Light meters

Light metering

Reflective:

Measures reflected light from the subject from a light source.

Lumi-grid: used for reflective metering. near the camera.

IS inbuilt light meter in camera.



Incidental:

Takes a reading of light intensity.

Lumi-Sphere - used to measure light overall near the subject

Lumi-disk - Used for measuring strengths of individual lights.


Spot:

reflective metering principals but the angle of view is very narrow.


Lightmeter uses measurements of Foot Candles.


Light meter test:

For the WS I exposed from what the Incidental Lightmeter was saying exactly for the scene:

This was good overall but was not good for exposing the face.

For the MCU I over exposed by one stop so the skin tones were sitting in Zone VI. this worked really well.

Zone System

The scale between pure Black and Pure White.

Pure Black

Middle grey

Pure White

Zone system is divided into 11 zones the distance between the zones is one stop and one exposure value:

Zone 0 Pure Black

Zone I

Zone II

Zone III

Zone IV

Zone V Middle Grey

Zone VI

Zone VII

Zone VIII

Zone IX

Zone X: Pure white

1 Exposure Value:
One F-stop for appirtue
Half or double the shutter speed
Half or double the ISO

Film Noir

• American film style from 1940’s & 50’s
• Influenced by German expressionism (use of hard light/shadows etc.)
• Detective, thriller, murder mystery films.
• Film Noir Influenced many modern films such as, The Dark Knight (2008), Watchmen (2009), and Sin City (2005)

Some framing techniques that are used in Film Noir:

High Angles:

Give a feeling of loneliness,

minority and exposure.

Low Angles:

Help emphasise authority our superiorness

Dutch Tilts:

• Give a feeling of uneasiness, disorientation, and confusion.

Camera Movement

• Moving from object to object to help viewer get into the mindset of hero 
• Pan shots, Diagonal Pan, tilt shots very common.
• Moving the camera in ways that enhance the dark mood.
• Lot of character tracking shots. Use of dolly.

Colour

• Film Noir is monochrome 
• has hard blacks and strong whites 
• High contrast image

Lighting

• One key light with an optional fill light often a simple reflector.
• Came from chiaroscuro painting style (Renaissance period)
• High lighting ratio (high contrast).
• Provokes strong emotions for the viewer.
• Use of patterned shadows and silhouette
• Use of Smoke

Lens

• Wide Lenses (Around 17-55mm) 
• Small Aperture

Motion capture

Motion Capture is the art of filming real life human beings with markers on there bodies that they can be made as a reference for animators to make all the movement real and believable.

Uncanny valley: the point where animated human like robots or animations look almost life like but not enough so they look strange to the human eye.

An example of this is in Star wars Rogue one:

Psychology of camera

How to enhance feeling/emotion

Framing subjects
looking room and head room, giving emotion to the picture.

Creating expectation.

No looking room?

Space above the head?

excessive background?

excessive foreground?

Contrast subject with elements of frame

Boxing subject into the frame with elements.


Two subjects shot, reverse shot wide lens Long lens comparison
inside or outside the circle of communion:

Hand Held - uneasy, panic, stressful, urgency

Tripod - steadiness, calm, security, power


Movement
Dolly in/push in - highlights importance, revelations.

Dolly out/pull out - Leaving the scene, closure, isolation, distanciation.

Camera Height
Above subject disempowers talent.
Below subject empowers talent giving authority.

(Camera movement tutorial)

Shutter angle
Fast shutter - 90deg - crisp images - heightens sensors

Story Boards

Storyboard purpose:
To plan out shots, sequencing, give ideas about framing, composition, camera movement, lens, idea of locations, pictorial representation of the story/naritive.

When to use a stroy board?
CGI, VFX, Animation, action sequences, TV commercials, short films.

British New Wave

British New Wave

Free Cinema was founded in 1956 by a group of young filmmakers and critics. Free Cinema Manifesto stated a belief in freedom the importance if people and significance of everyday.

Free cinema movement led to the British New Wave which were a series of films 1959 - 1965

Influenced by the French New Wave and Italian Neorealist films. films utilized unknown actors who used their regional accents shooting on location.

The British New Wave influenced later films in the 1990's which addressed underclass cultures with stories about individuals and communities struggling to exist outside the mainstream.

An example of films that have been influenced by this style of focusing on underclass would be Cidade De Deus: