Camera Angles and Shot Types (Relating to The Exchange Student)

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Technical experiments

We will be filming our horror trailers on Cannon EOS 550D  camera/video camera's which provide high definition quality. The camera comes with a range of lenses which do different things, for example, extend the zoom, and focus on the focal ranges. 

The Focal lenses make, whether an image or a video, focus on one particular person or object which is usually highlights the significance of the shot or scene. The person or subject will be in full focus in a very clear image and the background or setting will be blurred out to a degree of your choice. The camera has many degrees of which it can be blurred. This is called 'Field of View Crop '

Features

18 MP APS-C CMOS sensor DIGIC 4 ISO 100-6400, H:12800 Up to 3.7fps shooting Full HD movies 7.7cm (3.0”) 3:2 Clear View LCD with 1,040k dots iFCL metering Quick Control screen Ext. Mic socket Movie crop This is the video we have produced by practicing and testing a more technical camera such as this one. DEVELOP

Theodor Adorno

Theodor Adorno developed a theory which argued that capitalism fed people with the products of  a 'culture industry' which is the opposite to true art in his eyes. This was mostly used just to keep the audience passively satisfied and politically apathetic.



Popular culture was identified as the reason for people's passive satisfaction and lack of interest in overthrowing the capitalist system.


Adorno suggested that culture industries churn out a debased mass of unsophisticated, sentimental products which have replaced the more 'difficult' and critical art forms which might lead people to actuallyquestion social life.


Adorno said that these were all peoples false needs which were practically taking over peoples actual lives,False needs are cultivated in people by the culture industries. These are needs which can be both created and satisfied by the capitalist system, and which replace people's 'true' needs - freedom, full expression of human potential and creativity, genuine creative happiness.


Applied.
Theodor Adornos theory is basically saying that almost all forms of media such as films TV programs are false needs which humans have in their lives which are created by culture industries. They are the opposite to 'true needs' which are social values and classical values such as shakespeare. 
The question he would ask us is if our trailer and movie campaign is cultivating the theory of False needs and Commodity Fetishism. Our trailer is cultivating these needs. New movies are obviously trying to make a profit and aims for the audience to purchase our goods and services. They are false needs as we apply our campaign to the uses and gratification theory in which it would most likely fall under the category of diversion as it is an escapism of every day lives, a hobby to go and watch a movie and enjoy being thrilled by the genre of horror.



Theodor Adorno's theory is developed further  on http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-ador.htm

Camera angles, Shot types research.

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Planning Shots In The Exchange Student.

All shots must signify a specific convention within trailers, especially horror. For instance, a Low angled long shot would infer that the protagonist is dominating the scene and holds some sort of power on the other hand a high angled mid shot would signify that the protagonist is rather inferior and holds no power or hardly any power as he/she is being looked down on by the camera.

This is a breif outline of the shot types and scenes we have so far

This is a detailed plan of which shots (in order) we will shoot stating the Location Camera movement, Camera angle, Camera shot, and length of actual shot (How long will the shot progress in the trailer for)

We did this so we can know exactly which shots signify what and so we can use it throughout filming to use as a plan.

Story-boarding The Exchange Student

Story board of the exchange student. This is a basic plan of what scenes , shot types, framing will be present in our trailer. Text on screen is also in a few scenes to outline the story line and use the 

conventions of a trailer.

these images were drew on paper then scanned in

We have used the following conventions in our story board.

• Production/distribution companies in the first 2 shots 
• Establishing shot of the main setting of the movie in the third shot to establish to the audience what kind of horror film it will be (teen high school horror)
• Montage (as used in many trailers such as honey and the Orphan)
• Pans, camera movement.
• Follows  the Todrov theory (except the ending is not revealed and trailer end when equilibrium has peaked and mood is very much unsettled)
• Text on screen
• Title near the end with slogan 'coming soon'
• A wide range of long, mid and close up shots
• fade outs.

Practicing shooting a Horror scene

The task was to film a sequence of 8 shots which were revolved around the subject of 'doors' however this had to be something that would preferably fit into a horror sequence. Whilst filming we had to also focus of lighting, framing, pace, shot type, camera angle and length We chose to film our sequence of 8 shots in the bottom of the staircase in school. We chose this location especially because the lighting is very low and it seems dark and eerie which is perfect for a horror scene. 

We used a Canon Legryder video camera.

The scenes we shot were all in the same place, same person, and same actions. However, we changed the angle, shot type, framing and camera movement. 

This video contains the original shots we did, even the faulty ones which went wrong and we  had to re-take. 

We included a close up of his feet in the shot, to create suspense and build tension as it is a mystery whose feet they are. We also did a shot from a high angle to convey significance of the mystery male with his hood up. We shot a long shot of him walking towards the door; this acts as a form of establishing shot of the setting and where the actor is heading for. All the shots we prepared were significant and convey some kind of horror meaning. We didn't cut the shot until the door had closed because when the door closed it made a loud banging noise which could potentially startle the audience and break the eerie silence 

When we had finished shooting our 8 shots, we moved on to the editing process. We edited our sequence in 'Adobe Premier PRO CS3' which allowed us to explore a range of techniques.

Here are some screen Grabs of the actual process and me editing and putting together a proper sequence. 

Whilst playing the whole recording of 'doors' we I would press the key 'I' which symbolized 'in' which allowed me to mark where I wanted it to be cut from and 'O' which symbolized 'Out' which allowed me to mark where i wanted to cut the video out. When this was cut, we would drag it down to the bottom which was a frame to create the actual sequence.

These were the cuts which  I Had selected from the original sequence to create the actual sequence of doors which would be in sync.

This is the final product of the edited version.