Cinematography

Framing the Sunrise

Reading Log #4

William A. Wellman, Harry d’Abbadie d’Arrast are the two directors of the film Sunrise (1927). The viewers are invited to engage with the German expressionist film through the use of framing techniques. When a husband was about to kill his own wife, a medium to close up shot and a low-angle shot of the husband is used to show his power along with his murderous (yet confused) facial expression over the scared-crouched wife. In the other hand, the wife is shown in a point of view shot, medium-close up and high angle shot to imply her fear and state of being powerless. Continue reading →

Intro with a Camera

Rachel lets us to fiddle with Sony MC50 video cameras in our week 5 practical. Seeing that I am a technology-amateurish, I’ve had no idea of all the camera jargons that it was quite hard to identify the components. But my group and I had quite a fun making an awkward sequence of “hi-bye-situation”. In this activity, we had to do this sequence three times.

  1. Still (no movement) in a tripod
  2. Complementing camera movement in a tripod
  3. Handheld

hire-sony_hxr-mc50.-1gif-1What I’ve learned to take in consideration is the use of zooms. Zooms has been used in various of purposes such as in comedic shows, music videos to show facial expressions, put an emphasis in a focal point and etc. To capture a visual also requires the correct colour balance according to the temperature and lighting of the environment. Portraying certain lighting or hues links to the message being delivered. Finally, filmmakers think about aspect ratio, the proportion between the height and width of the visual frame. Why? You wouldn’t want to see a movie that is changed from a vertical rectangular frame to a horizontal one back and forth. Unless it’s done purposely. So these are a few cinematographic/technical “stuff” that worth taking into account.