Shots

 What do long shots, medium shots and close up shots mean in relation to each other?

An extreme long shot is used to show the character, but it establishes the scene too. You can see the setting and background. A full shot includes the subject's entire body from head to toe. You can see a bit of background, but that isn't the main focus. A medium shot is around the waist and up. A close up is around the chest and up. An extreme close up will cut off parts of the forehead and chin. This can be very effective at conveying emotion, although you shouldn't shoot laugher like this, as it can be unsettling. The more zoomed in you get, the less you'll understand where the character is, but the more emotion you'll be able to read. A mixture of all of these shots will make sure your audience knows where your subject is in relation to the setting, and will know the subject's emotions. 

Composition

 What are the key differences between full, medium and close up shots?  How does this apply to over the shoulder shots?  Two shots?  How do different lenses affect these shots?

A full shot includes the subject's feet. Don't cut between the persons feet and knees, and it looks awkward. A medium shot cuts from the top of the knees to the waist. Close shot from is from the chest and up, vs the close up which is the person's head. Then, an extreme close up is when you start cutting off the forehead and chin. This applies to over the shoulder shots and two shots as well- the same "rules" apply. The types of shots or framing have nothing to do with the lens. 

Benro Tripod

 What are three key things to remember after watching this video when using the Benro tripod?

It's very important to remember to set your counterbalance correctly. If you don't, when you tilt your camera, your camera will slowly continue to tilt. It won't stay in place. When properly balanced, it'll stay in place when tilted. Something else to remember, is that if your camera's a little heavy, and you're tilting the camera, you're going to want to keep a hand on the tripod so your camera stays in place and doesn't keep tilting. Lastly, remembering to lock your camera is essential. Forgetting to do so can cause your camera to fall of and break. 

Look and Lead Room

 What is look room?  What is lead room?  What are they important to the video you are shooting?

Look room is when there's space in the frame towards the direction your subject is facing. For example, if your talent is looking to screen right, there should be some space on the right side of the screen. Lead room is when you're following a moving object and you leave room in front of it. this is so the object looks like it's actually moving. They're both important so that your subject is framed correctly, and they don't look squished. 

Headroom

 What is headroom? Why is it important to the videos you are making?

Headroom is the face from the top of your talent's head, and the top of the frame. You don't want to leave too much, because your actor is going to look like they're sinking in quick sand. You don't want to just not leave any, or your actor will look squished. If something else in the frame is important, it's okay to cut a bit of the top of the actor's head. 

Hand-holding Camcorders

 What are three key tips to hand-holding your camcorder?  How can you implement these starting today?

1) Pick a good location. This is important so that the lighting and exposure is good, so that it's easier to keep object in focus. When filming, I'll make sure the lighting is even across the whole frame. 

2) Edit your footage after. It'll be important to enhance the quality and reduce shakiness in post just in case. I will be editing my camera scavenger hunt assignment and I'll try to take this advice. 

3) Hold your camera close to your body. If you hold your camera with your arms extended, 1) your arms will get tired quicker, and 2) your footage will be shakier because your arms won't be as steady. When I film today, I'll make sure my camera's as close to my body as possible. 
    i) Relaxing your shoulders will help as well. 

More tips:

4) Don't zoom in too much --> video will be shakier

5) Place camera on shoulder mount and put on shoulder --> steadier 

Composition

 What is headroom?  What is look room? What lead room?  Why are each of these important for your composition?

Look room: When a character is facing a direction, make sure there's room on the screen for them to "look" out to. There's space in front of the direction the characters looking. This means you should frame someone looking screen right on the left side of the screen. If you fail to do this, your character could look trapped or confined.
Lead room: Moving cars and objects need something called lead room. This is space in front of the direction a moving object is going. For example, a car driving screen right needs space on the right side of the frame, so it looks like the car is actually moving somewhere and has somewhere to go.
Head room: The amount of space above a person's head and the top of the frame. If you leave too much space, the character will look like they're sinking. Leave too much head room, and the character will look squished. Don't be too concerned with cutting off the top of the person's head, but their neck and a bit of their shoulders should probably be in the frame. 

Gain

 What is gain in video?  What is it used for?  What are some risks using it?

