Lesson #1: Eyes On Third I am a softball player that comes from a family of softball and baseball players. In my mind when I hear the words, "eyes on third," this means to watch third base because the runner on second is going to steal. This is not what I mean by eyes on third in this post. If you are a softball/baseball player, calm down. There is no runner making a break for third. I repeat there is no runner. In this case the only thing running is the camera. And when said camera is capturing a shot of a person their eyes need to bee in the top third line on the screen if it were divided into a grid. This is helpful in the sense that it allows a viewer to almost feel as if they are speaking to the person being filmed. Lesson #2: There is no such thing as shooting too much B-roll You must shoot plenty of B-roll. B-roll is a shot or multiple shots of a space or thing to play over a soundbite in order to help tell a story. Having Plenty of B-roll gives you more room to be creative and altogether tells a more interesting story than a camera in someone's face. Lesson #3: Always leave talking space This is very important. When a person being interviewed is not given any talking space or empty space in the shot is not given in order for the person to talk into it feels very awkward. It is almost as if this person is directly in your face talking at you. This is very distracting and a glaringly obvious error. Lesson #4: ALWAYS have headphones One of the unsung heroes of the film world is whoever first put a headphone jack on the side of a camera. The headphone jack is one of the most important parts of the camera, it gives you the power to check your audio as you shoot. If you were to happen to forget you headphones and not a single bit of sound was picked up you wouldn't know until you went to edit and then you'd have to reshoot your interview. You never want to reshoot interviews. One, its disrespectful or the interviewee's time and it's less authentic than the first time you shot it. Lesson #5: SPOILER ALERT...you're not Edgar Wright. For those of you who are not familiar with Edgar Wright, he is a director and a very famous one at that. Edgar Wright is known for his infamous jump-cuts. There is a key difference between Edgar Wright and the rest of us, when he does jump cuts they are cinematic genius when we do jump cuts they look like a video that a fourth grader made for their mom. Unless your birth certificate reads Edgar Wright, stay away from the jump cut. Thanks for tuning in! This is Caroline Washington, signing off.
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AuthorCaroline M. Washington is a student who blogs about films. Archives
May 2019
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