Film Production

Today in my film production lesson with Dan, we learnt about the basics of using the college video cameras.

Firstly we looked at how to set up a basic tripod.

The reason we use the tripod is to give the video camera stability and to prevent movement whilst we film. The tripod has three collapsible legs with a centre post. These legs can be raised and lowered to give you different heights for filming. At the top of the tripod is the head with the camera mount (a detachable mount) with a thumbscrew on it that holds the camera in place on the tripod. there are several joints on the head of the tripod that let the user pan or tilt the camera and a handle to do so with fluidity and without giving the movement a shaky, amateur feel.

Dan taught us how to load tapes into the camera today and how to correctly name and label the case and actual cassette. This is to help us when we get round to editing out footage. If all tapes are labelled with the correct shot and take, we can refer to our shooting script to know which pieces of footage we want and which pieces did not shoot well or did not work out as planned. Our shooting scripts are key in helping us at editing stage. This is where we write about what happens in each shot, which is numbered, and which take goes best and which go wrong and don't need to be used in our final editing. If we make detailed notes it means if we need any extra material at editing stage, we know which bits are completely unusable and which bits can be used. We should be filling out our shooting scripts every time we film anything. Another worksheet we are to be filling out prior to filming our videos is our stroyboards. We looked at the different shots in Teenage Dirtbag and made comments on the shot number, shot type, a description of what was happening in the shot, the cameras movement or direction, the location, costume and props and a description of the audio. This was just a taster of what we will have to do when planning our own music video.

Today we also learnt about the white balance on the video cameras. In an inside setting where you will be filming under artificial light, the cameras will pick up the UV light and this will give your image a blue tinge to it. To stop this happening you must adjust the white balance on the camera. The same happens in an outside setting but instead of a blue tinge, you get an orange tinge. This means every time you change the setting you are filming in, you must adjust the white balance. It should also be the first thing you do when you turn on the camera. The settings available are AWB - Auto setting, but this cannot always be reliable to give a good colour quality. There is also a outside setting labelled with a symbol like a small sun, and a inside setting which is the symbol of a small light bulb. The last setting is manual setting which is a symbol of two small triangles with a line above them. In our lessons we will mostly be using the outside and inside options.

We also learnt the health and safety features of using the video cameras and how we should correctly put them away after use.

If we are to move the camera and tripod even just a small distance, we should take the camera and its mount off the tripod and transport them separately. This is to prevent the camera falling off and getting damaged, as they are very fragile. We are also to check the that nothing has got stuck in the legs of the tripod before we collapse the legs as this can cause damage to the legs. Before we put our cameras away after use we must make sure we have taken all our tapes out of the camera otherwise this could lead to loss in footage and a waste of time when re filming it. We must also make sure we have put all the equipment labelled with the same number all back in the correct bag, to avoid confusion when they are next used. If we are trying to preserve battery we should use the viewfinder on the camera instead of the LCD screen, this is because the viewfinder uses less battery.