“Office 2.1” by remysharp is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
SUMMARY
Role
Sound designer/Cinematographer
Intention (SMART Goal)
By May 10th, as a part of team 4, I will provide evidence for use of CAMERA MOTION as well as additional evidence and justification for said movement, using “10 Comedic Camera Techniques Every Filmmaker Should Know” by Ryan McAfee.
PRE-PRODUCTION – INQUIRY
Leader(s) in the Field / Exemplary Work(s)
Greg Fraser is an award-winning cinematographer who has worked on some of the most popular and successful movies in recent years. With impressive titles like The Batman, Rogue One, and Dune under his belt, it is clearly apparent that Fraser’s style and technique speak for themselves. The tone that Fraser’s cinematography evokes is often more suited to expansive Sci-Fi movies but his techniques can be applied to any genre of film in order to better captivate an audience. When analyzing the cinematography in Dune, one thing that stands out is Fraser’s use of sweeping wide shots and slightly dimmer exposure to create a more natural-looking scene. Interestingly enough, the primary sources of light in this movie come from either top lights or natural light, which is incredibly applicable to my team’s movie as our light sources are much the same. He utilizes these kinds of light sources in a way that illuminates the subject without overexposing them, which is something I hope to be able to replicate in our session 5 film.
Training Source(s)
Filming The Office by Jessie Tribble
When brainstorming ideas for our comedy in the early stages of pre-production, my team and I decided that the mockumentary style comedy of The Office was a perfect place to draw inspiration from. Camera movement plays a major part in the comedy of The Office, as the camera movements often match the character’s emotional state or the tone of the scene. Being able to replicate the movements and composition of The Office will aid incredibly in enhancing the visual and spoken comedy of our film.
Project Timeline
- Meet with actors
- Pre-write script
- Write script
- Evaluate location
- Ask for a teacher actor
- Block actors and camera
- Set up mics
- Film
- Organize shots
- Decide what to reshoot
- Reshoot film
- Edit film
- Edit sound
- Create music and add to film
- Add evidence to the slideshow
- Present slideshow
Proposed Budget
PRODUCTION – ACTION
The (FILM, SOUND, or GAME Creation)
https://chsgamedesign.itch.io/period-1-team-4
Skills Commentary
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JupJIxFDMShrrwhBRkunbcEfe3vahFO8wfbvdz5CrQQ/edit?usp=sharing
In this slideshow, I demonstrate evidence of completing my session 5 goal of using camera movement with justification for said movement. There are also screenshots that I provide as an instance where I use camera motion in an intentional way.
POST-PRODUCTION – REFLECTION
21st Century Skills
Ways of Thinking (Creativity, Innovation, Critical Thinking, Problem Solving)
This production cycle was so far the most intensive and lengthy one I have undertaken so far, and as such there are positive and negative aspects to discuss. First off, this was my first official cycle as a cinematographer which created a bit of a challenge on the technology side of things. Despite this, I found the role quite comfortable and enjoyable, as I was able to come up with unique ways to shoot each scene which provided much variety in the film. There became an issue though, with the fact that our actors had specific schedules to work around and often weren’t available to film when needed. What this resulted in was sacrificing certain scenes and cutaways in order to preserve some sense of continuity. It was certainly a struggle figuring out how to reconcile the lack of footage for certain scenes, but through collaboration with my director and editor, we found a way to preserve our overall story arc.
Ways of Working (Communication & Collaboration)
Being a cinematographer involved heavy collaboration and communication throughout every phase of production. From the illustration of the storyboards to consulting with the screenwriters and editor, the majority of my work as a cinematographer was collaborating with each person on my team to make sure my camera work reflected everything we wanted to represent in the story. A specific instance of collaboration came when we realized that some of our audio files were corrupted, rendering the scene we shot un-usable. This issue required a heavy collaborative effort in order to figure out a way to ADR the scene even though our filming time had passed. Without such collaboration, our film would have been much too short.
Tools for Working (Info & Media Literacy)
With an entirely new role to learn, the learning curve for the new technology and equipment was steep. Nevertheless, working with the cameras and related equipment was a valuable skill to learn, especially since I intend to be a cinematographer for the advanced team next year. It turned out that the camera settings and configuration were more difficult to figure out at the beginning than the actual camera placement and movement.
Ways of Living in the World (Life & Career)
The theme of this production cycle was “community”, and from the first days of pre-production to the day we presented our work, there has been an incredible amount of growth both for me as an artist and as a collaborator. In pre-production this cycle we had the added task of making two extra storyboards in order to create a better draft for our film. As the cinematographer, I worked very closely with my director and story writers for weeks as the illustrator for our storyboard. This required a lot of constant collaboration, and conversation, and often working through creative differences in how the story should work. Being able to adequately communicate my ideas and thoughtfully listen and respond to others’ were important skills that I got to practice throughout this production cycle.
In terms of production, I would say that the life and career skill that I got the most practice at was improvising. With our director being gone and running out of time to film, as a group we were presented with a dilemma. The time crunch combined with issues with our actors’ schedule presented a seemingly insurmountable issue for our film, but luckily due to some thoughtful improvising, my editor and I were able to cut together the scenes we had to preserve the story of our film.
Reactions to the Final Version
“The shot choices and character movements worked very well” -LeDuc
“I really enjoyed the scene between Sloan and Amy. It was really smooth and felt like a real conversation.” -Jack G.
Self-Evaluation of Final Version
Simple: The setting and camera work were very simple and ordinary, giving the feel of a normal documentary
Unexpected: The quick camera pan to introduce the new “problem character” felt surprising and grabbed the audience’s attention
Concrete: The narrative itself was concrete in pre-production, but the shots we cut together to produce the film somewhat lacked continuity
Emotional: There could have been more of an emphasis on the emotions of the characters in each shot, and I could have used more varied types of shots to make the actors’ emotions feel more dynamic.
Grammar and Spelling
Grammarly
Editor
Moira