Technical Skills - Lighting, Camera & Sound

 Technical Skills - Lighting, Camera & Sound

Lighting

For the lighting task, we had quite a simple objective; take some photos using several different lighting set-ups in order to compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages between the different set-ups. We were given 2 DSLR cameras, a tri-pod, three LED lights with stands and several colour gels to allow us to colour the lights within the images. With this equipment, we had to attempt to capture the following on camera:

• High-Key Setup
• This required us to use 3 different lights at the same time in an attempt to remove all of the shadow from the subject, making them lit from every single angle. In terms of our success with this set-up, it took us a while to figure out how to position the lights to remove as much shadow as possible, although we eventually got it and were able to achieve some very nicely lit images.
• Low-Key Setup
• This required us to use only one light (although we used two so that the shadows wouldn't be ridiculously stark) and to position the light on a single side of the subject's face, giving the subject some lovely lighting with one half of the face lit and one half in darkness (quite like the scene in Casa Blanca). We had some positive success with this attempt, as we were able to achieve the half lit/half dark face that was being aimed for.
• Cookaloris
• One of the things we had to try and use during our lighting experiments was the use of a Cookaloris, known as a 'Cookie' for short. In simple terms, our 'cookies' required us to take an object such as cardboard cut into the shape of some bars and place it infront of a light to create an interesting shadow on the face of a subject. However, we didn't have much success with this task due to the 'Cookies' not casting stark enough shadows.
• Colour Gels
• Finally, we had to use some colour gels in order to give our shots some interesting lighting. Needless to say, this went very well and we were able to achieve some lovely shots with interesting colour combinations from different angles.

Video

For the video task, we had to record some footage using two different camera set-ups; single-camera and multi-camera. For this task, we were given 3 DSLR cameras, 3 tri-pods, a slider, a shoulder brace and some police officer uniforms along with a script to actually record. With this equipment and these tasks, this is how we did:

• Multi-Camera
• The multi-camera was the first thing we had to shoot, and I'd say that it went well personally. We set up three different cameras and had them recording at the same time, so that the continuity within our shots was completely exact with no concerns. Of course, if we had been lighting the scene, we would have had to consider our angles with that lighting, but this wasn't a concern for us. We were able to get three interesting angles of the scene with relative success.
• Single-Camera
• As for the single camera style of filming, we had similar success (although I'd argue less than multi-camera). We recorded from similar angles as we did with the multi-camera shoot, although we recorded the scene over and over to get further coverage from each angle. This meant we had to remember how we shot each scene to ensure our continuity was in-tact - something we were able to succeed at due to memory of how we had been holding objects/moving.

Audio

Finally, for the audio task, we were given a multitude of varying equipment that we had to attempt to make sense of. We were given a single DSLR camera, a boom mic stand, a shotgun mic, two TASCAMs of different type (one handheld and one that could be attached to the camera), a power pack and some scripts to record audio from. With this equipment, we had to record the same piece of dialogue using three different set-ups:

• Camera Audio
• The first set-up we had to try was recording the audio for the dialogue with our camera alone, without any supplementing equipment. Naturally, thanks to the shoddy quality with the microphone in the camera, the audio was windy and even quiet due to what I can assume was the camera's distance from the dialogue.
• TASCAM Audio
• The second set-up we had to attempt was recording the audio directly from the hand-held TASCAM, which was connected to a power pack in order to supply power. While the audio quality for this was slightly better than the camera audio, it was still remarkably quiet due to the distance we held the Tascam from the dialogue readers (an attempt to experiment with keeping it out of frame of the DSLR camera).
• Boom Mic
• The final set-up we had was the closest to a professional set-up; we had to use the shotgun mic attached to the boom mic stand with a dead cat attached, all wired up to the more efficient TASCAM. This boom mic was held over the readers as they read dialogue, although for some reason the audio was still quiet, indicating we could have done better. With that in mind, however, the audio was definitely louder and better quality than the other two attempts, with little to no wind present in the background at all.