Comfort Zone

The place I feel most comfortable is amongst my friends and family. When I'm in their company it really feels like home. I am able to feel free to express myself much more freely then I would be if I were in the company of people that I'm not as familiar with.
We took the feeling of feeling comfortable around friends and utilised in our film. We included shots of the main character interacting with her friends, hanging out and having fun. We then contrasted this with the social segregation of the murderous side of this character after she has committed the act.

Production Role - Cinematographer

For our short film task, I will be performing the role of cinematographer. On top of this I also had the responsibility of positioning  the actors where they are required to be in the frame so that the audience gets full effect of their performance and are able to extract meaning. However my role in this film was not limited to just these two aspects. We all worked together to brainstorm the idea for the film until we arrived at a premise that we all agreed would be a simple yet effective. As we are only a group of 5 people which is incredibly small for a collective group with an aim of making a film, we all had to contribute extensively at each stage of the project by supplying feedback etc.

We began by working on the storyboard of the film which was made to make the filming process more efficient. This would in effect leave more time to work on the post production stages. We only wrote a brief script full of stage directions as we planned to film to have no speaking parts, therefore telling the story purely through visuals. However we also added in impromptu direction during the shooting of the film if we felt it was completely necessary and would further enhance the film. To further enhance the efficiency of production we created a call sheet in order to stay organised when shooting. Information that was found on the call sheet included, timings, locations, date of shooting, actors needed on set etc.

After pre production had been completed and we were confident in what we were doing we started shooting. As the cinematographer I had handle the lighting as well as the positioning and formatting on the camera we were shooting with. A lot of the footage was taken outdoors so the majority of the film was shot using natural lighting to illuminate the subject. I was able to monitor the visibility of the shot by looking through the viewfinder of the camera and make sure the conditions were appropriate for the mood of the shot.

Museum Portrait

For this task I visited the national portrait gallery at St Martin's Place in London. I went to this gallery, in expectation to be inspired by the visual techniques the artists may have adopted in their paintings. For example I was interested to experience how they were able to communicate emotion through visuals, and how the artists were able to establish a meaning through one single frame, i.e. the artwork.

As it was the national portrait gallery, I had the opportunity to view first hand many famous portraits that I had learnt about many years before at school, for example the famous King Henry VIIth portrait. As well as century old paintings there were also modern photography installations that I was able to study also.

The one similarity I found between both the paintings and the photography was that the subjects of the image were always positions in the centre of the frame. This tells me that if I was to centralise the audiences attention on one key character, that means I have to ensure the character is based in the centre of the frame throughout the majority of the film. This will ensure that the audience will be able to establish where their centre of attention should lie.

Other examples of cinematographic elements in these paintings were the eye levels of the subjects. On many occasions the eyes were postponed on the upper third of the frame, meaning that the majority of the upper body was also visable to the viewer. This is a common cinematographic technique which allows the audience not only see the expressions in their face but also in the position of their body's also (i.e. body language)
There were other aspects of the eye line present i  a lot of other portraits that I noticed, especially within those which depict past Royals. The eye line tended to be quite far up the frame looking down on the viewer, which assumes a certain sense of power/ authority which is also present in a lot of cinematographic techniques.

In conclusion I believe the trip to the museum has greatly inspired me and has taught me many cinematic techniques which I will be able to utilise in any projects that I may work on in the future. This is thanks to the artwork that had displayed such visual techniques. By becoming more familiar, with the techniques that that were present i the artwork, I feel I'll be able to pick up, recognise and appreciate them more when viewing a film, and then go on to utilise them in my own.

My Role in the Group Film

Portray a Person in their Working enviorment

Photographic Self Portrait