SHOT TYPES

SHOT TYPES REVIEW BY MICHAEL C. BUNGAY

 

The first objective of Ollie Samuel’s sessions on the Level 2 Diploma in Creative Media Production was for my peers and I to learn about the different shot types used in film-making and to attempt to demonstrate them ourselves. My group consisted of me, James O’Gorman, Adam Frake, Ben and Will and we collectively agreed to go and film in the gardens of Welwyn Garden City as the weather was clear and bright, ideal for filming outside the college grounds. We were given a list of 19 different shots to attempt to shoot and James and I took turns at looking after it while the group as a whole all took turns at operating the camera and posing for the shots.  

Communication was not all that much of an issue in this instance, apart from whenever certain members of the group were talking about things that had nothing to do with filming. I felt this was distracting us from the task at hand and causing us to lose focus. Also, I will admit to not paying as close attention to the rest of my group when I was not filming or posing as I should have done as I got distracted looking out for other people in case they got caught in shot when they should not be.   

Filming the shots we were required to demonstrate went relatively well, some were harder to shoot than others such as the Focus Pull and the Shallow Focus and the Deep Focus and some required us to go back to Oaklands College to film them properly. The most notable example of this was the Bird’s Eye View/Aerial Shot which we ended up filming in the Learning Resources Centre as there was nowhere high enough to perform this particular shot in the gardens. For all my concerns about potentially wasting time and lacking focus, we managed to finish our shots a lot earlier than all the other groups as we were the first group to return to Oaklands.   

Filming the Focus Pull proved particularly difficult as it meant having to switch focus between the foreground and the background in the same shot, which is hard to pull off, especially at the first attempt but we did the best we could anyway which was all we could do. Keeping track of what shots we had done and not done also proved hard to do, even with the aid of a checklist as we got to a point where we could not remember which shots we still had to do or what order we filmed them in and we ended up with more shots than we needed due to having to make several attempts at once.       

We learned how to film and pose for different shots that are required when it comes to filming and also to keep track of the shots we are required to film which we will have to try harder to do in future as there will come a time when we are required to compose our own shot lists. We also learned a lot about finding simple solutions to seemingly complex problems like for instance, having one of us lie on the ground just to film a High-Angle Shot in spite of the lack of high ground in the gardens. I also learned how to properly use my hard drive and transfer camcorder footage onto it and how to edit footage using Adobe Premier Pro.  

Next time I will stick with my group at all times and focus all my attention on them so that I don’t lose track of our progress when filming and therefore, I will not find myself unable to tell which bits of footage are needed and which ones are not when I come to edit our footage.    

We used a Canon XF-100 camcorder supplied by the Media Section of Oaklands College and we use Adode Premier Pro on the computers in F308 to do our editing. I also did not stick with my group when we went back to Oaklands to edit our footage so I had to go on to OakLearn to remind myself what shots we had to film. Even then, I found it hard to tell which shots were which because there was lot more footage than we needed and although I managed to finish my edit as much as I could, I was concerned I might have deleted some footage that I should not have. I also had problems opening my footage on the Macs in F303, having started my editing on the computers in F308. This should not have been the case and I had to set up a new folder on my hard drive to open the footage on the advice of John the Media Technician, this solution worked but it also delayed my editing further.       

This time, I had a hard drive on my person which meant I could start editing right away. James O’Gorman helped me to set up my hard drive and transfer the footage from the camcorder onto it. I used Adobe Premier Pro to edit my footage, I did ask for help from Ollie Samuel, Diane and Mark Garvey a lot at first but I started to get the hang of editing the footage eventually. Once I had finished editing, Mark Garvey showed me how to export the footage from Premier Pro to Ollie Samuel’s hard drive, that was not as hard as I thought it would be but I think I still need assistance with remembering how to do that.  

I need to learn to do the editing myself and not keep asking for help from Ollie Samuel, Diane, my peers or the Media Technicians so much. I also need to learn to keep track of the shots we are required to film and what order we film them in as well as to stick with my group and pay attention to them for the duration of the tasks we are given to do.