PRELIMINARY EXERCISES

We looked at Daniel Chandler's The Grammar of Television and Film, to study different camera angles. With Ronnaé D, I created a video to demonstrate the different moving camera shots you could use. We chose Pan Right, Zoom Out, Tilt Up, Track Down, Hand Held. These can be seen in our edit below:

We also demonstrated we knew different types of still shots by taking pictures.

This is an Extra Long Shot as it emphasizes the background in the shot.

This is a Medium Long Shot as it focuses on the person while still maintaining a piece of the background.

This is a Medium Shot as it balances both the focus and the background of the shot. Generally, you can see waist-up on the actor.

This is a Close Up Shot as you can see chest up on the actor while still framing the background slightly. This is often used for a reaction shot in film and TV.

This is a Medium Close Up as it frames the actor's head and shoulders. There is a ration of 5:1 Actor to background which makes it ideal for reaction shots as well.

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We learnt about how to handle the cameras detailed in my post On The Set. In addition to this, we watched the title sequence to Delicatessen to see an example of a table top style title sequence before we shot our own. This helped immensely as we could see how credits could be added to the sequence and how to collate a collection of objects to tell a story.

The brief was to create a story on a tabletop as a live action shoot by the objects used and placed. Including the objects, I also had to use a soundtrack, 5 Dollars by Christine and the Queens. It also had to feel like a title sequence, with a live action shot as well. I picked some makeup, a book, a blue dress and some of my baby photos as I used the line baby blue to mean a mother was reflecting on her child who went missing. I also kept in theme with all the items having some sort of blue shade within them.

I had a few issues as I was ill the lesson we shot this. Therefore, I had to complete it at home, on my own. However, I didn't have a particularly big desk to work off. I didn't have anyone to take pictures of the setting up, and wasn't able to shoot my live action as I didn't have anyone to be the theme of the shot. Once I got back to school, I was able to use one of my props, a photo album, to shoot the sequence.

Once I started editing, I found that most of the piece fit to the music already but the part where I looked through the photos didn't as it was too fast. Although I didn't have access to a brilliant editing software, I was still able to split the video and slow down the speed of that certain part in order to make it fit. After the minor adjustments, it really worked, and even fit perfectly to the lyrics at points by coincidence.

I used my mum, Liz Taylor, for my live action shot. I had a sudden thought of using her driving the car as a reference to how the girl goes missing. This short clip I decided to title Baby Blue, after the lyrics that I took inspiration from.