SHOOTING YOUR FILM: Basic Camera Techniques. Keith Ingram. PLANNING
YOUR SHOOT. You have a fantastic idea! Congratulations, you are very lucky!
SHOOTING YOUR FILM: Basic Camera Techniques Keith Ingram
PLANNING YOUR SHOOT You have a fantastic idea! Congratulations, you are very lucky! Right about now, you probably have amazing images flying around inside your massively creative, hugely talented brain, of how your finished film will look. You might have locations organised, actors rehearsing, dynamite charged (probably not...). Nonetheless, if you are not familiar with camerawork you probably have one overriding concern... where is the bar? Or more sensibly, as your future oscar depends on it... How do I get the fantastic film I have in my head “in the can” / “down on tape” / “on the card”? The first thing you have to do is panic... Actually, you might as well do it now, go on have a big old panic, nice and early. It is very likely that you have a perception of how difficult film-making is, particularly using the technology, that is hugely exaggerated. If you have learned to drive a car you would have probably had that same feeling before your first lesson. It is important that you identify the concerns you have, and address them, because with the many pressures that can surround you on the shoot you might find yourself unable to concentrate on problems. So indulge a panic... let your worst fears wash over you and then get a pen and write them down before the shoot, away from the actors, and before you light any dangerous fuses! Let’s try and guess some of what you might have written down:
How do I make the camera work? How does all the equipment connect together? What if it breaks down? Do I have enough tape or memory cards? How long do the batteries last? Why does the water go the other way down the plughole below the equator? How do I choose my shots? Do I need to understand white balance, contrast, exposure, focus, shutter speed?
These are all relevant questions, and not ones you want to be making on the day of filming. There are a lot of ways of reducing the stress burden upon you, particularly ahead of filming, and most of these ways involve some simple, straightforward preparation.
GET YOUR KIT EARLY It is likely that you are going to be borrowing or hiring expensive kit. This can mean time is of a premium and you will feel under pressure to minimise how long you have it or feel desperate to get out and start filming as soon as you get your grubby paws on it! Please take a moment to consider how beneficial it would be to be completely ready and confident with your kit before the shoot begins. It can be very destructive to an efficient shoot for the film-maker to start panicking around
the kit or doubting that they are using it correctly. Time getting the camera connected to the monitor, batteries or sound kit is never wasted, you will be more comfortable and creative on the shoot if you have faith in your kit and in your own abilities!
So, before the shoot: Find a manual for your equipment. This will tell you everything you need to know about your equipment and answer many of the questions you will have. And even though you might know how to use the camera or sound kit, sometimes your wits will escape you under pressure. Knowing the manual is there will ease your mind! Charge all the batteries Meters are misleading. (if you don’t know how long a battery lasts, run one dry on their relevant equipment to get an estimate, then charge it up again to test the charger!) Check all the cables and connections This means plug them in, check they are working and give them a little wiggle in case they have a loose connection which could soon develop into a total failure… Don’t forget to take spares if possible, which you will also have tested of course! Check you have enough stock (tapes), discs, cards or whatever you are recording on to! Try and estimate in minutes how much footage you will shoot and make sure you exceed that amount in whatever media you will use for your shoot. It is always worth checking if there are other sources for that media in the vicinity of your shoot, just in case you get stuck! Is your kit clean and dry? Make sure there is no dirt or moisture on your kit - functionality of kit can depend on it. Obviously, dirt on your lens could be visible in your finished film, but there are many ways dirt and water can ruin your shoot. If it’s not clean when you get it, clean and dry your kit very carefully, according to the instructions in the manuals. Be very, very careful when cleaning lenses and only do it if they are dirty, because a scratch on the lens can be impossible to fix! Put your camera on its tripod and balance it The most common mistakes made on shoots are probably the simplest. Sometimes two bits of kit are incompatible. If the tripod has come from another shoot it could have different screws on the plate than fit into the bottom of your camera so always check this. Attach the camera to the tripod plate Level the tripod head (the chunky top part that allows you to pan and tilt the camera) using the big knob underneath it that connects the tripod head to the tripod legs and by looking at the little spirit level bubble on the head at the same time. Now slide the camera (on the tripod plate) onto the tripod head until it locks in. Once it is locked in you should then slide the camera forward and backwards in the groove until you find it to be weighted equally front and back. (You may have to reposition the tripod plate on the camera in some cases).
