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THE LENS
Four main functions controlled by the lens:
- Image Focus
- Quantity of light
- Image Area
- Depth of field . Controlled by three factors:
The lens and perception (size constancy)
STILL PHOTOGRAPHY
Basic operations of a single lens reflex 35mm still camera
Exposure and interrelationships of shutter, aperture and film speed
VISUAL DESIGN AND STRUCTURE
THE FRAME AND ASPECT RATIO
The 7 visual components:
1) Space
- deep, flat, Ambiguous / recognizable , Open / closed
- Depth Cues
2) Line
- Horizontal
- Vertical
- Diagonal
- Curved/Straight
- Emotional Qualities
3) Shape
- Two-dimensional: circle, square, triangle
- Three-dimensional: sphere, cube, pyramid
4) Tone
Control though:
- art direction (reflective)
- lighting (incident)
- exposure (less selective)
Coincidence and Non-coincidence
5) Color
6) Movement
- Object movement (this means actors too!)
- Camera Movement
- Audience point of attention (continuum of movement within the shot and shot-to-shot)
7) Rhythm
- Alternation : is change
- Repetition (of an alternation)
- Tempo (of the repetition of alternation)
Graphing Components + Subcomponents
Balance
THE SHOT
The shot described by movement
The shot described in terms of coverage
SCREEN GRAMMAR
Rabiger's approach to screen grammar as a reproduction of human consciousness
DIRECTORIAL COMMUNICATION TOOLS
SCREENWRITING AND DOCUMENTARY PROPOSALS
Foundations: Premise , treatment , step outline
Story and thematic Archetypes
Documentary research and the documentary proposal
SCRIPT ANALYSIS
The immutables - facts and images
Imaginative choices (antecedent action, objectives and actions, what's at stake, subtext etc)
FILM/VIDEO INTERFACE
Film Camera
- Intermittent movement
- Pulldown claw
- Shutter
- Exposure time and Shutter angle formula
- Overcranking and Undercranking
- Calculating Lengths for Film
The Film Image
- Film layers - Black + White
- Film Layers - Color
- Color Balance
- Color Temperature and filters
- Keeping track of film - edge & key numbers, keycode
Video
- Analog and digital recording
- Video process
- Video controls
- Video standards - NTSC, PAL & SECAM, HD
- Interlaced and progressive scanning
- Resolution
- Frame rates
- Compression
- Color Space
- Keeping track of video - drop frame and non-drop frame timecode
- When film and video collide - the 3-2 pulldown
- Flex files
CONTINUITY/SHOOTING TO EDIT
Types of continuity
Maintaining continuity
- Role of the script supervisor
- Scheduling
- Changing Sizes and Angles
- Inserts + Cutaways
- Overlapping action
LIGHTING
Other lights (eye-light, set light, kicker, practicals etc.)
Qualities of light (specular, diffused etc.)
Kelvin scale and color temperature
Electricity Basics : Watts ÷ Volts = Amps
EDITING
- Emotion (51%)
- Story (23%),
- Rhythm (10%),
- Eye-trace (7%),
- Two-dimensional plane of screen (5%)
- Three-dimensional plane of screen (4%)
Classic Hollywood Continuity Editing
Seeing Around the Edge of the Frame
THE DIRECTOR/ACTOR DYNAMIC
The System and the Method: Stanislavsky to Griffith to Kazan
The actor's preparation
System of wants: life needs, objectives and actions
Moment-to-moment
Personalization
Casting :
Getting actors:
Casting Directors v. Talent Agents
CREW ROLES
Crew positions and functions
OBJECTIVE SOUND
Sound and audio distinguished (sound = acoustical energy, audio=electrical signals and
various types of recordings)
Properties of physical sound:
Influences on Sound Propagation
Room acoustics/the three sound fields:
- Direct sound
- Discrete Reflections
- Reverberant field
- Reverberation time (influenced by volume of the room and absorption of surface areas)
Movies and the three sound fields
- 1920s: Exhibition in reverberant spaces, production on anechoic stages
- Now: "dead" theatres and relatively "live" shooting conditions
Noise: unwanted sound added to the original sound (airborne and structure-borne)
Distortion: unwanted modification of the original sound
PSYCHOACOUSTICS
Auditory Sensitivity and Frequency (most sensitive in 2-4 kHz range)
Equal Loudness Curves (more energy is required at lower frequencies to sound equally as loud as midrange and higher frequency sounds)
Loudness effect (at a lower level, sound seems to lack bass when compared with playing it as its original level)
Loudness vs Time (it takes a high level sound 1-8 frames at 24 fps to reach its full perceived loudness)
- Precedence effect (we locate sound in the direction of the first-arriving wavefront)
- Influence of Sight (exit sign effect)
- Localization best in horizontal plane
- The cocktail party effect
Speech perception : panning dialogue across the screen to match action v. centering it
AUDIO FUNDAMENTALS
Digital audio:
SOUND RECORDING
Microphones:
- Classified by Directionality : cardiod, hypercardiod, omnidirectional
- Classified by construction : dynamic, condenser
- Classified by positioning (boom, fishpole, stands, hidden mics, lavalieres)
Single System + Double System Recording
- Analog reel to reel
- Digital Audio Recorders
- Hard drive recorders
- Features of recorders (mic inputs, line inputs and outputs, record level adjustments, Volume Unit and Peak Program Meters etc)
Audio Mixers (between the mics and the recorder)
SOUND DESIGN
Objective vs. Subjective Sound
Diegetic sound / Non-diegetic sound
SOUND EDITING
Traditional (southern California) approach: vertical â?? one editor per reel
Alternative (northern California) approach: horizontal â?? editors cut like fx in all reels
Dialogue
- Production
- Wild lines
- ADR (automated dialogue replacement)
- Loop group
- Voice over
- Presence/fill/room tone (space between actor's lines or space between various things going on at start and end of takes or room tone
Sound effects: non-musical, non-dialogue sounds from the environment
INTRODUCTION TO DOCUMENTARY
Traditional narration-based documentary
Cinema Véritécinema verite
Historical documentary and problems of access
MUSIC VIDEO
Traditions: Busby Berkeley to the Beatles to Bowie
Cinematic v. Photographic
Performance based/non-performance based
Laws of Note
Down here I am going to link to all of the "laws" and "rules" that I think we will definitely need to know.