Gain is the relative difference between the input and output video signal. It's usually used to lighten videos. You have to be careful with increasing the gain though, because you may get a brighter video, but at the cost of it being grainy. 

ND Filter

 What is an ND filter?  Why should you use an ND filter while shooting video?  

n ND filter is like a pair of sunglasses for your camera. There's different levels of ND filter that you can apply. On some cameras, there's a built in ND filter, and on others you'll have to buy an exterior one. You should use an ND filter while shooting video because you don't want your video to be overexposed. 

Exposure

 What are the key principles needed to control the exposure of your image? What does each of them do?

The main kew principles needed to control the expose of your image include aperture/iris, shutter speed, iso/gain, and nd filters. Iris is how big the hole letting light into your camera is, shutter speed is how long the sensor will gather light for the image, iso is how sensitive the sensor is to light, and an nd filter is like a pair of sunglasses for your camera- it reduces the amount of light entering the lens. 

Focus And Exposure

 What do focus and exposure do? How do you check to see if your subject is in focus when shooting? How do you check to make sure your subject is exposed correctly?

If a subject is in focus, then the subject is clear. This is what you want. You can check if your subject is in focus by zooming into their eyes, and making sure their eyes are focused. Then zooming back out. To get the exposure right, set it to auto, and then back to manual for you to adjust yourself. Overtime, you'll get better at adjusting it yourself. You know your subject is properly exposed if your subject isn't too bright or dark, and the background isn't too bright or dark- but your subject is always more important and should come first. 

Focusing

 Why is focusing important?  What is the best way to focus a video camera?

Pay constant attention to the focus when filming. It's important to pay attention to your focus so your subject is clear and not fuzzy. The best way to focus is to zoom in to your subject, and then adjust to their EYES (if it's a human). When you zoom in without focusing, your subject will go out of focus. So it's important to zoom in, focus, then zoom out however much you want, so you're free to zoom and your subject will stay in focus. 

Horror Story Reflection

 How did your Horror Filmmaking Challenge go over the week?  What were some of the challenges that you encountered?  How did you overcome them?  What do you still have left to do?

I think it went pretty well. I acted and I edited the film. I think the most challenging thing was trying to trim down the video to fit into the time frame. I fear that the video can't be trimmed down anymore, because the story won't be told properly.  Finding good music was also pretty tricky and required a lot of patience. Trying to coordinate with my group was also tricky, as I noticed we all had different levels of commitment. 

White Balance

 What is white balance? What color is outside lighting vs. inside lighting? Why is it important to white-balance your camera?

You want to white balance anytime the lighting condition changes. Such as when you move indoors to outdoors, turn on some more lights, etc. Always do it just to be sure. There's no such thing as over-white balance. It's important to white balance so that you can see your subject clearly, and nothing looks over exposed and the colors are true to themselves. 

Key features of the Sony FS5

 What are some key features of the Sony FS5 camcorder? What are three things you'd like to learn more about it in detail?

- One of the features I noticed, was that if you're just starting out with the camera, you can select full auto mode.
- There's also an auto focus feature.
- You can also adjust the ND filter with a knob.
- There's a built in audio source, but you can plug your own in too.

- I'd like to learn more about how to use all these buttons, and know when to use them.
- I'd curious as to what an XLR is
- I also had no idea what any of the setting in the setting in the display set meant, so I'm curious to learn about those.

3 Camera Goals

 Take some time and type up three goals that you have to complete during this unit. How do you plan on accomplishing these?

1) Learn how to set up a camera's settings and tripod for any scene. To do this, I want to learn exactly what every setting does, and fully understand all the concepts.

2) Understand how to fix up camera settings for different lighting. Take effective notes in class. 

3) Not forget any simple steps. Understand why everything has to happen in the specific order. 

Three Techniques

 Summarize the three techniques that he taught in this lesson? What is a way you could use each of these individual techniques going forward with your video's that you create?

Not only can you adjust the speed of a clip, you can select the specific places in the clip you'd like to speed up or slow down. You can also adjust the speed at which the clip can be slowed down or sped up. If you want a gradual speed change, or a fast one, you can change that. You can also make a singular clip go backwards or forwards in the same menu as your speed changes. These techniques are helpful, as there's plenty of customization in the speed changes. In future projects, I'm excited to use the backwards/forward video setting while doing slow motion to replay an important clip.