Unit 10 Journals

Wednesday 6th - Friday 8th January 2021 Online lessons

Deep Focus

After briefly mentioning depth of field we moved onto learning about deep focus and its uses within cinema. A deep focus allows the cinamatographer to keep everything in focus, the foreground, middle ground and background. Our teacher showed us a clip out of Citizen Kane that uses deep focus and then set a task for us to find some clips out of films that also use deep focus. I found another clip from Citizen Kane, the infamous clip praised for its blocking and composition, where Kanes parents are speaking at a table while we see a young Kane playing in the snow outside.

Lighting and equipment

Our teacher went over two, three and four point lighting. We looked at photos taken of a scene from a film and had to figure out where the key, fill and backlight was.

• high key lighting
  Minimal use of black and midrange tones, there is a dominance of bright light, can be used on a lot of phtotoshoots and music video sets. It is used to adjust the mood and tone of a scene.

• low key lighting
  Calls for contrast and shadows, it encases the scene in shadow, primarily used in film noir and nowadays in thrillers or horrors.

Practical light- is all of the light within the mise en scene that is meant to be there as part of the set design and story. Barry Lyndon is a good example, the film is mostly lit by candlelight. Basically the light that is meant to be in the shot.

Open faced fixtures- are used for creating hard light and dark shadows, they use tungsten light. Commonly refered to as the Redhead or Blondie, both are examples of open faced fixtures.

HMI lights- Require a high output to recreate sunlight shining into interiors (for example if a filmmaker needs to film a scene set in the morning but currently its night, then they can use a HMI to shine through the window and it will look like it's morning). They are powerful enough to light large areas and are used for exterior lighting also.

LED lights- stands for light emitting diodes, they can be adjusted to different light temperatures and are very efficient as key lights, fill lights and backlights.

Balloon lights - high intensity lamps surrounded by a translucent fabric that softens and diffuses the light, primarily used within the film industry.

Wednesday 20th - 22nd January Online lessons

The objectives for our first Wednesday lesson were

• Basic studio and camera operations

• What does a TV or film Camera operator do?

• What does a vision mixer do?

As an activity our tutor made us research the difference between REC 709 and S-LOG.

I Didn't know what S-LOG or REC-709 was at first and it is quite complex. Initially I understood that S-LOG was about colour profiling and was a fundamental part of cinematography. I found that S-Log captures far more information than standard REC. 709 footage can record, giving you more control over the finished image in post-production. Instead of exposing for highlights or shadows when shooting, you can capture all of this information and choose how you want to display it later. The evolution of camera technology means that the sensors in modern cameras are now capable of matching, or even surpassing, the quality of 35mm film. The problem is that existing video formats don’t support the vast amount of information captured by a modern camera sensor. The result: reduced dynamic range and colour information.

S-Log is a log curve which has been specially optimised for digital motion picture cameras to maximise the performance of the image sensor. S-Log is a gamma curve designed to record and transmit as much of the information recorded by your camera’s sensor as possible. S-Log breathes life into your images by preserving the wide colour gamut and dynamic range recorded by the sensor. Then, in post-production, you create the image you want as part of the grading process, with greater artistic control over the finished product. Cinematographers shooting in the current REC.709 standard have to choose whether to sacrifice detail in the highlights or the shadows. S-Log allows you to retain all of this information.

Normal video footage is shot in the REC.709 colour gamut, but material recorded in S-Log is recorded in the much wider S-Gamut colour space. Put simply, the wider the colour gamut, the more colour information can be recorded and the more vibrant and realistic your images will look.

https://pro.sony/en_GB/technology/s-log#MEAE300829WhatIsSLog-s-log Accessed 24/01/21

Our next lessons objective was to

• Define Editorial, Bias and Objectivity

• Examine Examples of editorial, bias and objectivity

We had to do an activity in which we were divided into groups and had to find out what editorial, bias and objectivity meant to us initially in reference to the media. The exact definitions that we were shown in class are below.

Editorial- The set of guidelines by which the news organisation operates. It includes the news organisations attitudes, policy statements, positions, values and standards. For example each newspaper usually has a political side and is either left wing or right. The way that Donald Trump might be written about in The Guardian a leftist paper, will be different to The Time, a conservative paper.

Objectivity- Not influenced by a person's feelings, interpretations, or prejudice, based on facts; unbiased.

Bias- A particular tendancy towards a trend, inclination, feeling or opinion. For example if someone is having a debate and they cannot back up their opinion with a fact or figure, their opinion will be seen as biased because it's based on their feelings.

