During the past few weeks, we had the chance to play around with the dolly, set up multi-cameras and monitors as well as an audio setup.

In one of the class, Paul showed us a scene from Mad Men and we had a go at replicating a particular scene. In groups we set up 3 different cameras with the monitors. This set up allowed me to be able to see the different direction angles at once, and I was able to clearly how the directions affected the way the scene appears on screen.

Something that I’ve always heard about in filming is crossing the line. I think for the first time I was able to see what it meant during filming. The sense of continuity is something that I feel is something not noticed in films, yet when the line is crossed it’s pretty obvious. Another thing I realised was how the slight angles could change the feel in the scene. For example an over the shoulder shots for two people in a conversation. Positioning the camera to match the heights of both people is actually very important. Having the wrong angles could leave viewers confused and could potentially spoil the experience in watching that particular scene.

This exercise made me thing about the preparation that is needed before any filmmaking. I wouldn’t want to make all this decisions on the spot and waste time and effort from both the crew and actors in the future.