Today I helped Matt with his investigation Asymmetry which involved Sam and I throwing a ball to each other on the edges of the frame, with Sam sometimes jumping out of frame. This was to experiment with primarily using the sides of frame rather the centre.

I also helped Sam with his shoot which was to experiment with blocking and ‘reframing’. Matt and I acted out a short scene in which we moved around while exchanging dialouge. So we knew exactly where to stand Sam marked the positions with camera tape. We practiced blocking the scene several times before shooting both for the actors sake and for the camera, as Sam had to smoothly pan from character to character as he reframed. I thought it a useful activity to become fluent with camera movement and the process of blocking the scene.

Unfortunately I didn’t come to class prepared with an exercise. I still haven’t prepared a script for my sensor size exercise. I did shoot a brief exercise where I shot Matt at different focal lengths, moving the camera position (therefore focal distance)  to maintain the same frame. It was very basic but it does form the foundation of exercise, that focal length can change perspective. I shot him at an f.stop of 3 at 80mm, 50mm, 25mm and 10mm.

I’m currently thinking of how I should proceed with my next experiment. I think it would be best to shoot outside as the classrooms are very bland, with every wall looking the same etc. It would be easier to notice subtle differences in an enviroment with more depth. For instance, outside I would be able to see if the percieved distance between a character and a tree was different on each camera.

I’ve researched the exact sensor sizes of the Sony Z7 and the Canon 5D. The Sony Z7 sensor is tiny measuring a 1/3 of an inch. The 5D is full framed measuring at 35.8 x 23.9 mm (1.41 inches x 0.94 inches). Quite the difference so I think the physical focal lengths I’ll be using to maintain the same framing on both cameras will be quite different.