My Recent Project

As mentioned in a previous blog as a cinematographer you have to think about a lot of elements. Since my first project back in 2016 I've had 4 years worth of practise and experimenting, so in my most recent project I really concentrated on the two elements of camera angles and lighting.

My most recent project was a uni fiction film for one of my units. The film is about a relationship that is toxic and the girl comes across a scarecrow in a field and the scarecrow moves. The girl then wakes up in the forest after seeing the scarecrow move, she's confused and tired. Her boyfriend find her in the woods and takes her back to her house. Later that evening the boy is back at his house and hears a sound from outside, he looks outside and sees something.......

In the opening scene I really focused on getting the right camera angles to show that this relationship is very toxic. This image shows the boyfriend eating his breakfast at the table, he's looking up from his phone as his girlfriend enters the room and sits on the sofa opposite him which shows she feels afraid to sit at the same table as him. I decided to set the camera low and tilt it up at the boyfriend because this then makes him look bigger then he actually is, which then makes him come across as a more powerful character.

Later on in the film the girlfriend comes across the scarecrow in a field when she is walking. I wanted to concentrate on the lighting and the camera angles when picturing the scarecrow. When focusing on the lighting of the scarecrow I really focused getting a high temperature in the sky which is those orange and the red tones you can see in the sky. I wanted it to be dark as well so I lowered the exposure rate on the camera which makes the trees look dark with no detail and then makes the scarecrow look scary with his dark eyes and mouth. I also set up the camera low, even lower than before, to make the scarecrow look big in the screen so that the viewer felt he had a scary presence.   

My First Project

Wanting to have a carer in cinematography it means I have to practise a lot, so when I am doing a project it is a perfect time to experiment. I'm going to have a look back over some projects and break a few clips down.

I first looked back at my first ever project which was an opening title sequence to thriller film which I had to make for my AS level media studies at school. Looking back at it now I can see it was very amateur but as a first project it isn't that bad as I could pick out a few good bit from it.

This is a screen shot taken from the thriller opening sequence, here you can see the villan sitting in front of his laptop looking for his next victim. As it was a thriller I asked him to wear dark clothing. I decided to shoot this shot in a dark room so that he blended into the background, I also asked for him to put his hood up so that we couldn't see his face to make him anonymous. Shooting in a room that is completely dark makes it impossible to see a subject so when lighting the room I was thinking of clever ways of lighting the subject without showing him to much and that is when I came up with the idea of using the light from the laptop screen light his head and nothing else leaving him and his surroundings unknown. This gave the shot a really nice look and I was very pleased with the outcome. 

Looking at another set of screenshots from the thriller opening sequence we shot at the train station for when the villan is following his victim around. I needed to get a shot for a title to go on so when I saw the train coming towards the platform I quickly set the camera up on a low angle with a bit of the platform in the corner of the shot. Leaving the bit of the platform in the corner of the shot left me with a good area to place the title on, so knowing where I was going to place the title as the train was going past I had focus on the train at the start of the clip but then I pulled the focus to the platform in the corner of the shot. This gave a nice area for the title to placed in 

post production. Looking back now I am very 

pleased with this shot because it was set up very quickly and done in a rush but it turned out to be on of the best shots in the whole thriller opening sequence.         

 

Top Cinematographers

3. Hoyte Van Hoytema

Hoyte Van Hoytema has worked on some of the best-selling films that include "Spectre", "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", "Her", "Interstellar" and "Dunkirk". Hoyte Van Hoytema has worked with director Christopher Nolan on a number if films and its Hoytema's skill to be able to create soft naturalistic light in images that makes hime a perfect fit for Nolan's films.

2. Emmanuel Lubezki

   

Emmanuel Lubezki has worked on many films but has won three Academy Awards for his work on "Gravity", "Birdman" and "The Revenant". Lubezki is well known for his long takes and they way he changes it for each filmmaker is just great. Seeing his name involved with a project means you know it will be great.

1. Roger Deakins

There is no surprise that Roger Deakins is the best in the business when he has worked on films that include, "No Country for Old Men", "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford", "Skyfall", "Prisoners", "Sicario", and his Oscar winning films "Blade Runner: 2049" and "1917". Roger Deakins was the brains behind the idea to shot "1917" as "1 shot" film and it payed off as he won an Oscar for it this year.   

What is Cinematography

                 

Cinematography is the when visual storytelling and photography come together in a motion picture and sometimes a television show. Cinematography uses all on-screen visual elements including:



- Lighting
- Framing
- Composition
- Camera motion
- Camera angles
- Film selection
- Lens choice
- Depth of field
- Zoom
- Focus
- Colour
- Exposure
- Filtration



Cinematography is the overall look and mood of a film. The mise-en-scène can really help the story of a film, so therefore it is the cinematographer's job to make sure every element is right and supports the story. Most of the time directors and filmmakers will spend most of their budget on a top class cinematographer because they then know that the film will look great on the big screen.

A cinematographer can also be called the Director of Photography which then means they are in charge of camera and lighting crews. They will always work closely with the director because at the end of the day it is the cinematographers job to ensure that their choices match the overall vision of the directors.