IDEA RESEARCH
Because this brief says no handheld shots, I've been looking at various films which use dolly shots and a locked off camera to create a really cinematic look. American Psycho introduces it's protagonist with a series of smooth dolly shots around his pristine home. This is the kind of style I am going to try and replicate. I have my own dolly but I haven't had much of a chance to use it for previous projects so I am looking forward to hopefully getting some more professional looking cinematography. |
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MOOD BOARD/shot ideas
I want to use windows and doorways to create frame within a frame type shots and I would like the final film to have a really slow, dreamlike feel to it. I would also like to include some cross cutting to a different location. I am going to be filming in a family house in cornwall and so I would like to try and get some footage of the beach and the sea. I think that if edited successfully, I can create a really eerie atmosphere through fast jump cuts and contrasting slow dolly shots.
kit list
- Canon 70d
- Canon 50mm lens
- Canon 24-105 lens
- Boom mic
- Zoom
- XLR leads
final edit
EVALUATION
Overall I am really pleased with my final edit. The vision I had for the film was a little different at the start of the project i terms of the cinematography but I think that the shots I did manage to get were successful all the same.
I definitely struggled a bit with the dolly quite a lot. I think this is mostly because the house I was filming in had quite uneven floors and narrow doorways and this made creating smooth shots very challenging. There are times when some of the shots look handheld even though the are locked off simply because my attempts at a smooth tracking shot were not quite right. However some of the dolly shots did end up being quite cinematic looking such as the pull backwards away from the dog on the chair.
The shots of the sea were a really nice addition I thought, but were actually filmed on an iPhone because the camera battery was running low. Because the quality of the outdoor footage was just as good as the footage from the 70d I wanted it to feature quite heavily in the final edit.
There were a few moments when various shots were slightly out of focus and sometimes this worked with the films atmosphere but sometimes it looked a little amateurish which was a shame. I think I was very focused on trying to manoeuvre the dolly that I didn't pay enough attention to the actual camera settings and lens.
In terms of editing I was very pleased to find that this time around I was a lot more confident using Adobe Premier than I have been on previous projects. I was able to experiment more with jump cuts and other functions because I was comfortable with the basics of the software. Originally the outdoor beach footage was in one long clip at the end of the film but I played around with the footage and started putting small snippets of the shot in between other shots and managed to create a sort of rhythm throughout the film. I started making the shits move faster and faster and I think this built tension and made the film a lot more interesting. I also found this editing process surprisingly enjoyable which I definitely hadn't in other projects.
The sound was something I wasn't too sure about since the film was looking more like a mood piece than a narrative film so I didn't want any sort of dialogue. I considered putting a soundtrack in but couldn't find anything which I felt matched the feel of the film.
While filming I recorded some ambient sound on the beach of the waves and played this alongside the edit but the wind was too loud and so I found a similar recording which I could use for free and just played this over the top. I also recorded a clock ticking which I added at the last minute and I think it really pulled the whole film together and created a really nice tempo which increased as the speed got faster towards the end.
I definitely struggled a bit with the dolly quite a lot. I think this is mostly because the house I was filming in had quite uneven floors and narrow doorways and this made creating smooth shots very challenging. There are times when some of the shots look handheld even though the are locked off simply because my attempts at a smooth tracking shot were not quite right. However some of the dolly shots did end up being quite cinematic looking such as the pull backwards away from the dog on the chair.
The shots of the sea were a really nice addition I thought, but were actually filmed on an iPhone because the camera battery was running low. Because the quality of the outdoor footage was just as good as the footage from the 70d I wanted it to feature quite heavily in the final edit.
There were a few moments when various shots were slightly out of focus and sometimes this worked with the films atmosphere but sometimes it looked a little amateurish which was a shame. I think I was very focused on trying to manoeuvre the dolly that I didn't pay enough attention to the actual camera settings and lens.
In terms of editing I was very pleased to find that this time around I was a lot more confident using Adobe Premier than I have been on previous projects. I was able to experiment more with jump cuts and other functions because I was comfortable with the basics of the software. Originally the outdoor beach footage was in one long clip at the end of the film but I played around with the footage and started putting small snippets of the shot in between other shots and managed to create a sort of rhythm throughout the film. I started making the shits move faster and faster and I think this built tension and made the film a lot more interesting. I also found this editing process surprisingly enjoyable which I definitely hadn't in other projects.
The sound was something I wasn't too sure about since the film was looking more like a mood piece than a narrative film so I didn't want any sort of dialogue. I considered putting a soundtrack in but couldn't find anything which I felt matched the feel of the film.
While filming I recorded some ambient sound on the beach of the waves and played this alongside the edit but the wind was too loud and so I found a similar recording which I could use for free and just played this over the top. I also recorded a clock ticking which I added at the last minute and I think it really pulled the whole film together and created a really nice tempo which increased as the speed got faster towards the end.