THE EFFECTS OF THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF CAMERA MOVEMENTS

 

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Film Techniques -Camera Shots-

 Film techniques is the term used to describe the ways that meaning is created in film.

Camera Shots

A camera shot is the amount of space that is seen in one shot or frame. Camera shots are used to demonstrate different aspects of a film's setting, characters and themes. As a result, camera shots are very important in shaping meaning in a film. 

 

An extreme long shot contains a large amount of landscape. It is often used at the beginning of a scene or a film to establish general location(setting). This is also known as an establishing shot.

 

A long shot contains landscape but gives the viewer a more specific idea of setting. A long shot may show the viewers the building where the action will take place.

 

A full shot contains a complete view of the characters. From this shot, viewers can take in the costumes of characters and may also help to demonstrate the relationships between characters.   A full shot displays the character from head to toe, without showing much of his surroundings.  A full shot distances the character from the viewer both physically and psychologically. They carry less emotional weight, and therefore they are not the best choice during emotive scenes.

A mid shot contains the characters or a character from the waist up. From this shot, viewers can see the characters' faces more clearly as well as their interaction with other characters. This is also known as a social shot.

 

Medium shots are the most common types of shots in the movies. The medium shot also encompasses two other famous shot types: The two-shot, with two actors facing the same screen direction, and the over-the-shoulder, showing a conversation in which the actors sit or stand across from each other. To record medium shots, a normal lens will suffice.

A close-up contains just one character's face. This enables viewers to understand the actor's emotions and also allows them to feel empathy for the character. In close-up shots, the subject dominates most of the frame, allowing very little observation on the locale of the scene. Close-ups are much more dramatic than long or medium shots. They are preferred when conveying someone’s emotion: This is also known as a personal shot.

 

An extreme close-up contains one part of a character's face or other object. This technique is quite common in horror films, particularly the example above. This type of shot creates an intense mood and provides interaction between the audience and the viewer. 

 

Insert shots. Insert shots are tight shots in which objects fill most of the frame. Even if inserts don’t reveal anything new, they are still welcome during the editing phase, as they smooth transitions between shots, often serving as a neutral shot that allows a breach of the 180-degree rule.

 

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Camera angles

Difference between Camera shots and angles?

Camera shots are used to demonstrate different aspects of setting, themes and characters.

Camera angles are used to position the viewer so that they can understand the relationships between the characters. These are very important for shaping meaning in film as well as in other visual texts.

 

A bird's eye angle  is an angle that looks directly down upon a scene. This angle is often used as an establishing angle, along with an extreme long shot, to establish setting.

A high angle is a camera angle that looks down upon a subject. A character shot with a high angle will look vulnerable or small. These angles are often used to demonstrate to the audience a perspective of a particular character. The example above demonstrates to us the perspective or point of view of a vampire/politician/owner. As a viewer we can understand that the vampire feels powerful.

An eye-level angle puts the audience on an equal footing with the character/s. This is the most commonly used angle in most films as it allows the viewers to feel comfortable with the characters.

 

A low angle is a camera angle that looks up at a character. This is the opposite of a high angle and makes a character look more powerful. This can make the audience feel vulnerable and small by looking up at the character.

The low angle can also be used in combination with any camera shot type, but the camera must be positioned down low at an angle looking up at the subject. Generally, a low angle is used to make the subject within the frame seem large, imposing, daunting or more powerful. The extremity of the angle can be altered, often causing the desired effect to be more or less impactful. In this case, the low angle wide shot of these trees makes them look dominant, reinforcing the power of nature.

This can help the responder feel empathy if they are viewing the frame from another character's 

 A Dutch angle is used to demonstrate the confusion of a character. The example should confuse you.

 

What is the Dutch angle?

The Dutch angle, also known as a canted angle or Dutch tilt, is achieved when the camera is rotated diagonally. When two characters are having an intense conversation,  the camera was slightly canted during the scene to give audiences a feeling of unease.  The Dutch angle is most common in the horror genre

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Feature films and Short films

 

 Differences between Feature films and Short films

The biggest and most obvious difference between short films and feature films is of course, the length. For a short film must be less than 40 minutes in duration.

Another point we need to consider is budget, a successful feature film will have a considerably larger budget than an short film. This is due to the need to pay the cast and crew, rent or purchase of equipment and props, land rent, studio rent, marketing and so much more.

Feature films are shown in cinemas to generate revenue whereas Short films are intended for dvd/Tv because they are made to convey a message, not make money usually. 

Also Short films usually have a lesser known cast and crew, the reason is there are more purposes, all of which can be seen in the purposes section.

Finally, when seeing a feature film people will expect to see an ending but in case of short film there is no need of ending if there was not enough time to tie up every loose end.

Documentary Films

Documentary Films strictly speaking, are non-fictional, "slice of life" factual works of art - and sometimes known as cinema verite. 

