My second camera lesson

In our second camera lesson we learnt about the 180-degree rule. 
The 180-degree rule is all about; the audience at home watching the TV, (something you have filmed) they can only see what you are showing them on the screen. We learnt that while filming we need to let the audience know the geography of where people are positioned and which way the actors are facing. We were shown an example of when the 180-degree rule comes in to filming, a toy motorbike was being pushed from the left hand side of the screen to the right, but if you crossed the 180-degree line it would look like the motor bike was traveling from the right hand side of the screen to the left, so it looks like the motorbike has changed direction which could confuse the audience at home. Another example that was given to the class was sports matches, they are always filmed on the same side of the pitch, reason being because if you crossed the 180-degree line half way through the game it would look like the players are scoring into there own goal! Finally the last example we had was people having conversations. If the camera starts off, for example with a woman on the left and a man on the right, if you were to cross the 180-degree line you will notice that now the man is on the left and the woman is on the right, they are looking in different directions.

The next part of this lesson was understanding how to shoot a sequence. A sequence is a series of shots that when you put them together looks like it happened seamlessly. You first start off shooting the whole section in wide angle. We needed to have the camera roughly the same height as the actor, then make sure the camera is secure after adjusting it, you do this by making sure the bubble is in the middle of the black circle. The director says ‘stand by’ and the camera crew is to repeat back ‘standing by’, the director will then say ‘role it’ which will indicate the camera crew are to press the record button and say ‘rolling’, the director will then immediately say ‘action’ and the actor will start acting the scene, when the scene is finished the director will shout ‘cut’ which informs the camera crew to stop recording. You repeat this process with all different camera shots making sure you have grasped every aspect of the sequence.

We then took on the task of shooting our own sequence in small groups of four. We used all the elements and information that was given to us during the lesson and filmed about five shots. I was filming the sequence and we had two actors and one director. I liked learning about all the different ways you could film shots without needing to cross the 180-degree line.