I always want to get some “practical” skills of using the camera and I find myself know more about the camera in the last three week’s classes. Robin introduces every element of different equipment used in the class. The basic knowledge is illustrated very clear and detailed which I find it super helpful for me to control the shooting and make sure everything is running well. Later in the class, I learnt about some common words that are often used when describing the lights. These were: Key light, Fill light, Direction, Quality (hard/soft: diffuse or bounce), Natural/Artificial, Flat, Modelling (ed), Degree of… and Source. I got to know the professional ways of saying different actions such as “tilt up” and “pan across”.  We analysed some clips in the class to see if we can tell the difference of the qualities of the lights. I feel that hard light always comes with sharp shadows while soft light creates blurry kind of shadows. Sometimes, a scene combines both hard light and soft light to achieve some kind of effect in the film. I guess it expresses different powers and different characteristics of the people.

Lighting creates continuity in the film and it makes the film more attractive as different tones are achieved by setting up the lights. Exposure is one of the most important things when it comes to lighting. There are four parts which effect to the camera exposure. First is the volume of light which can be measured by light meter. Second is ISO(ASA)/Gain which means the sensitivity of the medium. The higher the ISO, the more sensitive it will be. Third is the Shutter speed.  The shutter speed depends on the subject/object we film. The more active the subject/object is, the higher shutter speed will needed. Last but not least is the Len aperture (f stop). The bigger the aperture, the smaller the number.