera but in film it is rarely used. I really enjoyed the experience and loved the first stage of editing we did today as well.
