DIGITAL VIDEO - SPECIALISED SKILLS TASK 1 CAM WILSON

SHOT ONE, BEFORE

Purpose of this shot: To capture the movement of the plants and pond water.

The shot was taken using a long focal length, making it look very flat. The lighting is also quite cold for the natural tones due to the cloudy weather, which makes the photo look dull. I also think that there are far too many distracting elements to the composition, taking away from the sense of movement from the wind. I believe I could have captured a better shot by taking more footage and waiting for the wind, to get more motion, but due to the automatic white balance adjusting mid-shot I was limited to certain footage in editing due to the inconstancy in the colour temperature. This could have been solved by finding and setting a good white balance manually.

SHOT ONE, AFTER

I decided to take the second shot from a low angle and get much closer to the subject, allowing me to use a shorter focal length and adjust the aperture to blur the reeds in the foreground. Together, these elements give the shot a much greater sense of depth. The closeness of the shot and the framing reveal the details of the plants in the middle and give the viewer a different sense of scale to the first video. I also set the white balance manually for the cloudy daytime conditions, making the colours much warmer and making the further away plants into a dark background that highlights the saturated colours. The angle of the shot also gives a better view of the reflection, making the movement much more visibly active.

DIGITAL VIDEO - SPECIALISED SKILLS TASK 1 CAM WILSON

SHOT TWO, BEFORE

Purpose of this shot: To capture the tree and movement of the leaves.

The composition of this shot is quite off, with far too much open space on the sides of the subject. The direct sunlight makes the shot look quite natural but the dull grey colours make the background elements very bland, and stop the colours of the tree from really striking the viewer. There is also not a lot of natural movement in the video, which could have been improved by taking more footage and waiting for stronger wind. I also used a very short focal length, which causes a lot of detail in the leaves to be lost.

SHOT ONE, AFTER

I took this shot from the same placement as the before and zoomed in on the leaves to remove distracting background features. The longer focal length also shows much more detail in the leaves, though I do think the picture could have been improved by zooming out a little bit more to properly frame the bottom the leaves that are cut off. I decided to use a large aperture again for this photo, blurring the gate, wall and sign in the background to create the depth of field effect and make the small leaves look much sharper and more detailed in contrast. By using a tripod for this shot, I could take much more footage without moving or shaking the camera and creating inconsistency in the footage. This allowed me more choice when cutting the video and let me find a clip with much more motion than the before video.

DIGITAL VIDEO - SPECIALISED SKILLS TASK 1 CAM WILSON

SHOT THREE, BEFORE

Purpose of this shot: To capture the model’s features in set lighting.

This shot was taken without a proper lighting setup. The model’s face is covered by the shadow; obscuring the features in the face and making it look flat. The focus is also somewhat off, blurring the models face and the elements in the background. The items in the background are also unnecessary and make the frame look messy.

SHOT THREE, AFTER

Using a hard key light and a blue filter on the models side highlights the shape of his head and the features of his face. I also setup a fill light with a cool white to match the colour temperature of the shot and give more depth to

the background. I adjusted the white balance to manual setting more suited to the cool indoor lighting as the automatic setting had issues with the studio lights.