Week two- Lecture notes

Cine-speak

The language of the cinema

I'm extremely glad we had this lecture straight away as shot-sized proved to be extremely useful in another of my subjects - Communication performance.

In this subject, I was able to use a proper camera to produce a mid-shot in preparation for a mock television interview. So having pre-knowledge of the different shot sizes, head room and other factors involved in this lecture was a real bonus. Here an example of these mock interviews. Unfortunately the only example I own is that of when I was the interviewer. I much prefer to be behind the camera. 

 Through these mock interviews, we were able to try our hand at aligning cameras in such a way that the were mid shots giving enough head room but not too much. As you can see, there is not too much head room, enough talking room and in terms of the rule of thirds, my eyes are in line with the top of the three imaginary lines.

I was contemplated a way in which I could show that I understood what this lecture was about. At first I was going to provide a series of photos for you and write next to them what shot size I believe them to be. But then I decided that was slightly boring. So with that in mind, I used my new found movie making knowledge to produce this movie for you. I took me a fair while so you better enjoy it...

So obviously this week wasn't all about shot sizes... We also learnt the who, what, when, where, why and how of cine-speak. It was interesting to learn that often it is the shot sizes in films which tell us the five W's and H. I always hate learning the technicalities of things as it often leads me to over-analysing. My normal movie watching days are over already. I find that I now notice the shot sizes in films and what they are trying to convey through them rather than enjoying the movie. That's just from one lecture on cine-speak. I would hate to know what it is like for someone such as a director.

That's all for this post. So until next time, have a lovely week.