The next part of the lesson was to research Mark Duggan and how different news papers documented what happened to him. Mark was a 29 year old british man who was shot and killed by police who were attemtimg to arrest Mark in Tottenham on suspicion of planning an attack and having a weapon on him. Our teacher wanted us to look at the different news articles and news sites that published articles on the event to try and identify any editorial, objectivty or bias. We then moved on to do a different activity in which we looked at a close up cropped photo of Mark that all of the news articles and the news channels used. We all had to say the first words that came to mind when we looked at the photo, words like: hard, smug, dangerous, came up etc. Our teacher then showed us the full photo were mark in fact is holding a heart shaped stone at a funeral. Proving that the news all have an agenda that they want their stories to match, if the un-cropped full photo of mark was shown, the public would have had a different first impression of this man, they would view him as compassionate and kind, not as a gang member or threat. I read a BBC article that was very objective/factual and stated everything that happened on the day that Mark was shot in chronological order including the riots that happened after his death. However they still used the cropped photo of Mark which does have an element of editorial to it because the news wants you to view him in a specific way that fits their agenda.

Wednesday 3rd - 5th of February Online lessons

The first lesson of this week was about how journalism has changed over the years with a focus on documentaries. We looked at a famous Austarlian journalist and documentary film maker called John Richard. We watched a BFI interview in which John talks about how he started in the industry and how strict journalism was, it was disciplined and he was taught to write using the economy of language and accuracy (the theory that fewer words lead to greater clarity), without using cliches, writing had to be spare and precise. These principals shaped his journalism and his understanding of moving images.

After moving to London in the early 60s and working with Reuters and The Daily Mirror, John became chief correspondent and reported from all over the world covering many wars, including Vietnam.

Our teacher made us watch a doumentary about Veitnam made by John Richard early in his career called 'Cambodia Year Zero' and then had to watch one of his most recent documentaries 'The Coming War on China' and discuss the differences, whether that be the technical differences or how the information in the documentary was delivered then and now. Initially the older documentary is of worse visual quality, shot on film and it used photos to accompany what John (the host) was talking about, the documentary had a slower pace because of this and it limited what sources could be shown to accompany the information in the documentary. 'The Coming War on China' is obviously different due to technological advancements in cameras and post production equipment. There are more cut aways, voiceovers, and there is more video footage being shown alongside the host's dialogue. Therefore the pacing of the documentary is quick and we are consuming information at a much faster rate. I found this interesting, it is evident that the rise of technology and mobile phones had made it easier for humans to find and consume information, we have become used to being overstimulated with sound and moving images online and on social media, therefore we can absorb information at a very quick rate, which has changed the way in which we consume media and how films and advertisements are made today. In my opinion the theory of economy of language is not that accurate anymore. A slow paced documentary like 'Year Zero' would not be successful in today's market.

Documentaries fall into a genre of journalism. My interpretation of this lesson was learning about how journalism has changed visually with information being given to us much quicker, and how journalism has become less strict and structured in how it's written and delivered.

Our second Wednesday lesson learning objectives were:
- List what makes a good interview
- examine examples of interviews against this list

We went over the different types of interviews and specifically what makes a good interview.
Does it depend on the type of interview? What should you do? what might change?

The key elements to a good interview is to

• Research and being prepared- Always come prepared with notes, know your subject and the interviewee and what the interviewee might say

• Know your objective- What do you want to get out of the interview? most interviews will have and agenda

• Know when to keep silent and don't interrupt -If as the interviewer you're struggling to interject catch the other person when they breathe or make a small pause.

• Always stay professional and polite

Our next task was to watch an interview that our teacher did at an EDL protest. We were put into groups and had to answer some questions in a document about how we would conduct the interview and what we would ask if we had to conduct and interview at an EDL protest. My answers are listed below.

You are going to an English Defence League (EDL) protest

It is for a TV programme looking at racism in Britain

The programme is documentary-style

You are the host

You want to show what happens at an EDL demo

You want to see what their views are

You want to speak to them about their views on Muslims

What is the objective of the interview?

To find out the EDL’s views on Muslims and their general views on Islam

List 5 things you would research about the EDL to prepare for the interview:

• What is the EDL

• The history of their organisation

• Their purpose

List 5 questions you would ask:

• What is your organisation? what is the EDL?

• What motivated you to join the EDL?

• Do you agree with some of the extremism that has been associated with these demonstrations?

• What is the end goal of the EDL what does it want?

• How do you join the EDL? How do people find members?

List 5 ways you would make this a good interview given the context (look back at the list if you need!)

• have a clear objective and be unbiased

• Don’t involve emotion be editorial you don’t want to anger the demonstrators and ruin the interview