One of the pieces of feedback that the other group got after their presentation was to use the zoom sparingly and to understand the effect that the zoom has on the audience. While hearing this I was nodding along quite emphatically as it’s a trend that I’m seeing a lot in todays media environment. It is especially apparent on websites like Youtube with commentary and reaction channels, where the zoom is often used to emphasise a point or hone in on a comedic moment within the video. I personally believe it’s far too overdone and has begun to lose the intended effect on me as I see everyone doing it. So, it’s just become incredibly noticeable now. If you have a five minute video I don’t want to see more than one zoom in, in it, maybe two if it’s essential and justified. In the other groups video I thought it worked really well and there weren’t too many, so when they did choose to use a zoom in, it worked for me.

When I was making the shot list for my episode I purposefully chose not to use the zoom technique for two reasons: the first being that I despise zooming in on a DSLR, it’s just not what the camera is designed to do, it’s like attempting to do a smooth focus rack while videoing on a DSLR – the rings are simply not accessible or fluid enough to do it in one take and it therefore becomes time consuming. The second reason was that I just felt that cutting back and fourth to suit the witty dialogue fitted the script better than zooming in. There just never seemed like there was a written opportunity to utilise the zoom in the script without it feeling shoehorned in.

It’s the same with doing handheld camera shots like the other group did, during shooting someone suggested we do that, but I didn’t account for that in our shot list and also holding a DSLR steady is incredibly difficult without a steadycam rig. We had one roving shot in the shot list that tracked Liz’s movements towards the mysterious garden ‘toilet’ in the meeting room scene and I included this because I wanted to capture Liz’s curiosity and not have the camera be static for the entire episode. I think the differences between what people like, in terms of camera techniques, is so subjective and based around what you, yourself have been taught and as someone who is a little more traditional in camera knowledge, I do tend to shy away from the YouTube style of filming.