Film Foundations

  CAMERA EXPOSURE Exposure in cameras is determined by three factors: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. The aperture is determined by how much light the camera lets in. The shutter speed is the length of time the lens is exposed to light. The ISO determines the sensitivity to light. Increasing the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO increases the depth of field, motion blur, and grain respectively. Increasing both the aperture and shutter speed darkens the video while increasing the ISO brightens it. In the video below, I show 6 shots showcasing how the different settings can change how a shot looks. The first two shots showcase depth of field, with the first showing deep focus and the second showing a shallow depth of field (I made a mistake while titling the shot - it should be "shallow depth of field" instead of "deep focus"). In the first shot, everything is equally visible, while in the second, only the subject of the shot, Sage, is clearly visible, with every oth...

Our short film was created to showcase the 180-degree rule. The idea of the film was to have two friends camping when one of them stumbled upon a bear, which they would proceed to look for. The filming went very smoothly, yet I believe that we could have gotten more continuity in our shots. I personally believe that for a lot of the filming, we did not use our time effectively, which led to the rest of our filming feeling kind of rushed.  Our film lacked a real narrative as well, which is something I wish we had worked on in the initial stages of filming. Instead, the film feels directionless, without any real tension beyond the possible sighting of a bear. I do think that most of the shots turned out pretty well, and we kept the 180-degree rule in mind the entire film, which helped the viewer orient themself with the space it takes place in. In future projects, we should focus more on continuity and not wasting any of our time, as we found ourselves running out of time pretty quic...

 Mudbound is a film about race in the South before, during, and after WWII. The overall theme of the film is about how racism is an inescapable force, as evidenced in how the character Ronsel, despite having fought in the war, was treated when he returned. I believe that the film did succeed in getting its message across.  The plot of Mudbound was about two families, one white - the McAllans - and one black - the Jacksons, in the rural South in the 1940s. The McAllans move to start a farm, hiring the Jacksons as sharecroppers. Midway through the film, two veterans, from both families, who served in the war return to the region. Upon arrival, the local white population does everything they can to stop out their burgeoning friendship. The film's use of mise en scene helped set the tone of the film. The film used a drab color pallet and empty shots, which I feel helped lend it a constantly oppressive feeling. Initially I found the first half of the film kind of pointless, but upo...

We used camera movement in the film to represent the tone of an overall scene. When I ran downstairs in the film for example, we used a handheld camera to convey a sense of urgency. I do believe that the camera movement was effective, but at times the result was unsatisfactory. When we were using the gimbal to film Dylan walking, there were moments where he was out of the frame, for example. Technically, the camera movements were easy to shoot. The only difficult shot to get was the gimbal shot, as the weight of holding the gimbal up made it hard to carry. Next time, we will use the shots more effectively, and make sure that the subject does not wander out of frame.

The Passion of Joan of Arc is a film that uses interesting camera movements. 6:38 - 6:45: The camera starts close up to the priest as he appears to deliberate on what the film's heroine has just said, in a similarly claustrophobic shot to the previous close-up of Joan. As the camera zooms out, the priest turns in the direction of a newly-revealed priest while they both laugh, showing how the priests feel distant from her by shattering the preceding intimate sequence of shots. 4:10 - 4:51: The camera moves to the right, revealing all of the people who came to attend Joan's trial, while showing events at the background. This helps establish the setting of the film, and the importance of the trial. 7:20 - 7:26: The shot starts with two characters in the frame, but after the character on the left reports the information he needs to give, the camera pans to the right, moving him out of the screen and placing the most important character dead center. 12:08 - 12:35: The camera uses pa...

The part of the project I felt was the most successful was the sequence of shots where Dylan opens and closes the locker. I think that the transition going in and out of the locker looks very smooth, and I am also proud of the foley that we did for the locker and for Dylan grabbing the notebook. The least successful part of the project was the color correcting. I have very little skill with color correction, and basically just guessed the whole time. I feel that I improved the look of the shots in some areas, but I do not believe that I kept a consistent style throughout the film, and I believe that it is worse off for it. In the future, I wish to actually understand more about color correction so I don't make the same mistakes again. I learned how to shoot a film as a group from this project. We did not have any group projects last year, so to start right into one was a different experience, though one I felt made the process of filming go significantly smoother. I feel that I hav...

Over the past year, our lives have become more dependent on the internet. Up until late last year, even school was virtual. I wanted to reflect this in my internet film: a virtual, Khan Academy-style lesson. I followed a tutorial online on how to make a virtual lesson, and despite not having all the materials I needed, I feel like I succeeded in my film. I had some interruptions, however (I filmed 3 times, and no matter how much I told people to try to stay quiet, I was still interrupted), and my "stylus" (actually a pencil eraser wrapped in tinfoil) just stopped working sometimes. I still feel good about what I put out, however, and I definitely picked the best recording I could, even if it was a bit long.