Today's Lesson - 24/06/09 - Film Language

Today we started to look at the different camera angles and what they are used for. The main angles we named were:

Close-Up (CU)
Extreme Close-Up (ECU)
Mid-Shot (MS)
Long Shot (LS)
High Angle
Low Angle

We also talked briefly about tracking and panning camera movements. We used the camcorder (and Ismail - thanks again, your Oscar's in the post!) to experiment with shot types. We decided that we could shoot a conversation between two characters in a number of ways. One of these is an 'over-the-shoulder' type shot so that we can see who a person is talking to.

We then looked at some examples from Steven Spielberg's 'Saving Private Ryan' (1998) before moving on to a clip from the Spielberg's 'Minority Report' (2002) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/.

You had to look at the type of shots used. Some of you noticed that a lot of the shots combine more than one type, for instance a tracking shot may settle on a mid-shot of two characters talking. This is very common and used by directors to keep their scenes interesting. Few directors today keep their camera still for that long (see Michael Bay's 'Transformers 2' as an extreme example).

I've marked your books and so far so good, everyone seems to have settled in to the course well and is giving 100%. Keep up the good work!

Remember to add some notes in your blue books, anything you watch make a note of. On these lines I'm going to go and watch the end of Jurassic Park 3. I don't think its as good as the first two (check out the bit on the windscreen of the bus as it hangs over a cliff in number 2, an excellent scene) and some of the effects don't quite work, but its good fun and so far I'm enjoying it. Three stars at the moment.