Looking at 'Filmmaking For Beginners'

From watching this video I learnt several filmmaking tips that will give me the tools that I need to make a successful preliminary and final outcome. Below are the main things that I learnt from this video, and what I will be taking on board for when it comes to further shooting and editing.





At this point in the video, Victor (the narrator of video) explains all of the main equipment that I could use to achieve quality footage, some of which I had never heard of before. He then looks at this equipment extensively in the rest of the video.

He first explains how using an ordinary DSLR photographic camera is also very useful for filmmaking - you don't have to fork out a ridiculous amount of money to get a professional looking piece of footage, as a photographic camera has (as shown in the print screen) 'incredible image quality', 'superb depth-of-field', 'interchangeable lenses', 'small, lightweight and compact' and not to mention far cheaper. He also explains the video settings to use when taking a video with a DSLR in order to achieve the best  quality footage, being 1920x1080 (1080p) at

 24fps or 1280x720 (720p) at 24fps and he also

 explains how I can do this in the cameras menu. 

Victor then goes on to give information on what type of lenses to use depending on the shot being captured - it is ideal o change the lenses rather than using a zoom because a zoom can often make the image blurred and be of a lower quality. Instead of doing this, it is best to use a 'wide angle lense' when capturing an establishing shot to include as much of the surrounding area as possible, a '35mm lense' when there are two subjects in the frame, '50mm or 85mm lense' when there is one subject in the frame and '135mm or 200mm lense' for a close up.

He then talks about the importance of using a monopod, as a tripod can often limit the effect of how you can capture footage, but at the same time, it is difficult to hold a camera steady for a long period of time, so the monopod allows that little extra support on the camera and the cameraman therefore making it much easier to capture footage especially in a long scene. The monopod also creates more stable footage, is versatile to hold the camera higher up and to be affixed on different angles to achieve a variety
of shots, has a quick and easy set-up, is ideal for
long shots and great for mobile camera movement.

Next, Victor explains how useful it is to own a light-meter, as it lets you know if the environment you are in has good exposure or not, and exposure of lighting in a scene can really take it from amateur footage to being on a professional level as the scene then looks well crafted and visually pleasing to the viewer.

After explain the way in which to use all of this equipment, he then demonstrates how to use them effectively in some practice shots and how this effects the look and feel of the footage. He also explained during the practice how small few second clips can create so much context for the viewer - a POV shot in a foot cabinet as a person takes food from it doesn't seem to have that much importance and doesn't let the viewer know what the most important aspect of that shot it. So, Victor included a 2 second shot of the food that the character wanted (in this case peanut-butter and jam) and this made the world of difference as it lets the viewer have that little extra knowledge that they need in order to feel more involved in the scene. He also explained how important it is to film the entire scene repeatedly on different angles and perspectives so that way, I would have a variety of choices of what shots and angles to use at certain points of the clip during post production.