Camera Techniques Reflection

How I Kind Of Learned How To Use a Camera

When I started Entertainment this year, I had no idea how to use a DSLR at all, and while I am still not the most experienced in how to use one effectively and efficiently, I do at least know how to control main settings and functions of the camera. It was helpful having a list of different shots that had to be used because it allowed us to focus less on just the story and more on the relationship between the story and it's visual representation. It didn't so much matter if the story was good or not, but more on how it was displayed to the audience.

I did not shoot an individual 10-Shot Camera Technique Video, but Tara, Miranda, and I worked together on one and took turns filming shots as well as individually practicing the different techniques on our own time. I also did not edit my own version of the video, rather just contributed to the group edit.

Spoken Word Reflection

What To Do When Your Actors Cry

I was not particularly pleased with the way the Spoken Word Video turned out. While it seemed so promising in the beginning, pretty much almost everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. That may be a slight exaggeration, but I'll explain my reasoning.

It didn't take us (Miranda and I) long to find a poem we liked. That poem, She Hulk by poet Katie Pukash, perfectly represented what we believe in life and we were able to relate to the emotions behind it. It took us a few more days to plan than we wanted, but we still got it figured out and we were excited.

So Day 1 of shooting comes around and it didn't look too bright. We had a limited amount of time to film, we couldn't find as many actors as we originally planned for, and it had been raining all day. We got to our chosen location and the first half hour or so was very productive: it wasn't too wet and our lead actress was performing exceptionally. But then, tragedy struck. Not really "tragedy," our actress just had an emotional breakdown and refused to be in any more shots. And as bad as it made us feel, we filmed her crying because we needed shots of her crying and what's more believable than actual crying? While we didn't get as much done as we hoped, we still made progress (and those crying shots were really good).

Day 2 of shooting started off not as great. We couldn't get a DSLR because, well, there weren't any, so we had to shoot with a Panasonic, which I haven't had the best of experiences with in the past. The actual shoot went better than planned, but when we went to import the files onto my Macbook, they weren't there. But they showed up on Miranda's computer so we didn't think anything was wrong. 

Were we in for a surprise. 

When we got back to school, the files absolutely would not appear on the Macs, no matter what we tried. Miranda went up to Morris to ask if there was a way to fix it. 30 minutes later, she has our shots ready to be imported. The problem is, when they were finally imported, they had gone through so many processes to be usable, the quality was terrible. And, better yet, only the first half of our shots had been processed. We only had the first half of every single shot. So there went half of the motion we filmed. Still better, because we only had half the amount of footage we had planned for our pre-recorded poem, we no longer had enough footage to cover the entire poem. Insert awesome audio editing and we were able to get the audio down from 4.5 minutes to 2.5 minutes. Some "creative" video editing and we had a sub-par final video that we were not really proud of.

However, I am glad we experienced so many difficulties with this video, and early on in the year, because now we are aware of the many things that could go wrong and will be better prepared to deal with other issues in the future.

Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeDjXTzs4Vo&feature=youtu.be

Martin Scorsese

Plot vs. Story

Martin Scorsese, renowned director of films such as Goodfellas, The Aviator, and The Wolf of Wall Street, defines plot as what happens and story as why and how it happens. His definitions make sense because plot is more like the bones of a film, no emotions attached, the rough edges of a film. Story brings in all the elements that appeal emotionally to viewers: mood, emotion, how characters react and relate to each other, etc. Plot is the framework of a film and the basic ideas that create a film. Story is the "fluff" in between the major plot events that make the audience feel a certain way and makes the viewers feel connected to the film. Scorsese's experience in the film industry and the films he's directed make him extremely qualified to provide his ideas on film techniques, elements, and principles.