- Establishing Shot
- Long Shot
- Medium Shot
- Two Shot
- Over-the-Shoulder shot
- Close Up
- Extreme Close Up
- Birds-Eye View Shot
- Low Angle
- High Angle
- Panning Shot
- Tracking Shot
- POV shot
- Eye-line Shot
- Vertigo Shot
With this very varied range of shots we were able to really experiment with different methods of storytelling, and I think they are one of the main reasons for our films success! Film is a visual medium, and so these visuals should be used to their highest potential through different camera angles. A very effective shot was the vertigo shot used just before Agent Davidson massacres the Russians on the stairs. This was to create a comedic element, as well as to reflect the shock of the Russians as they saw their impending doom. It worked well with the music, as the music enhanced the comedy, and the shot complimented it. Another interesting shot was when the chef pushes the trolley towards Agent Davidson and the camera is mounted on the trolley, which could almost be seen as a POV shot from the perspective of the trolley! The shot felt wild and involved the audience a lot more, adding to the mayhem of the kitchen fight sequence. A lot of the shots were framed so that people would come into shot, so we had to set down markers for the actors to land on. An example of this is when Agent Davidson falls to the floor winded by the monkey-human hybrid. Here we see some of the action, and then Agent Davidson's face falls neatly framed into the shot. This was surprisingly easy to shoot, and we did it in one take. Throughout the film we never used a tripod. This was not because we didn't have access to one, or simply didn't know how to use one, but it was a stylistic choice. We wanted the cinematography to have a 'shaky' feel similar to the footage that is seen in war footage on the news. By not using a tripod we were able to involve the audience a lot more, and make them feel as if they are part of the action.
There were only a few 'named' shots that we did not include, because of practicality or just not finding a use for them:
- Dutch Tilt
- Aerial Shot
The dutch tilt is more commonly associated with horror films, so was a completely inappropriate shot to use for our film. The aerial shot is hugely impractical seeming as we do not have access to much height, however the opening establishing shots could be argued to be 'aerial'.
The lighting was very intricately created. The most successful lighting was in the scene where Agent Davidson meets the Professor in the dark hallway. Agent Davidson is silhouetted both by the light of his torch and the backlight, whereas the Professor is lit by Agent Davidson's torch, giving it a very grim feel. For the shot of Agent Davidson I told him to point the torch directly at the camera, regardless of where it is 'meant' to be pointing, as this makes him look far more intimidating and silhouetted. The lighting worked very well, but unfortunately the camera had black lines going across the clip which ruins it. This can probably be overcome by shooting in 1080p, which is available on the camera, although we shot it in a lower quality in order to easily import to mac.
Another notable piece of lighting is in the upstairs fight sequence. It can be seen that Agent Davidson turns on the light before the fight. This is because it was starting to get dark, and the finer details were being lost in the scene, by having him turn on the light, we change the lighting cleverly and we add to the suspense of him looking around the house. In post-production I desaturated the scene to take away the distracting orange glow the light give off.
Overall I thought that the cinematography for our film was very good; we used a wide range of camera angles, we shot a lot of different angles for every scene, and we lit each scene well. All of this added to the dynamics of the film, and brought it out of the notoriously terrible 'amateur filmmaker' zone.
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