Focal Lengths
At the start of today's lesson, we had a recap on last weeks learning, going over the different mediums, their uses, resolutions, aspect ratio's, scanning and others. Next we started to look at focal lengths in a lot more detail, thinking about how the script is read and illustrated in camera/cinema effects (impacts of given focal length on frame), the distance from the lens to the censor at the back. We talked about the fact that some high end camera's have something which is known as a crop censor, the starting point for a crop censor would be 35mm or so. The lecturer wanted to get us thinking more about the effects that different focal lengths can give, we watched a short clip from a film called "Stand By Me" this was a great example as right at the start of the scene their was a long shot of the bridge, tracks back to the children as a close up shot, helps to give the impression that the distance that they have travelled is shorter than what they have left to get across. These specific camera angles have been used to convey the journey across the bridge - it's elongated.
Examples of focal length and Dolly Zoom
Jaws - On the beach, the camera zooms in really quick to see the guy on the beach, pulling him into focus.
Cinematography by Bill Butler [1]
Saving Private Ryan - Sniper bullet shot through the enemies scope, penetrates the glass and shatters in front of his eye.
Saving Private Ryan - Sniper bullet shot through the enemies scope, penetrates the glass and shatters in front of his eye.
Indiana Jones / Raiders of the lost ark - The boulder at the start chasing him through the back of the temple. Great example, camera would have been placed with a telephoto lens, zoomed in far away and then the cameraman would have slowly zoomed out to give the impression that Harrison Ford was being chased by the polystyrene ball.
Different focal lengths are used a lot, primarily in genres like horror movies to portray an abandoned room or hallway, gives a great perspective of the hall and then could be used to pull back and show someone being chased or just portray how elongated that the hall actually is without having to move the camera, very effective.
Zoom Lens - Different focal length - Much more flexibility, better off for events and documentaries.
Prime Lens - Fixed focal length - Better quality of glass, a lot sharper, making it more expensive but faster. Linked back to aperture, controlled by the f-stop, the whole is a bit bigger, better in low light conditions that the zoom. Used for more considered film work, drama based.
We were given a short brief to carry out using a Nikon 7200 camera, with a set focal length of 18-105mm, we had the aim to play around with the focal length of the camera to create a short film. I took control of my group and put the idea of stop motion to practise, it was extremely hard to come up with the angles but the planning was spot on for the project, the idea behind "Get Out Quick" was that their was a fire in a students flat, using the idea that we talked about for hallways and I tired to change it slightly with a low angle looking across the light beams on the floor. I made it so that we would be slightly out of focus in parts to give the sense of movement, we were in a rush and then the parts where people were dawdling were in focus to show that they weren't in a hurry. Worked well for the camera angles and the fact that I used the camera and my brain really well to create an experimental piece which looked quite good. However if we had more time I would have liked to have played around in the edit, slowing down a few of the clips as the piece was made up of digital images and so it would have flowed nicely with a slower duration, say 20 sec.
Types of software
Non linear - Dive into various clips to use anywhere, in any order.
Premiere Pro - Adobe
Final Cut Pro - Moved to Final Cut Pro X
Avid Media Composer
Davinci Resolve
Vegas
iMovie
Lightworks
We need to make sure that when editing, whether it's at home or in college, to save everything into a big folder which then has sub folders, this will make it easier for us but also the computer as it will be able to locate everything needed to play the project i.e. sound, video, still, effects etc. The lecture then went on to tell us to ask any editor and they will say that organisation of our work space is key to become a success and efficient at what we love doing.
Shortcuts for Premiere Pro
Selection - V
Ripple - B Increase length of two clips (effecting one edit point)
Roll - N Rolling around edit, adjusting start and stop points of two clips.
Trim - T
Lift - Deletes area but leaves a gap
Extract - Deletes area and gap
3 point editing
Slip - Y - Used if you want to make any final tweaks
Slide - U
Razor (C)
References
[1] Jaws (1975) Directed by Steven Spielberg [Film]. USA: Universal Pictures
[2] Saving Private Ryan (1998) Directed by Steven Spielberg [Film]. USA: DreamWorks Studios, Paramount Pictures and Film Flex
[3] Indiana Jones - Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Directed by Steven Spielberg [Film]. USA: Paramount Pictures.
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