Camera Work Reflection

Hello beautiful people! In these past couple weeks, I have been learning about the different camera movements, shots, and angles, and I have completed a few projects. I'm so exited to tell you guys how it went!

 Camera Movements

Learning Process

We started learning about the different camera movements in class by first taking notes on the definitions, then we watched a bunch of clips from various movies and TV shows that showed examples of the different movements. We also did a couple activities where we were shown a scene and had to identify all the camera movements. 

Project

Once we learned all the different camera movements, we had to make a video using 6 different camera movements using the prompt "surprise". Once we decided what we wanted to do, we drew our storyboard. it started off with a tracking shot of a girl walking down a hallway, than it pans to another girl. There is then a static shot of the second girl saying "surprise", and it tilts down to show her aggressively grasping a water bottle. After that, the camera pushes in to show the reaction. And it finishes with the girls chasing each other, which was a shaking random movement shot. Overall, it was really fun doing this with my group. This is our video:

Here is the link to the video in case it doesn't work

Challenges/Successes

Overall, the project was pretty simple, but we did have a couple setbacks. The first one was trying to fit a whole story into 6 shots, and make it cohesive and not look unfinished. The other one was not using the same camera movement twice and using all of the required movements. They were easy to overcome while we were drawing our storyboard, and after that it was easy. 

Reflection

Through this project, I learned how important it is to plan ahead. If we hadn't spent so much time on our storyboard, I feel like it would have been a lot harder to film everything, but luckily we didn't have that problem. If I were to do this project again, I probably would have chosen another storyline that is a little easier to work with. Other than that, I don't think I would have changed anything else. 

 Camera Shots & Angles

Learning Process

Our learning process for camera shots and camera angles was very similar to camera movements, where we took notes on the definition, looked at some examples, and then had some practice identifying them from TV shows and movies.  

Project

Instead of a video, our project assignment was to tell a story of an inanimate object through 16 photos. Since this project was only focused on shots, we didn't have to take a video. Instead, me and my partner put together a presentation with all the photos. Our story titled "chapped" and it was about a tube of Aquaphor that struggles to fit in. This is our project, and our storyboard is attached below. 

Challenges/Successes

One of the main challenges we faced with this was taking the pictures of the lip glosses. We had to make sure there wasn't anything in the background, and it was hard to get some of the angles with our phones, for example the low angle was supposed to make the Aquaphor look large compared to the lip oils, but it didn't really work. 

Reflection

I learned about how many things directors have to consider for one single shot, especially if it is a shot with people. For example, the focus and framing. If I were to do this again, I would probably avoid the high and low angles after learning how hard they are to make it look how you want.