Preliminary Task

Guide to Camera Angles

On Wednesday 5th October we set another practical task. For this task we had a theme (Danger) and we had to include the following shots

• Close up
• Extreme Close up
• Mid Shot
• Dutch
• High Angle
• Low Angle
• Long Shot
• Extreme Long Shot
• Over The Shoulder Angle
• Two-Shot Angle

The hardest shots to produce were 'high angle' and 'dutch angle' as it was hard to get the camera and tripod in the position in which we needed they needed to be.

My partner and I have improved significantly since 'The Switch' task as we took in consideration the light, the effectiveness of each shot, and the length of each shot.

'The Switch' Evaluation

On the 28th of September we were told to make a short film called 'The Switch' it had to consist of 10-12 shots and involve some sort of switch.

My partner and I decided to make a film where we held up various words. The switch that took place was as we switched the words and positions.

The camera was quite straight forward to us once we worked out how to zoom in and out and delete the files if they weren't as desired.

The tripod was similar as once we worked out how to do the different functions such as making it taller and shorter it worked fine.

Story boarding was harder than we thought as it was hard to get what was in our heads on to paper but we managed it in the end. Some of our framing could have been improved as in some shots bit were cut off. Additionally the light effected a lot of our shots as you couldn't read the words when the light was behind us.

• Working Process: 9/10
• Skills: 7/10
• Final Film: 7.5/10

Into to Media

There are two types of Media usage; Active and Passive. Active is where you are active eg. Reading a newspaper. Passive is where you can be doing other things and it doesn't require your full attention eg. Radio. However now you find that the media that was once passive is now active and vise versa. For example television used to be something you would just watch and just space out. However now there are numerous active things you can do with the television. Such as..

• Games
• On demand
• Phone-ins
• Tv Guide

And many others. I find that I will use multiple media devices at once. Such as..

• Radio and Newspaper
• Internet and Television
• Phone and Television
• etc..

I recorded my media usage for a week and the one I found I used the most was Television (21 hours and 30 minutes) Closely followed by internet (20 hours). I often use the television to listen to music either music channels or digital radio channels. In addition to Dramas of various Genres such as..

• Soaps
• Teen Dramas
• Thriller Drams
• etc..

My time I spent on the internet would have been on social networking sites and looking up things for homework and the occasional youtube video. My Magazine usage was mostly reading NME and the odd flick through the newspaper. I spent a mere 30 minutes in a week on reading Magazines and newspapers. I recorded my phone usage as 10 hours. However I probably spent more hours on it as I check it every ten minutes or so. I found that the hardest one to record as you often find your self subconsciously on your phone. Radio was also a hard one to record as I have it on in the mornings and evenings when I am getting ready or doing my homework and it easy to loose track of time. However I put it down for about 2 hours, but now I have looked back it was probably more like five hours. Finally film I put down three hours. I watched two films during the week and seeing as each film is usually about an hour and a half long I assumed 3 hours would be the right amount of time.

In conclusion I found that a lot of my time is spent using some sort of media, whether it is reading a magazine article or watching a film. I spent a total of 57 hours using media in a week which is equivalent to 2 days and nine hours! There are roughly 48 weeks in a year and assuming I used roughly the same amount of media each week it would result in 2736 hours a year which is 114 days! This has shown me that I am reliant on media a lot in my life and without it I do not know what I would do in my spare time.