General filmmaking stuff (camera)

Types of shots

- Wide (Camera shows the subject from a distance, emphasis is put on place and location)

- Cowboy (= Medium full shot, the character is shown from head to knee or mid-thigh)

- Medium

- Medium Close-Up

- Close-up (Camera frames the character's face)

- Extreme Close-up

- Insert (Camera frames a very specific detail, usually from a character's point of view)

Angle

- High (Camera is higher than the subject, higher perspective makes the subject look smaller)

- Low (Camera is lower than the subject)

- Eye-level (Neutral angle)

- Oblique (=Dutch angle, camera angle is slanted to one side, so that the horizon line is not parallel with the bottom of the frame)

Pan

- Camera rotates horizontally from right to left or left to right, without moving

- Establishes a location by offering a panoramic view

- Reveals something previously off screen

- Follows characters

Tilt

- Camera rotates upward or downward while the base stays in a sized position

- Used to reveal an element or to change the angle

Third person vs. omniscient point of view

Perspective from ideal observer vs specific character or voice

Continuity

- The art of combining the components of a film to obtain a coherent and consistent sequence of events and action

- Successive shots must match

- Taken care of by director, script supervisor, first assistant director and almost all departments

Types of continuity

- Content: anything visible in the scene
- Movement: no gaps between movement from shot to shot
- Position: position of props and subject are consistent.
- Time: flow of time with a scene

180-degree rule

- The 180 degree rule ensure that the relative positions of the characters or objects in the frame remain consistent from shot to shot

- The rule states that we draw an imaginary line between two characters and keep the camera on the same side of this 180 degree line

30 degree shot

When filming a subject/character in two consecutive shots you must move the camera at least 30 degrees

Jump cut

An abrupt transition between shots, sometimes deliberate, which is disorienting in terms of the continuity of space and time

Camera anatomy

- Camera body
- Sensor
- Lens
- Aperture
- Shutter

Settings

- Video formats: resolution and frame rate

- White balance: White balance is a camera setting that establishes the true color of white

- Zebra: a camera feature that overlays some stripes onto the image that indicate exposure levels

Lenses

- Optical tool used to direct light to a film strip or digital camera sensor

- A series of glasses that are convex (rounded outward) or concave (inward)

A lens is defined by two factors

1) Focal length: distance between the point of convergence of the lens and the film/digital sensor

The focal length determines the angle of view

Low focal length = wide angle of view

High focal length = narrow angle of view

2) Aperture: the opening in the lens that lets light enter the camera

Prime vs zoom lenses

Prime: Fixed focal length
Zoom: Various focal lengths

Depth of field

Distance between the nearest and farthest elements in an image that is sharp (how blurry or sharp the area around the subject is)

Shallow depth of field

Visual effect where the subject is in sharp focus but the background or foreground are soft focused (blurred) or vice versa

How to obtain shallow depth of field

- Aperture: the lower the f-stop, the more shallow DoF

- f/1.6 or f/2.4 give more shallow DoF than higher f/stops

- The farther the subject is from the background and the closer he is to the camera lens, the more shallow DoF we can obtain

Factors impacting exposure

- Available light

- Focal length: the longer the length, the more light you will need for correct exposure, and vice versa

- Aperture settings: the more aperture is open, the more light will pass through the lens and the brighter the image will be, and vice versa

- Image sensor size: the bigger the sensor, the more light it captures

Aperture

- Refers to the hole in a lens diaphragm through which light travels to enter the camera

- A larger hole allows more light to hit the camera sensor, creating a bright image

- A smaller hole allows less light into camera, creating a dark image

- Aperture is expressed in f-stops, aka f-numbers

- The smaller the number after f, the larger the aperture opening in the lens and the more light

Shutter speed

- Shutter speed is measurement of the time the shutter is open

- Shutter speed controls how moving subjects appear in an image (sharp or blurry)

- The faster the shutter, the shorter the time the camera sensor is exposed to light, the more you are able to freeze the motion and have your object look sharp

- The slower the shutter, the longer the time the camera sensor is exposed to light, the more a moving object will be blurry

Shutter speed rules

- In a normal shoot, the rule is to have shutter that doublers the frame rate

- 24 fps — > 1/48s to obtain normal motion
- 30 fps — > 1/60s
- 60 fps — > 1/120s

ND (neutral density) filters

- Usually on the left side of a camera

- Lowers the intensity of light without affecting the colors of an image

- Allows to shoot at wider f-stop AND not losing the shallow DoF

- Usually used outside in daylight to avoid overexposure