Going out and using the camera was such an epiphany for me. I have used cameras and sound equipment many times before but wasn’t at all sure what I was actually doing. Talking through what white balance does and different functions within the camera helped me understand the process of setting up a shot and how you can eliminate difficulties in post production and editing. It was really helpful to know how long it takes to set up a shot and understand your blocking in order to create accurate run sheets on shooting days.

Another thing I noticed was how important blocking is within a shot. The aesthetics of the actual location go hand in hand with the actor within the shot and where they will positions themselves and how they will move and converse. Different focal lengths and camera positions enable different meaning and can focus an audience on a particular aspect of a character or action.

I found that when I was setting up a shot like in our first exercise (i.e. no subject in shot), a certain amount of chaos within a shot was interesting and the background becomes the object and focal point of the shot. However once a subject or person is put within a shot the background can becomes to overwhelming and the subject is lost. This obviously can be the desired affect in some cases, if you want to create a busy scene have you actor morph into a sea of landscape and people, but when you don’t want this, the actual location becomes really important in isolating or capturing the character and to appropriately defining what you want in the character.

This Tuesday’s class saw us film shots to edit, and once again this forced me to think more attentively about how to block and capture the shot. We found that to keep continuity flowing, we need to make sure the blocking had be planned before filming has started and we need to know each camera position and when each shot will occur between the duration of the blocking. It definitely made me think that the more amount of shots we have will enable an easier editing process and a more fluid transition of movement within the different shots.