How Aperture Affects Moving Image

In this clip, I shot with an aperture setting of 2.8. This provided a very shallow depth of field which means more of the shot is out of focus rather than in focus. This allows the viewer to naturally draw their attention to the point of focus.

 

Czech New Wave Summary

The Czechoslovak New Wave was an artistic movement in cinema which evolved out of the earlier Devětsil movement of the thirties. Disgruntled with the communist regime that had taken over in Czechoslovakia in 1948, students of the Film and TV School of The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (also known as FAMU) became the dissenters of their time. Their objective in making films was "to make the Czech people collectively aware that they were participants in a system of oppression and incompetence which had brutalized them all."[1]

Trademarks of the movement are long unscripted dialogues, dark and absurd humour, and the casting of non-professional actors. The films touched on themes which for earlier film makers in the communist countries had rarely managed to avoid the objections of the censor, such as the misguided youths of Czechoslovak society portrayed in Miloš Forman's Black Peter (Czech: Černý Petr 1963) and Loves of a Blonde (Lásky jedné plavovlásky 1965), or those caught in a surrealistic whirlwind in Věra Chytilová's Daisies (Sedmikrásky 1966) and Jaromil Jireš' Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Valerie a týden divů 1970).

The Czechoslovak New Wave differed from the French New Wave in that it usually held stronger narratives, and as these directors were the children of a nationalized film industry, they had greater access to studios and state funding. They also tended to present films taken from Czech literature, including Jaromil Jireš' adaptation of Milan Kundera's anti-Communist novel The Joke (Žert 1969). At the Fourth Congress of the Czechoslovak Writers Union in 1967, Milan Kundera himself described this wave of national cinema as an important part of the history of Czechoslovak literature.[2] Forman's The Firemen's Ball (Hoří, má panenko 1967), another major film of the era, remains a cult film more than four decades after its release.

As Alexander Dubček came to power over the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia with plans to present "socialism with a human face" through reform and liberalization (a brief period known as the Prague Spring), the Soviet Union and their Warsaw Pact allies invaded to snuff out reform. The movement came to an abrupt end and Miloš Formanand Jan Němec fled the country, while those who remained faced censorship of their work.











        "Czech culture is known for its black humour, pessimism and        cynicism as well as its interest in fantasy, magic and surrealism."
- Contemporary World Cinema (Sohini Chaudhuri)

References:
 Reference: Book: Contemporary world cinema by Sohini Chaudhuri 

1.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovak_New_Wave

How ISO affects Moving Image

This is a short experiment regarding different levels of ISO. The ISO setting is the setting that establishes how sensitive the cameras sensor is to the available light source. In the video above I used a relatively low ISO setting considering how little light I was able to work with at the time. The ISO seeing i used was ISO 800. You can see that the image is crisp and more detailed than it would have been if I used a higher ISO setting. However the image is also much darker and underexposed and therefore less clear.

In the video below

Unit 31 Task: Film Editing- Shot/Reverse Shot

Shot reverse Shot is a cinema technique that is used to represent two sides of a conversation that is happening within the scene. During the conversation the shot reverse shot consists of a close up or mid shot of someone who is talking, then goes to a cut to the reaction of the other person who is listening (usually with an over the shoulder shot) and then only to then cut back to the original speaker. This cinematic technique fluently and efficiently presents the back and forth between two characters. The audience members presume that the two characters are talking to each other as they are looking in opposite directions, one character would be looking to the right and one to the left.  The characters don't necessarily have to be talking to each other for it to be a shot/reverse shot. It can also be two characters just looking at each other, back and forth.




A shot reverse shot can also be used to express an importance of a certain item that is being shown in the film. It would work the same way as a conversational shot/reverse shot, however replacing the shot of the person who is listening, with an inanimate object.

This is a unique example of a shot reverse shot as the conversation that the character of Norman Osborne is having, is with himself, or rather with his self made alter ego the Green Goblin, in which the shot reverse shot technique issued by Director Sam Raimi




References:              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_reverse_shot

Experimenting with lighting techniques

In this clip I provided a backlight upon the subject with a LED light, to create a shadow which will be cast upon the white screen in the background. The LED light source was not static, but hand held which distorted the showdown that was cast upon the screen. I also experimented with different levels of focus and to see how that affected the image.

How lighting affects camera techniques for moving image

Lighting can translate to an audience member, a certain feel to a shot that the filmmaker wishes to express in order to better communicate the story. This can be done by evoking a certain emotion that can be related to whatever level of intensity the lighting is set to. For example a shot lit with low key lighting is able to convey a dark and spooky tone to the scene, especially if it was a sudden transition from high key to low key. A sudden transition from high key lighting to low key lighting can signify a change in mood as well as the feeling of an upcoming change of events which is about to unfold. This is one of the many examples in which lighting affects camera techniques. There are some lighting settings that can compliment certain shots more that other settings of lighting. For instance soft lighting would compliment textures that were being filmed such as a cheetahs fur in a wildlife documentary, where as intense or high key lighting would make the textures of the object much less obvious and clear giving the shot a much more cleaner and pleasant appearance. According to the 'Digital Video Handbook' by Tom Ang, different styles of lighting in film are used to establish the overall tone. It goes on to explain that "Many musicals and comedies make use of even and steady lighting, which indicates a lightness of content and meaning." It also adds that "In contrast, fantasy and adventure movies make much more use of dramatic side lighting." (Ang, Digital Video Handbook)

The direction of the lighting source in a shot can massively contribute to the narrative of a film. For example if the source of the light is coming from above then it tends to look much more natural and nothing is particularly out of the ordinary. However if the source of the light was emitting from below then it would translate to the audience that something is out of the ordinary/out of place as it has unnatural connotations.