This would not be a bad time to get used to moving the camera around on the tripod and looking at the results if you have time. There will likely be drag settings that will assist you in smoothly panning (moving from side to side) and tilting (moving up & down). These will be adjustable on the tripod head, alongside the locking controls for both. Get used to locking both the pan and tilt before you walk away from the tripod as it could easily cause it to tip over and fall in your absence! Protection for your kit Have you got weather protection for your kit? If you are filming outside in Scotland you can take nothing for granted. Water kills electronics, and salt water is even worse! Get the appropriate cases and raincovers for your shoot! Also, does your equipment come in boxes ready for travelling? You are responsible for making sure the expensive equipment is looked after, if you intend to put it in the back of a car or even stack it up in a pile make sure the bags or boxes are up to it or don’t take the risk! Check what you need to deliver on It will always be possible to find out what video/audio settings you need for your shoot because there will be standards for delivery. For the FilmG competition you should check the technical specification on the website. It is possible to exceed the specifications for quality and convert the footage at the end so that you have a master that is more flexible, however, it could be slower and more expensive to edit with.
The following may not be covered in the technical specifications, but you should still consider RESOLUTION (the amount of dots/pixels the picture is made up of) Important for the “output” medium, for example a web video has considerably less resolution than an HD film or a cinema release. This can be measured by the height element only in video for instance 1080p is 1080 lines high of dots or pixels and the p indicates “progressive” (see below) PROGRESSIVE OR INTERLACE? This refers to two different ways of making a moving video image. To hugely simplify.. progressive is more consistent with a cinematic “filmic” look but can be distracting in shoots with fast camera moves or objects in the frame which move quickly. It could be a creative choice but can be mimicked by a fancy edit suite if necessary. Progressive is perhaps better suited to drama than sport for instance but neither can be wrong. It is however expected that the whole project be shot either progressive or interlace as sometimes cutting between the two can be uncomfortable. ASPECT RATIO (the shape of the picture - measured as the ratio between width and height) Usually 16:9 these days. This means 16 wide by 9 high and is the shape of the huge majority of widescreen TV screens produced at the moment. FORMAT (the “kind” of video you are delivering) There are many ways video is recorded and they have different names and characteristics. Usually the camera will record in one particular format, for instance you can record in Digibeta, HDV, DVC Pro and many others. It is important to check that your video format is suitable for your edit suite and especially for delivery.
It is possible that these settings will be entered into the camera by the people who provided you with the kit or you may have to have a look at the camera manual to locate where the relevant menu settings are. If you expect someone else to do it make sure you have given them the correct information, and even then, make sure the settings are correct when you get the kit! So! Spend that time with your kit, set it all up together, do recording and playback tests, charge batteries and check it through thoroughly. If you have not used a bit of kit before, how can you really relax and trust it? NB. You know those big budget films you see at the cinema? The ones with all the best kit and crew in the world? Guess what? They all have exactly the same concerns as you and do thorough kit preparation before every single job...
WHAT SHOTS DO YOU NEED? If you have an idea of how you are going to build a sequence in the edit you can plan your shoot better. If you watch similar films to your own you can see there is a “language” of combining different shots together to tell a story. Usually these shots allow the viewer to see what’s important and allow the film-maker to edit the story in the most effective way. The way you choose and combine these shots is one of the ways that your own perspective will be imposed onto the end result. There is however a traditional approach which we are so used to seeing as a viewer and that we usually don’t even notice it. It’s almost like the punctuation in a book, we use it so often and we are so familiar with it that unless we try to notice it, we forget it is even there. On the shoot we would endeavor to cover a selection of shots and angles of the action based on the following list, so that we have creative flexibility in the edit. These shots connect together so comfortably that a viewer will ignore the way they have been achieved and be convinced that what they are watching is seamless, real and not a film shoot!
The wide or establishing shot
This can often be the first shot in a scene. It tells us where we are and who we are with, and importantly where they are in relation to each other. In this scene there are two people, they are facing each other across a desk with a window behind them.
(It is entirely possible this shot was not the first thing that was filmed - don’t be afraid to shoot out of sequence as long as you make sure you get all the shots you need to tell your story well.)
We will now move the camera twice so that we can get a good look at what our characters are saying or experiencing. In most cases we can have covered all of their dialogue and performance in these three shots. What this allows you to do in the edit is cut back and forth between these shots, depending on what you feel is most important.
These two shots are called singles because one person is featured, and they are close-up singles because we are concentrating on their faces. When two people are looking at each other we would shoot both at the same size so they fit comfortable against each other in the edit.
Let’s take a moment to think about where to position the camera to achieve these balanced shots.
