The Camera Movements Project
The learning process of the camera work was mostly a refresher rather than a completely new lesson. In my previous year of high school I took TV production, and we extensively practiced different camera movements while making short films. In my Media Studies class I was able to learn the emotional effects behind the use of certain camera movements, as well as a more complex definition of them. In TV Production, explanations were short but executions were immense, so this lesson served as a full circle moment. It allowed me to combine my previous hands-on experience with a much deeper understanding of the story elements that would come into play.
What my team and I had to do for the Camera Movements Project was that we had to first, story board a short video that followed the prompt “surprise” that included the movements: static, pan, tilt, push in/pull out, tracking, and a shot of our choice, and label each shot used above each panel. Second, we had to go out and film those shots. And finally, we had to compile our shots into a word document and name and list how each of the 6 shots helped move the story forward. Luckily, our whole team came in with overall understanding and motivation for the project. The experience was quite pleasant, considering that we had a plan, and we were all excited to be able to walk outside the classroom and have a little fun during the recording period.
While our project was efficient and overall successful we still ran into a few problems. When we first went out to film we went to the 700s stairs, which already had a group filming, then we went to the other set of stairs, which also had someone filming. This meant we had to go back to the classroom and get a pass to be able to reach a different building. This ended up being pretty time consuming and had our group rushing back to the classroom when we finished filming. Another issue we faced was that while doing our storyboard, we were much too focused on the actual story and drawings, that we didn’t really label our shots all that well, which led to a confusion and a bit of scrambling while trying to write the analysis. One of our biggest wins however, was the cooperation of all the team members, I have an unfortunately bad track record of ending up in groups where most or all of my teammates were uninterested in the project, but having a team of people who wanted to make this happen, was definitely a breathe of fresh air.
What I learned throughout the process of creating and submitting this assignment was just how important the variety of camera shots is to the telling of a story. Had we been given absolutely zero direction on how to film our shots, we probably would’ve ended up having our cinematography fall a little flat and repetitive. Being forced to use these camera movements made us step out of our comfort zone and gave us the chance to think from a director’s point of view. Another thing I learned during this project is how crucial it is to know how to verbalize your analyzations.
Describing and explaining certain things is one of the hardest things for me to, and the more I experienced this class the more I realized that analyzing is one of, if not the biggest part about this class and this project definitely helped get that across to me.
What I might have done differently for this project is add a little bit more excitement in the plot. Our story was relatively simple, a girl walks down the stairs and her enemy seems to be waiting for her. When she finally sees her it ends up being a fun little surprise. Nothing is particularly wrong with the story, but when we finished filming, I felt that there was atleast a little more that could be done. Perhaps it could’ve been a happy birthday surprise or had the inclusion of another character instead of just 2. Having any of these elements would’ve provided a little more of a dynamic feel to this short film, and had been a better representation of our skills and newfound information.
This is our finished product of the camera movements project!
Camera Shots and Angles Project
The learning process for camera angles was quite interesting. We did rotations around tables while taking notes about angles, focus and composition, and then glued and labeled an example for each vocabulary word. Each explanation was in depth and it was fun recognizing shots from different shows that we have watched. We also did 2 camera scavenger hunts, one from the TV series known as FARGO where we had to catch and anaylze 5 different camera techniques. This assignment was very fascinating because I was getting a few types of angles and shots confused and was really able to lay all the differences out very clearly to myself with help from my notes and the teacher. The other scavenger hunt we were able to pick a movie or TV show of our choice and find 5 different camera shots out of the ones we had learned from that day, the TV show I picked was Arcane and it unsurprisingly had a huge range of different angles, compositions, shots, and movements. All these assignmennts served as amazing practice for the upcoming project.
What we had to do for our Camera Shots and Angles Project was to tell a narrative story of an inanimate object(s) using 15 different shots that had to include at least one of the following shots/techniques: establishing, long, mid, close-up, P.O.V, low angle, or high angle. So my partner and I used the first day to storyboard, which had to include labeling and an explanation of each different shot. The story we came up with was about a lonely plastic water bottle getting angry and jealous of the much more popular metal water bottle, and creating a plan to get rid of him. After storyboarding we had to go out in film in atleast 2 different places, in our case we filmed in the classroom and outside. Then we compiled all our shots into a powerpoint and explained the meaning and story relevance of each shot. The experience was amazing, most of it went very smoothly and according to plan, and we were able to have lots of fun while working on the project, it is definitely something I would love to try again.
A challenge we encountered during this project was that we were a little bit too excited and were trying to get to the photo taking part as quickly as possible, this led to us forgetting to actually write explanations under each shot, this mistake made us backtrack all the way to the beginning, and since we didn’t have any explanation, we got confused on what to write for certain shots, thankfully we were able to get it all figured out in a decent amount of time. One of our triumphs, however, was how much time we had left over after filming. We assumed that it would take around the same time as the Camera Movements Project, but in hindsight it makes a lot more sense it was shorter, because we were working with inanimate objects that had no lines; therefore, there wasn’t much “messing up” while taking our photos.
Something I learned during the completion of this project was that we rely extremely heavily on facial expressions in media. With this project, our subjects had no faces and very little range of movement, which forced us to rely completely on the angles and shots, which showed me the true meaning behind this project. And even with that restriction, we still ended up giving one of our characters an outside add-on of emotion, that being a taped on pair of colored eyebrows. This project showed us that we needed to arrange our subjects in such a way that even with minimal range, the storytelling can get to the viewer without much struggle or speculation. This project served as a great challenge to our ability to see our creation through the eyes of the audience, and articulate the shots in a way that the watchers, with no prior context/knowledge, could completely comprehend.
One thing I would change about the project is use a little more variety in my shots. We ended up reusing a bunch of shots because we couldn’t figure out what to put in some of our storyboards other than scenes that were essentially filler. For example, we used wide shots at least 3 times, and while it was used for comparison, we could’ve included a high/low angle or maybe even an aerial or tilted shot. It would’ve given more character to the world and the characters living in it. This would’ve aided the dynamics and removed some of the “flat” feeling sprinkled throughout the story. Overall I think the project turned out great, but there will always be room for improvement, no matter how amazing something may seem.
The storyboards of the Camera Shots and Angles Project!
