Chapter 8
This was an excellent chapter to capture the direct technology of what film truly is. From digital to 35mm, different formats does not mean that the same picture will not get across. The process of this chapter was excellent because it let me reflect on my photo class from high school and how it is truly harder to light film than it is a digital camera.
I shot a short in 35mm at a one month camp my Sophomore year of high school and even though it is the oldest medium to record and document, I wanted to go back to digital in a heartbeat. The amount of light meters and readings needed before a film camera begins shooting is quite hefty and it makes me acknowledge the job of cinematographers to a higher respect. To make filters or alter lights, it had to be done all manually with a film camera. Technology is what is making this industry skyrocket to a way of simplicity. Everything is digital now, we can put a filter on what we are filming directly through the camera and have everything on auto lock. When I finished this chapter, I realized that I need to go out there and use the old tricks of lighting they recommended to get authenticity out of my product.
Chapter 9
Just as in my Mass Comm in a global age class spoke about how the internet is the reason for the declining news hole, reading this chapter makes me realize the true importance of DV cameras. Film will always have a classic quality to it, in a way that baseball will always remain America’s past time, but the new path of filmmaking that is being created might be lowering employment rates for features. This chapter has made me think that grand scale productions take many people, especially when it comes to operating a camera. This is a full proof process that requires the element of teamwork and my primary concern is that with a digital move that is going on right now, will the job market continue to decline during the production of these films.
Chapter 3
The primary purpose of this chapter was to explore the true meaning of how a frame is known as a canvas. I know many other blog entries have talked about this, but this was my favorite chapter. Many people think that filmmakers just need to think from a business perspective on how a film can sell, but the true meaning of this chapter was to show that a camera to a director is like a brush as is to a painter. The picture can only be complete if the brush moves in the right directions. It is the directors job to make sure that the whole team can deliver his painting.
Chapter 10
A camera is not possible to run without a lens. The lens is the main part of a camera that captures the desired image. The shutter speed on a lens determines how fast or slow an image can be. it can determine the superior or inferior quality of a shot. I learned a bit more about the rule of thirds to make sure that focal length i very precise. Depth of field is a great thing that one can experiment with, especially when making a character piece with big scenery to have it either invade the character or become apart of the character.
Chapter 12
Lighting is key. It will make or break your scene and can damage a screen or a TV depending on the amount of light that is projected. People who measure light for a camera are just as important as the people who shoot a scene. Many of the descriptions in the chapter reminded me of Sam Mendes’ film “American Beauty” where the amount of light determines the mood of a scene. I thought of mood of a scene while I was reading this. An example from the film can be when cinematographer Conrad L. Hall makes the lush vegetation of exterior of the Burnham resident look at it is a euphoric land of rapture. While in the scenes with the Burnham’s next door neighbor’s, he proposes a bland and very drowned out lighting tone to the audience.
Chapter 15
I took “development and social issues in cinema” this past semester with Dr. Frontani and I learned the true importance of sound in a picture. This chapter made me recollect my thoughts from this class and understand that dialogue in films cannot be heard if there was no audio on film. Thousands of people are committed to crafting and mastering the sound of a film, whether it be from foley art to special effects. When filming a scene of dialogue, it depends the type of room or environment it is being filmed in. When working on set, it is always important to have an engineer that monitors and mixesx the sound. not monitoring sound in a project can be the end all to a whole entire shoot.
Chapter 16
Being a manager at the radio station, I always acknowledge a great variety of microphones and what their true talents are. Such as uni and omni directional. Different mics and determine different sounds. Such as a news anchor during a telecast or the main character in a blockbuster film shouting. It is just like how 5.1 dolby sound is mastered, through the amount of mics it is recorded with. Sergio Leone, when he filmed “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” came into my mind when I read this chapter because of the process of the scene where blows up the bridge towards the conclusion. in that scene, everything mentioned in this chapter is brought to life, the different variety of mics from different camera angles really brought an authentic feel to the moving images being seen by the audience.
Chapter 17
I feel that Hurbis-Cherrier is all about making the reader consume a formula of repetition of techniques involving audio. He cannot emphasize enough how important audio is. The job of a boom operator is very important to a production, they must have physical strength to make sure that the audio is at its highest quality. As repeated again, monitoring sound is always key and the more this is processed in the head of a filmmaker, the more it will stay with them until the end.