Camera position 3
Camera position 2
CLOSE-UP SINGLE
CLOSE-UP SINGLE
Camera position 1 WIDE SHOT
As you can see, the camera was moved around quite a bit, but when these shots are edited together we won’t feel like we are jumping around because we are used to the convention of watching in this way. If you are not used to shooting you may feel filming in this way is unnatural, but it does work! Have a think about what you would achieve by filming this scene from different angles. What would it be like to film all of the different shot sizes from position one? What happens, for example, if you shoot position 2 closer to position 1, but leave 3 where it is? (think about where the characters eyes would be looking and how the shots would match together) Until you are confident with breaking the rules it is very important to remember convention and to balance your matching shots against each other. If you shoot over the character’s shoulder in position 2, do the same in position 3. Remember that if character one is looking out of the left of frame, then the matching reverse shot has to have them looking out of the right of frame. This gives the viewer the feeling that the characters are talking to each other, even when only one of them is seen. If you decide to shoot out of balance the convention is broken and the viewer no longer knows where people are placed in relation to each other.
Variations:
If one of the characters has something to say which is more important or more emotional, you can highlight this by moving in closer to that character.
If an action reveals something about the character you can make sure you have a wider shot to include it. (Does the fact that he’s fidgeting with his pencil mean he could be uncomfortable, or perhaps he’s lying?)
A FEW BASIC EXPLANATIONS
Colour balance Our eyes can tell if something is white even if coloured light is reflecting off it. A camera can’t. We show the camera what is white in any given lighting situation by doing a white balance. You should do this in each new location on your shoot. Most sources of white light actually produce slightly orange or slightly blue light. A candle would be one of the “warmest” or most orange producers of “white” light. The sky would be one of the most blue or “coldest” producers of white light. Exposure The amount of light required to produce the image, which is directly controlled by aperture, shutter speed and the available light. Correctly exposed images have detail and colour, underexposed images have less detail and tend to black, while overexposed images have less detail and tend to white. Contrast The relationship between the dark and the light areas of the image. Our eyes handle contrast significantly better than cameras do, so in order to make convincing video images which appear realistic we have to control the contrast in the image. This can be done by controlling the balance of light in a location by adding it to dark areas or by removing it from bright areas. Focus All cameras use a lens which selectively bends light to a given point to produce an image. We can choose which points in the image appears “sharpest” by setting the lens to bend light from a particular distance. This happens by turning the focus barrel to a point where the relevant object becomes clear and defined. Shutter To make video, still images are knitted together to convince the human eye that there is movement. This can be achieved in different ways, but consistently. The timeframe for each individual still image is controlled by the shutter. If the shutter is “open” for a longer time, more light gets in, but objects which are moving also have enough time to blur. If the shutter is “open” for a shorter time, less light gets in, but moving objects are sharper and less blurry. Generally you will set your shutter to 1/50th of a second for a normal video shoot. It is possible to use the shutter for creative effect but you must do so only when you understand the implications. A good bit of further investigation for you if you are keen!
ON THE DAY
Choose Your Location It is tempting to walk around looking through the viewfinder for a nice shot, but the reality is that you won’t know what kit you need until you have the right location, so take me advice, save time and effort by doing a recce first, then once you know what you want you can just carry the kit you need up the five flights of stairs! Consider the following –
What does the director want? Do you have control over light? Is it noisy? Is it relevant? How much tim will it take to set up? Is there an alternative that would be easier / better?
Communicate Now that you know what you are trying to achieve and roughly how long it will take, communicate that with the rest of the team. Make sure that your plan is achievable and acceptable as this prevents confusion. Confusion causes stress and stress causes mistakes. Now you have a job to do and that job may take time, so encourage everyone who doesn’t need to be there to go and get a cup of tea while you get everything set up – and remind then to get you one too! Set up your equipment Concentrate! Only do one thing at a time and make sure you check everything. It is very easy to make assumptions at this stage, so if you are not confident work your way through this list –
Is there a tape / card in the camera, is it long enough, and do you have more? Is your battery charged enough, and do you have a spare? Is your tripod balanced and level? Have you done your white balance? Is sound taken care of? Have you controlled the contrast? Will what you are about to shoot fit with everything else you will shoot, will it work in the edit? Is your shot what the director wants?
At this point it might be a good idea to get a willing volunteer to sit in the shot (if appropriate) so you can check everything before you get the real actor / interviewee in. If you, and the director, are happy with the shot, then you’re ready for the contributor. It’s always good practice to have rehearsal before you start recording, this not only checks that everything works, but it also helps everyone to relax a little before the first take. Now you’re ready to Turn Over! Good luck and remember to enjoy it!
