Today’s Plan:
- Do you want me to look at your script?
- Montage
- Tips for Lighting and Sound
- Field Trip
- Homework
Affective Objects Rubric: Montage
Last class we talked about one core aesthetic element of filming: an opening shot. Today I want to follow that up by focusing attention on Schroeppel’s chapter on the montage. He defines a montage as a quick sequence of shoots in which “each shot is clearly different than the one before it.” He argues that a variety of angles and depths produces a stronger effect.
This, of course, isn’t the only way to produce a montage. Amontage is always a series of quick shots in rapid succession, but the purpose and meaning of a montage and really vary. A montage can be used to compress time, to juxtapose two different characters, narratives, or ideas, or to create a symbolic meaning.
Affective Objects Rubric: Lighting and Sound
In preparation for today, I asked you to read chapters 7 and 8 of the Schroeppel, which focus on lighting and sound. I want to break you into two teams, one that will discuss lighting, and the other that will focus on sound.
Lighting Questions:
- What things should I keep in mind when I shoot outside? [Note that I do not expect folks to use a fill light]
- Moving inside: What are hot spots? How can I provide softer light to avoid hot spots?
- Where does a viewer’s eye typically go? How do I know if my lighting doesn’t work?
Sound questions:
- What are the basic 3 kinds of mics?
- Which of these are available via the library?
- When is it ok to use a smartphone mic?
- What is reverberation? How can I manage it?
- What is a “wild effect”? How should I record one?
Schroeppel’s book targets folks who are getting into professional cinematography. For instance, his lighting section assumes that you have 4 different kinds of lights. Obvious we don’t. We are “working on the cheap.” But I do think it is possible to put his concepts into practice–and we can find a bunch of material on the internet aimed at helping folks shoot and record. The following page should help you think about lighting. This page should also help you think about lighting. This page should help you learn how to use a lavalier microphone.
Here’s a link to our project two workspace.
Let’s review the postmortem (and I might edit it).
Homework
Originally, I hoped to have time to storyboard some of your film today. As a writing teacher, I think of storyboarding as akin to outlining–you want to do some inventive “pre-writing” that lays out a map for your project. Of course, the final project might not resemble that initial outline, but I think it is important to start sketching out scenes and thinking about locations, angles, etc.
I’d like you to storyboard and shoot at least one scene for your video this weekend. start assembling and saving footage. These projects will be due Monday, February 11th. My plan for all three days in class next week is to work in Adobe Premiere–essentially class time will be dedicated to editing video while you work on shooting and editing outside of class.
