Kyle's+Journals


 * Journal 1**

The book I read was “Cinematography-Theory and practice” by Blain Brown. I read the chapters on lens language, camera dynamics, and cinematic continuity as I was interested in lenses and how I could create more meaning with the use of different lenses. Moreover, I never really got to understand the technical aspect of lenses such as the different lens perspectives, frames, and focuses. While for camera dynamics, I wanted to learn more about the camera and transitioning between shots, which I thought I could use some more work on. Lastly, I wanted to see how the cinematographer and editor could work to form a stronger film.
 * Journal 2**

In “Lens Language”, I found that the different perspectives interesting as it had the ability of expanding or compressing space. Although I am not fully clear on the actual effects of such perspectives. I plan to try it out during my own time and experience the effect first hand. One thing that I would like to use in film is deep focus. Deep focus involves having all objects in frame in focus, which requires scrupulous composition for it to be effective. I would use this for my scene that involves having another character in the background. Something like during the start of the shower scene in Psycho. In addition, I will be using the birds eye shot during the start to indicate there is something more than just valentines day in this film. I believe that this will be perfect if we film at the mall as it is very doable.

On the other hand, in “Camera Dynamics”, I learned about the motives of camera movement and how there needed to be a motivation. As we would have “chase scenes” in our film, I found this chapter very helpful with the tracking shots. I will definitely be using the countermove and the reveal tracking shot to make things more interesting as to the common tracking shot. The countermove creates the illusion that the subject is moving twice as fast by going in the opposite direction of the character. While the reveal shot, I will be using this as he loses track of the person he is chasing. This makes it seem like the audience are also on the chase, and as they get closer to the character, they share the same confuse emotion with the character.

Lastly, in “Cinematic Continuity”, I understood the importance of having continuity in my shots. As I also plan to mimic Hitchcock’s fluid camera work, these points in the book are crucial to making a good film. The book stressed on how chasing scenes and moving action had to pay attention to the screen direction to maintain the overall direction and not something that is jumpy. I will be planning my chase scenes very thoroughly to make it fluid and easy to follow.


 * Journal 3**

The first source I used was a tutorial on filming a tracking shot with only a tripod. The way he proposed was to shorten the length of one end on the tripod and to slowly push the camera forward. This is crucial to my filming process and it proves to be very helpful since I plan to have plenty of camera movement. Although I will be using a dolly, it might not be as effective on all surfaces as to that of the tripod. This method simple and effective, and it works for movement in all directions. However, I have yet to try it out and experiment with it and it is harder than it looks. Prior to filming, I will try it out in my own time to assure a smooth and efficient filming session. However, there proves to be a problem, and that is the range of the movement. There cannot be a far push as it is limited by the length of the legs of the tripod. In regards to this issue, as previously said, I will use a dolly.

The second source was a video commentary by David Fincher on cinematography. It mostly circumscribed the different shots and movements in which Fincher explains the effect it had and the reason behind it. One thing that stood out to me was how Fincher stresses how important it is to reveal the character through the distance from the camera. He also said to be aware of the amount of close ups that is used during a scene. He believes that there needs to be variation for making the scene and character more dynamic. I realized that I should have more variations with my shots to create more meaning as well as to characterize the character. When I film, I will have several angles for different scenes as well as different distances from the characters. This can be done through the 3 cameras that we have. I believe this will give the editor more shots to play with and to stimulate a certain feeling and mood.

While for the third source, I found a blog of someone who was doing an informal research on creating meaning. He read a book called, “ The filmmakers eye, Learning (and breaking) the rules of cinematic composition”. I found this source very useful as he reflected on how he could create meaning and explained specific quotes from the book. I will not mimic what he said, but I thought it was a good example of his thought process that I could implement during the planning and production of my film. For instance, the blogger said that a direct connection between the story and the visual composition is curtail. He means that the camera movements must have meanings instilled in them, such as to reveal certain things. This is helpful as it makes me visualized what is needed and predict the expectations of the audience, thus making the film more smooth and effective.


 * Journal 4**

We have changed our film plot. We realized that we were not equally passionate about the plot. I was fully supportive of this decision as I myself was not passionate about this film. It was something that was rush and undeveloped. Our new idea involved a plot with a very small scope. George is the average businessman who is waiting for the bus to get back home. Next to him is a rebellious, punk teenager and a bum who is sleeping. As he waits for the bus, the bum’s sign is blown by the wind into a muddy puddle. George, resorts to pushing the responsibility onto the teenager who is unsurprisingly oblivious. He looks around but with no avail, he decides to help the bum by fixing his sign. While doing that, his bus comes and as an act of good deed, he decides to miss it. The plot twist is that the bum and teenager were acting on a scheme to steal from George.

Our story is still undeveloped and we have a lot of work to catch up on, however, this time I feel more enthusiastic about this film and hopefully we can catch up quickly. I haven’t thought much about adding meaning as I have not gotten the final story but I do have one idea. The conflict within this film is man vs man and while the teenagers’ scheme has already been planned from the very start, George is ignorant about that and is simply carrying out his daily routine. I would like to foreshadow that the teenager is up to no good by using a low depth of field in his point of view shots. This shows that he has something planned out before hand and has his “eyes on the prize”. While for George, I would use a normal depth of field which simulates the average sense perception.

I watched 3 segments on lenses by the Vimeo film school. This was helpful as it had to do with the technical aspect of lenses. The first segment had to do

The other source I used was a YouTube video on camera movement and creating emotion.

So far we have had one filming session so far that went from 8am-2pm on the previous Sunday. It has been a tough start as we have had multiple changes to our story and therefore it became very confusing. We were also a little worried about the location as it is a public place and therefore people might be walking in and out of the shots, however, it did not prove to be that much of a problem. I believe the first filming session overall went well, I was happy with the shots we got and the overall lighting. The tripod panning and the camera tutorials were very useful to me and I was glad to have researched about it. I simply love the result of the shot with the pan from the cup to the 100RMB note. While for lighting, the reflectors proved to be very useful, however, it seems that it is a little unnatural and harsh. I don’t think I’ll be doing much to fix it for now, but should we have the additional time to film, I would re-film that. Another thing I used during filming were the UV filters so I could get a shallow depth of field through a larger aperture. The UV filters helped to bring down the intensity of the light, thus enabling me to shoot with a large aperture. However, this caused the shot’s color became tainted with red, hopefully it can be fixed through color correction.
 * Journal 5**

Currently, we are behind schedule, as we did not film last Sunday. It was raining and therefore it would have hurt our continuity. As a result, we decided to film on thanksgiving which according to the weather forecast, it should be sunny. Another thing about continuity is that of the bum, we took a long time to set the bum up with newspaper and hope that we can have the similar shape and setting we had in the shots. We will set it up according to the pictures we took.

In terms of improvement, I believe more organization and prep work can help us a lot, as we wasted some time in between the shots. At the same time, it was our first filming session so I don’t think it will be a problem the next time we film since we are all familiar. Moreover, William and I have been discussing the shots during this period of time to make sure we film efficiently the next time. Another problem we faced was the SD card that occasionally stopped the recording. I found out that some for the SD cards we had were not compatible with the camera and thus I would have to borrow a couple functional ones.


 * Film theory analysis**