The 10 ideas for your animation are due by the beginning of class!
Film & Animation
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Digital Video Resolution
Camera Angle
Eye Level
An eye-level shot is the most basic type of shot and involves simply picking up a camera or video recorder and taking a straight-on, eye-level photograph. This technique is the most common shot used by photographers, seen in many casual pictures, such as family photos or vacation shots.
High Angle
A high-angle shot involves taking a photograph from someplace above a subject at a diagonal angle. This type of angle may make a subject look smaller or even childlike.
Low Angle (Worms Eye)
A low-angle shot is the opposite of the high-angle shot. In a low-angle shot, the photographer is below the subject and takes a photograph looking up at the subject. This angle is often used to make a subject appear larger, taller or more powerful.
Bird's Eye
This type of shot is similar to the high-angle shot in that the photographer is situated above the subject. However, unlike a high-angle shot, a bird's eye shot looks straight on at a subject rather than using an angle. This type of shot is used to achieve very dramatic images.
Slanted
A slanted shot, or dutch tilt, is where the camera is tilted to the side to give the horizon a unique, angled appearance. This is a popular shot for movie stills and in magazines as it portrays a hip, edgy feeling in the photograph
Camera Movement
Camera Point of View (POV)
Close-Ups
A close-up (abbreviated "CU") is when the camera focuses on just one character's face or other part of him, taking up the entire frame. These shots are used often when a character is talking, because it puts the viewer in an almost face-to-face context. When the camera zooms directly into part of a person's face or body, so that the frame shows nothing but his body, this is an extreme close-up, or ECU. Going in the opposite direction, a medium close-up (MCU) is halfway between a standard CU and a mid-shot--which shows part of the scene and the subject.
Wide Shots
Wide Shots Abbreviated (WS) give a great view of the entire area your subject is standing in, and you can see the person's entire body against the backdrop of his setting. As the camera zooms out, making the person almost unrecognizable but giving a good view of the entire area, it becomes a VWS, or very wide shot. Finally, an extreme wide shot (EWS) takes the camera out so that you can't even see the subject, but gives the viewer a clear picture of where the viewer is supposed to be--these are generally used as establishing shots. VWS are generally taken from cranes, so they're sometimes called crane shots, and EWS can be taken from helicopters and called aerial shots.
Multiple People Shots.
Conversations between two people require a special camera angle to capture the intimacy of the conversations. A two shot (TS) is the most common way to show conversation: place both subjects in the same mid-shot. The next most familiar style is the over-the-shoulder shot, or OSS, which looks at the talking subject from the listener's perspective, quite literally over his shoulder. Some camera operators also set up the noddy shot, which is most common in interviews, and is taken from the perspective of the interviewee.
POV
The first-person perspective is a useful way to put the audience almost directly in the character's shoes. The POV shot is pretty much what the character would see--as if she is actually holding the camera herself. POV, meaning point-of-view, shots are often used to heighten the intensity of a scenario.
Weather Shots
If the subject is the weather itself, it is referred to as a weather shot. These images give the viewer a moment's reprieve from the action or drama of the film as well as establishing what's going on in the world around them. If the weather is wet and rainy, that will affect the mood of the film overall; a bright, shiny day on the other hand lightens the mood.
Camera Movement
A director may choose to move action along by telling the story as a series of cuts, going from one shot to another, or they may decide to move the camera with the action. Moving the camera often takes a great deal of time, and makes the action seem slower, as it takes several second for a moving camera shot to be effective, when the same information may be placed on screen in a series of fast cuts. Not only must the style of movement be chosen, but the method of actually moving the camera must be selected too. There are seven basic methods:
1. Pans
A movement which scans a scene horizontally. The camera is placed on a tripod, which operates as a stationary axis point as the camera is turned, often to follow a moving object which is kept in the middle of the frame.
2. Tilts
A movement which scans a scene vertically, otherwise similar to a pan.
3. Dolly Shots
Sometimes called TRUCKING or TRACKING shots. The camera is placed on a moving vehicle and moves alongside the action, generally following a moving figure or object. Complicated dolly shots will involve a track being laid on set for the camera to follow, hence the name. The camera might be mounted on a car, a plane, or even a shopping trolley (good method for independent film-makers looking to save a few dollars). A dolly shot may be a good way of portraying movement, the journey of a character for instance, or for moving from a long shot to a close-up, gradually focusing the audience on a particular object or character.
4. Hand-held shots
The hand-held movie camera first saw widespread use during World War II, when news reporters took their windup Arriflexes and Eyemos into the heat of battle, producing some of the most arresting footage of the twentieth century. After the war, it took a while for commercially produced movies to catch up, and documentary makers led the way, demanding the production of smaller, lighter cameras that could be moved in and out of a scene with speed, producing a "fly-on-the-wall" effect.This aesthetic took a while to catch on with mainstream Hollywood, as it gives a jerky, ragged effect, totally at odds with the organized smoothness of a dolly shot. The Steadicam (a heavy contraption which is attached a camera to an operator by a harness. The camera is stabilized so it moves independently) was debuted in Marathon Man (1976), bringing a new smoothness to hand held camera movement and has been used to great effect in movies and TV shows ever since. No "walk and talk" sequence would be complete without one. Hand held cameras denote a certain kind of gritty realism, and they can make the audience feel as though they are part of a scene, rather than viewing it from a detached, frozen position.
5. Crane Shots
Basically, dolly-shots-in-the-air. A crane (or jib), is a large, heavy piece of equipment, but is a useful way of moving a camera - it can move up, down, left, right, swooping in on action or moving diagonally out of it. The camera operator and camera are counter-balanced by a heavy weight, and trust their safety to a skilled crane/jib operator.
6. Zoom Lenses
A zoom lens contains a mechanism that changes the magnification of an image. On a still camera, this means that the photographer can get a 'close up' shot while still being some distance from the subject. A video zoom lens can change the position of the audience, either very quickly (a smash zoom) or slowly, without moving the camera an inch, thus saving a lot of time and trouble. The drawbacks to zoom use include the fact that while a dolly shot involves a steady movement similar to the focusing change in the human eye, the zoom lens tends to be jerky (unless used very slowly) and to distort an image, making objects appear closer together than they really are. Zoom lenses are also drastically over-used by many directors (including those holding palmcorders), who try to give the impression of movement and excitement in a scene where it does not exist. Use with caution - and a tripod!
7. The Aerial Shot
An exciting variation of a crane shot, usually taken from a helicopter. This is often used at the beginning of a film, in order to establish setting and movement. A helicopter is like a particularly flexible sort of crane - it can go anywhere, keep up with anything, move in and out of a scene, and convey real drama and exhilaration — so long as you don't need to get too close to your actors or use location sound with the shots.
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