AS Media Studies

Unit G322a:

Textual Analysis and Representation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In looking at camera work the following areas need to be considered:

Shot typePositionAngleCompositionDepth of fieldMovement

NB – Other useful docs on Moodle – Technical Aspects of the Moving Imagehttp://moodle.reigate.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=20

The camera is the viewers eyes in a scene

…so, the camera position also dictates the viewers relationship with the action or characters in the scene.

How do the following images make you feel?

Low angle High angle Tilted angle (sometimes

called ‘dutch’ or ‘canted’)

Birds eye view Worms eye view Eye level When/why do you think

the different camera angles might be used?

Dead Man (Jarmusch, 1995)

A frame’s depth of field refers to the focal length.

Deep focus - where a frame shows everything sharp or in focus.

To get an idea of how this works put your finger in front of your face and concentrate on it. The finger will appear in focus and the background blurred. NowNow concentrate on the background, the human eye ‘pulls’ focus from the foreground to the background.

Selective focus - when a particular part of the frame is picked out and the rest of the frame is blurred or indistinct.

Pull or ‘rack’ focus - when the focal point changes within the frame.

Pan

Tracking

Tilt

Crab

Crane

Handheld

Zoom lens

Watch the clips from Skins and The Bill

What effect does camerawork, in

particular camera movement, have?

The Bill: http://estream.reigate.ac.uk/View.aspx?ID=820

Skins: Series 1, Episode 1- Café scene chapter