Week 4: Basic Camera Management: Focus and Exposure
Most important this week was to realize that Auto-Focus and Auto-Exp. is BAD when trying to produce a good movie. When producing our films, we should always use Manual Settings and thus learn about the basic camera functions.
The Rule of Thirds can be used to put focus on the person or object of interest. It divides the screen into 3x3 fields, and the center of interest should be placed along one of the intersecting lines, the focus does not need to be necessarily in the middle of the screen (as it would be with Auto-Focus).
Focus in drama, though, is not as important as in real life situations: the camera should never follow the action (like in documentary films), but lead it. This is called the Anticipatory Camera. As the cameraman knows what is going to happen next he can prepare the focus and create the space where the character moves in to.
The Exposure of a shot is very important, because both, an overexposed or underexposed shot loses any kind of detail, the object of interest becomes blurry and boring. When filming, we will use the Zebra setting in order to control the exposure of our shots.
With Focus and Exposure we can control the Depth of Field (DoF) of a shot or scene. We can think of our frame in three parts: the foreground, the mid ground and the background.
Usually in movies we can see a Shallow DoF as it puts a center of interest in focus and highlights different areas of the film. This way, the focus can be shifted from for example the foreground to the background in order to make the audience aware of something.
In my following entry I will analyse different scenes of a movie in regard to the anticipatory camera and Depth of Field.
Most important this week was to realize that Auto-Focus and Auto-Exp. is BAD when trying to produce a good movie. When producing our films, we should always use Manual Settings and thus learn about the basic camera functions.
The Rule of Thirds can be used to put focus on the person or object of interest. It divides the screen into 3x3 fields, and the center of interest should be placed along one of the intersecting lines, the focus does not need to be necessarily in the middle of the screen (as it would be with Auto-Focus).
Focus in drama, though, is not as important as in real life situations: the camera should never follow the action (like in documentary films), but lead it. This is called the Anticipatory Camera. As the cameraman knows what is going to happen next he can prepare the focus and create the space where the character moves in to.
The Exposure of a shot is very important, because both, an overexposed or underexposed shot loses any kind of detail, the object of interest becomes blurry and boring. When filming, we will use the Zebra setting in order to control the exposure of our shots.
With Focus and Exposure we can control the Depth of Field (DoF) of a shot or scene. We can think of our frame in three parts: the foreground, the mid ground and the background.
Usually in movies we can see a Shallow DoF as it puts a center of interest in focus and highlights different areas of the film. This way, the focus can be shifted from for example the foreground to the background in order to make the audience aware of something.
In my following entry I will analyse different scenes of a movie in regard to the anticipatory camera and Depth of Field.
No comments:
Post a Comment