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Operating the camera

Video Production disciplines and techniques


Cameras

Most important notes from the book:

Understanding the camera

  • Cameras are sensitive to three atributes of colour:
    Hue - refers to the colour tint itself. When light waves of all three primary colours are added together in a proportion that relates to the colour sensitivity of the human eye (59 % green, 30% red and 11% blue) the resulting effect is white.
    Saturation - the intensity or vividness of a colour. (colours range from highly saturated to pastels)
    Luminance - brightness of the colour. (by decreacing brightness eventually we get to black)
  • Lenses:
    Focal Lenght - the longer the lens is the narrower its viewing angle will be, and the less you'll be able to fit into the picture. Long lens magnifies individuals and compresses distance. Short focal lens is the oposite.
  • Optical zoom- a series of glass pieces inside of the lens that move to provide different magnifications of the field of view
  • Digital zoom - electronically magnifies the field of view after it comes though the lens. Could damage the quality.
  • Apeture - controls how much light is let in. The lower the f-stop number, the more light is allowed.
  • Depth of field -- the distance between the nearest point at whitch objects are in focus and the fartherst point at whichthe objects are out of focus.(it's affected by the f-stops, distance and the focal legth of the lens.It's used for artistic effect, interviews and pull/rack focus when the operator brings focus to one object while other remain unfocused. 

    Picture composition

    • Headroom - A good guide for shot consistency is to place the eyes of a subject at the level of an imaginary line aprox one-third of the way down from the top of the picture. In CUs it's best with the eyes slightky bellow the line, in wider shots they should be slightly above the line. 
    • Balance - framing wide shots think of rule of thirds to get the most pleasing image.
    • Make sure to level the tripod to the horizon.

    Production

    • Practice pans, tilts, zooms before shooting 
    • Once the production begins ramain alert and ready.

    Bibliography
    Foust, J., Fink, E. and Gross, L. (2013). Video production. 11th ed. Scottsdale, Arizona: Holcomb Hathaway, pp.83-108.
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