Have you ever wondered when you watch a movie and thought that cinematography is very easy? Until you actually do it yourself with limited space. Limited space means limited ideas- that’s what I thought.
In the first class we were given a task to shoot (no recordings) a short scene, okay maybe not shoot, but to just experiment with the camera angles. Only with tilting and panning. No zoom, no tracking and also no blocking given. Each group were given a scripts and were to come up with one shot from the dialogues given. Four groups in my class to precise and two groups holds the same script
It was really hard at first as we do not know the full picture to the story. We do not know what is going on as we were to play the characters. Eventually inspirations start to kick in as we kept on playing with the angles. What we learned most was that there are a lot of ways to shoot a scene, and by that means, different angles and adjusting the blockings. We were asked to perform what we came out during our experiment along with other groups. Apparently the group that has the same script with us shot in a different way compared to ours. It still works. Even the two other groups that were holding their own script shot in their own ways.
After our presentation, we were shown the actual scene that we just performed. Obviously theirs were a lot better, but what amazes me the most is that we had a rough time figuring out a scene, but the professional just made a simple pan and it could fill 6 dialogs, 3 characters in a frame. It looks simple to the eyes of the audience, but as a film student who has experience in shooting scenes, this is amazing.
What I think about this course is that it feels like Cinema Studies, but with actual practicals hands-on experiment rather than just reading about the film. Like said ‘easier said than done’. We get to see what the directors, cinematographers, editors are thinking. And also, more realistic truth, such as time; time to shoot a scene. From what I learned in Film-TV 1 and 2, time is crucial and that made sense because it took my team and I a couple of hours to shoot a scene. Thinking about big budget films, they have a tight schedule and I assume there are quite some shots yet to be covered, or they just used simple angles.