This week's lecture was all about 'Cine-speak' or 'learning the language of the cinema' (nicholas 2010). In a nutshell the concept relates to what story or narrative we can tell from a shot without writing it in words. We can add so much extra to a story by simple using the right camera angles, poses and shots at the right time.
When we were filming our 30-shot short film we tried to use as many variations of camera angles as we could. We also tried to use shots that imply things or use 'pictures as words'.
You will be able to see this in many of our shots. You can see shots where we use just Jay (the stalker's) legs and myself (the victim) is off in the background. Or a very long camera angle from behind Jay looking at Sherie in the distance to create this sense of stalking. Another good example of pictures telling a story is the shot after Jay is punched. Here just from using a close up and facial expression you can tell he has been wounded.
I found this lecture really useful. I wish my mum had learned the rule of thirds back before we had digital cameras.. we have so many old family photos with copious amounts of sky and tiny little people in the shot! We are fairuly spoilt these days as we have so much editing software at our fingertips that if we stuff up a camera angle or position we can easily move and crop things.
Heres an image which demonstrates the rule of thirds:
Source: Lecture material
Picture: Google Images
The following link is a really really great website on camera shots and angles:
http://www.mediacollege.com/video/shots/
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