Documentary films have comprised a very broad and diverse category of films. Examples of documentary forms include the following:

• 'biographical' films about a living or dead person (Madonna, John Lennon, Muhammad Ali - , Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time (1992), or Glenn Gould)
• a well-known event the Holocaust, 
• a sociological or ethnographic examination following the lives of individuals over a period of time ( Steve James' Hoop Dreams (1994))
• a sports documentary such as Extreme (1999) such as in The Endless Summer (1966))

The Earliest Documentaries:

Originally, the earliest documentaries in the US and France were either short newsreels, instructional pictures, records of current events, or travelogues without any creative story-telling, narrative, or staging. 

The first attempts at film-making, by the Lumiere Brothers and others, were literal documentaries, e.g., a train entering a station, factory workers leaving a plant, etc.

The first official documentary or non-fiction narrative film was Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922), an ethnographic look at the harsh life of Canadian Inuit Eskimos living in the Arctic, Flaherty, often regarded as the "Father of the Documentary Film," also made the film Moana in1926.

Rock Concert/Music-Related Documentaries:

Michael Wadleigh's Woodstock - 3 Days of Peace & Music (1970) provided a definitive look at the three-day counter-cultural rock concert held in upper-state NY in 1969 - it was the Academy Award winning documentary film of its year

Biographical Documentary Films:

        The Oscar-winning documentary by Richard Kaplan, The Eleanor Roosevelt Story (1965), was a tribute to one of the most influential First Ladies in US history.  Bruce Weber's Let's Get Lost (1988) was a biographical account of the life of jazz trumpeter 

   

  Documentaries of The War Years:
Documentaries during the Great War were often propagandistic. Innovative German film-maker Leni Riefenstahl's pioneering masterwork epic Triumph of the Will in 1935, Germany. was explicitly propagandistic yet historical horrifying documentation of the Nazi Party Congress rally in Nuremberg in 1934. It was a revolutionary film combining superb cinematography and editing of Third Reich propaganda. She also documented the 1936 Berlin Olympics in the stunning film Olympia (1938, Germ.) - with graceful and beautiful images of 'Aryan' athletes in competition.

 To respond to the Nazi propaganda, Frank Capra was commissioned by the US War Department to direct seven films in a Why We Fight (1943) series of narrated WWII newsreel-style films.

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lights

 

Lighting

Lighting is a very important aspect for shaping meaning in films. A room that is brightly lit by neon lights might seem to be sterile or a shadowy room might be weird or scary. The lighting technicians in a film crew have the task of creating lighting to suit the mood and atmosphere of each scene in a film.

For instance, in Example Three the two people are very happy and the scene is lit brightly.

Cinematography

Cinematography is the combination of the techniques includes camera shots, camera angles, camera movement and lighting.

Mise en Scene

Mise en scene refers to all the objects and characters in a particular frame. More specifically, it refers to the composition of the frame, discussing where the composer or director has placed all the elements of the scene within the frame.

 What is a short film?

Definition:  The Academy (Oscars) define a short films as anything under 40 minutes. 

 

Narrative structure: 

It can be either subjective or objective but is usually subjective as a result of the length of the film, tends to be single stranded with an open ending such as in the film.

Themes: 

the short film genre can cover any number of genres in the same way a full length feature does, but due to the length of the film it has to be much more obvious to the viewer, themes include social realism,  community, crime and  immigration, family, segregation and war.

Style and Genre: 

the style of the short film usually differs from that of the full length films, the main reason is usually the budget, for example it is common in short films to see kinetic movement with the camera, due to the camera not having tracks to run across whilst moving. it uses relativly unknown actors as the famous  stars hesitate to working for such low budget films. the directors are usually unknown and they tend to be making short films in the hope of getting a big break for a larger film with a big budget. A notable style in short films is the open ended storyline. A style which is not common with the genre is a special effects one but in the film 

Cinematography:

The cinematography of short films usually involves   very basic camera shots and movement of the camera.

Sound: 

It can sometimes have a score playing throughout the entire length of the film, sometimes uses a voice over in the film rather then any asynchronous diagetic sound,

Editing:

 Usually uses a linear style editing, usually made in real time, not many cuts from one location to another, due to both budget and length of the film, uses the documentary style,  can sometimes use visual flashbacks.
Purpose of a short films

When dealing with short films there are three main reason in which are they are produced. These include promotion, education and experimental reasons.

Promotion:

Unknown directors and film makers are desperately wanting to get their name put out in the film market industry, therefore producing such films enables them to promote themselves. Short films are usually screened at films festivals or film competitions.

Education:

Short films mainly deal with contemporary issues, and some include elements of controversial themes. Short films are found to tackle social issues that are found in current society, these then provoke thought and discussion surrounding moral and ethnic issues. For this reason, they are useful to use in classes for educational purposes.

Experimental:

Thirdly, experimental reasons demonstrates how film makes have the opportunity to try out new techniques in a narrative. There are common conventions and techniques that can be found in short films, however since there is no wide audience to please, as there is no economic reward, it gives directors the option to expand on new ideas and new techniques. 

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