Making Better Movies with Moviestorm Vol 1: Basic Camerawork

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IMPLIED VS SEENFilm the scene and show the key moment on-screen.Film the scene without showing the actual key moment. Do not use dialog to explain what‟s happening off-screen,just let the viewer work it out.ReviewWhich version do you prefer?What was on-screen at the key moment? Why did you pick that?Does the scene gain or lose anything by not seeing the important moment?What did you do differently in terms of lighting, staging, etc?How does music or sound affect the viewer‟s perception of the scene? Does itchange their perception of the characters?Follow-up exercisesCan you completely change the meaning of the scene without changing the script? For example, focusing on adifferent character at the cutaway point, or using different music?36
THE CROWD ILLUSIONTechniqueImply a large crowd with only a small number of extras.Budgets don‟t always allow you to have as big a crowd as you would like. Even in animation, a big crowd can betime-consuming and tedious, and a CG crowd may not be an option, so sometimes it‟s better to fake it with clevercamerawork and good use of extra. This can be surprisingly effective: in early episodes of the series Sharpe, theyfilmed large Napoleonic battles using no more than 25 extras and a lot of smoke.Upper row, the more you push the camera down into the crowd, the more people there appear to be. Thereare only seven people in the audience, set out as in the bottom center. To add extra depth, use reaction shotssuch as the one lower left - these need not be important characters, just extras. The audience has beenrearranged so that there are more people off to one side for this reaction shot, as bottom right. The viewer willprobably never notice that the same people are in different places in the two shots. Use focus to blur out theoorwd in either the background or foreground as appropriate so they look more like a mass of people and lesslike a small group of individuals.Use a scene in a single location – interior or exterior. Ideally, it should be 1-2minutes long. You can do it with a single protagonist plus a small number ofextras – restrict yourself to no more than 20 for this exercise, and if you can doit with less, so much the better! You can use either an action or a dialog scene,as they will give you different challenges.37
Page 2 and 3: CONTENTSFOREWORD ..................
Page 6 and 7: EXERCISESHow to use this bookThe bo
Page 8 and 9: STATIC VS MOVING CAMERASFirst film
Page 10 and 11: LONG SHOTS VS CLOSEUPSFilm the scen
Page 12 and 13: USING CU/ECU - TELEPHOTO VS CLOSE C
Page 14 and 15: EXTENDED SHOT DURATIONFilm the enti
Page 16 and 17: EMPHASIS ON DIFFERENT CHARACTERSFil
Page 18 and 19: CONVERSATIONFilm the scene with a t
Page 20 and 21: TELEPHONEFilm the conversation thre
Page 22 and 23: FOLLOWING WALKSFilm the character w
Page 24 and 25: WALKING OFF - OUT OF SHOT OR OUT OF
Page 26 and 27: DEPTH OF FIELDShoot and edit the sc
Page 28 and 29: RACK FOCUSFilm the scene with the t
Page 30 and 31: FOREGROUND OBJECTSFilm the scene, u
Page 32 and 33: REVEALSFilm the scene and at the en
Page 34 and 35: POV SHOTSHave one character walk th
Page 38 and 39: THE CROWD ILLUSIONFilm the scene, a
Page 40 and 41: CONSTRAINTS ON NUMBER OF CAMERASSho
Page 42: Matt Kelland is one of the founders

Making Better Movies with Moviestorm Vol 1: Basic Camerawork

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