Lesson 2- Camera Use And Tips When Filming

In our second lesson, in the filming space and room, we were moving past the basics of camera use and put our skills to the test by using the camera and the techniques we had been taught in the lesson before to actually get the camera rolling, to make scenes of our own choice, that were simple but were a good attempt to start with. Some important roles we used and were taught in the lesson were the 180 degree role in film making and other important factors.

For the 180 degree rule we used a line that was shown by using tape attached to the floor, this line connects the characters, and by keeping the camera on one side of this line for every shot in the scene, the first character is always on the right of the second character, who is then always on the left of the first. The camera passing over the line is called jumping the line. The fact is that the object that is being filmed must always remain in the Center of the room and stage whilst the camera must always face towards the object.

Another important factor when filming is to continually role the camera and not look back on what you have filmed until later on because you never know which bits you might need and if you deleted anything during filming you have the issue of re-doing it and the production of films is too expensive to waste time. We were told to use tape as they do in films and when shooting scenes due to the fact that the actors need to know where to stand and how to follow directions as I didn’t realize how much of a scene or film is choreographed.