Hey, It’s new semester!

I feel excited, curious and ambitious about the course. Last year I was doing cinema study and broadcast media and so on. I’m crazy about films, and I want to be in filmmaking in the future. In my opinion, filmmaking is a very artistic process. In this course, we actually get the chances to shot scenes by ourselves! It is different when you actually operate the camera and film. In that way, I really want to develop my skills of operating cameras in shooting scenes and my own style of shot and directing. Since we do group work, it will also be a great opportunity to learn from each other and get some improvements.

First week in tutorial, we need to complete a single shot without zooming, we can just pan and tilt. We are given different script and we need to block and film. There are two characters in this scene. We pan the camera while the female character walking into the office and then the camera stops, continuing filming their dialogue. Finally, the female character walks out of the frame and that’s the end. It is one single shot without zooming. However, when we watch the original film clips, the coverage and construction of the camera is more artful. The female character walks in and talks to her boss, the camera didn’t move at all, first it’s the door knocking, then the female comes in, we could only hear the voice of the boss. Then she talks with her boss, the entire process, we can only hear the boss’s voice and the camera still hasn’t move at all. Before she leaves, the boss stands up and walked into the frame and shakes her hand and say ‘we are not gonna lose you,are we?’ then the camera moved a little bit. Then it expresses the whole meaning very well.

To establish the relationship between characters or to introduce a character, there is no need to pan all the way, you can focus on one person, the other one can walk into the frame to reduce the camera moving. Also the camera perspective is important. For example, the scene we saw on the lecture, shooting from the side of the bus driver, we can see the passengers getting on and the street view, at the same time, the shopping girl is on that street, then the character is well introduced and character relationship is well established.