Film Practise: Camera shots and Movements

We decided that we needed to practise some camera shots and movements in school at similar areas that we are going to be filming our real title sequence e.g. Stairs, corner and a corridor. At the same time we didn't want to fall behind on finishing the storyboard of our idea, so we split up into two groups. Sam Warren and James Scot finished drawing out the storyboard and started filling in the shot sheets whilst James Lawley and I practised filming camera shots and movements we selected that we weren't confident with. By practising the shots it makes it less likely that we will mess them up when filming, decreasing the amount of time it will take us to film each scene.

The camera shots and movements we practised were:

• POV (point of view) - this lets the audience see through the eyes of Max and helps the audience to experience how he is feeling.
• High angle shot - this makes Max, our victim, seem extremely vulnerable and helpless as well as inferior and unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
• Hand held shot - this will be used to see from the perspective of the antagonist, following Max from the shadows creating suspense as the audience do not know whether the antagonist is going to catch the victim or not.
• Pan - this movement is probably the most important of all of them, as the movement has to be smooth or else the viewer will not be immersed if there is a constant shaking. Another potential problem is cold weather as it may prevent our fine motor function in muscles, making it harder to pan the camera. If we mess this shot up and notice when we come to editing the film, it will be extremely hard to re-shoot because of our lack of control and change of the environment. If we were to redo the shot continuity would be lost.
• Low angle shot - the low angle shot works well with the high angle shot, when Max is walking up the flight of stairs as it shows is destination and where he has come from. Also, it makes the villain seem more threatening and like there is no escape from his doom/destiny.

The reason for the two videos of the practise pan is to highlight the potential problems we may face when filming the real title sequence. The problem with the first pan was that there was a lot of shaking making it almost impossible to watch and this shaking created a shrill high pitched noise which be incredibly unprofessional and disruptive if it wasn't present in our final piece. We managed to get the pan right the second time with a lot less shaking, due to some adjustments we made to the tripod and how fast the subject was moving on camera.