I have learned a number of interesting new things from this week’s class. We talked a lot about movement and focus, how to manipulate the camera in order to produce a scene that comes to satisfaction. As I mentioned in one of my previous reflections about the importance of preparation, today I have been guided to one more thing that needs to be considered: the depth of field, so that the footage we film can be as clear as possible. In spite of my interest in the field, the technical aspects of it are not my strong suit, and I have never really seriously used a professional camera. Hence, these chances in class are my best opportunity. From this class I learn that elements such as focal length, the chosen point of focus, and the aperture settings can affect the depth of field; hereby determine the level of clarity within a shot. This knowledge allows me to further control my crafting process to produce the best scenes. 

 

Additionally, we also did a little exercise in class to grasp an idea of how filmmakers maintain a subject’s clear focus in a moving scene. I feel like I was finally able to really imagine a small glimpse of what a real film set would be like. I was called to be, basically, a movie assistant that marks spots for the actors to stand in order to match the match in the camera monitor. Again, it shows the importance of careful preparation before filming. I have wondered before how people manually maintain the focus of a moving object, besides autofocus (as it is, the autofocus function is to be blamed when my previous submission’s video went out of focus). And now I find out that they mark everything beforehand – a clever yet simple way that I cannot seem to come up with on my own. 

 

I noticed that most of the time we could not seem to tilt the camera as fast as the object’s speed, so it kind of went all over the place. When doing the task I realize that perhaps we all need more practice and acumen when dealing with this type of filming, especially when we film in zooming.