Equipment

Film cameras are used and produced today, especially for the production of full feature movies. Film cameras take a series of images; "frame". The frames are later played back in a movie projector at a specific speed, called the "frame rate". While viewing, a person's eyes and brain merge the separate pictures together to create the illusion of motion.


As a class we are lucky enough to be using the latest handheld Sony cameras that really make it easy to film and upload videos. Our teacher gave us a quick demonstration on how the battery works and what we needed to do to change certain settings. After the tutorial we used the camera to film the preliminary task and got a real feel of how they responded to certain lighting and movements. As a group we decided that the main priorites to dow ith the camera was the charging of it, safety and making sure the setting configured to the scenes we needed to shoot. We made sure that before filming the cameras were fully charged and any additional items such as lighting were with us.

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A tripod is a portable three-legged frame, used as a platform for supporting the weight and maintaining the stability of some other object. A tripod provides stability against downward forces, horizontal forces and moments about the vertical axis. The positioning of the three feet away from the vertical centre allows the tripod better leverage for resisting lateral forces. Tripods have the disadvantage of being heavy and bulky although they can be used with large equipment.

I found the use of the tripod to bring more positives than negatives. While it was extremely heavy and inconveient to transport and sometimes didnt allow for flexibility it helped us a great deal in shooting our openig sequence. It allowed for swift camera movements and excelent control. We are fully aware that the examiners will be looking at the steadiness of the shot and I beileve it wouold ahve been near impossible to achieve such a high level of stability without it.
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Lighting illuminates the performers and artists in a live theatre, dance, or musical performance, and is selected and arranged to create dramatic effects. Dimmers, colored filters, reflectors, lenses, motorized or manually aimed lamps, and different kinds of flood and spot lights are among the tools used by a stage lighting designer to produce the desired effects.

Although artificial light normally plays a huge role in many major productions, we found that we didnt have to use it. We prefred instead to use the natural light becuase it gave our film more of an authentic look and we beieved that any over imposing light would detract from the narrative. However the lighting equipement would have been extremely helpful had we filmed any outdoor night scenes and allowed us to see our protagonist clearly.
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A camera dolly is a piece of filmmaking production equipment designed to create smooth camera movements. The camera is mounted to the dolly and the camera operator and focus puller or camera assistant, usually ride on the dolly to operate the camera.

The use of the dolly was crucial in obtainig many of our shots. We thought it added great variety to our shots and allowed us to film ceratin tracking shots smoothly. There were a couple of negative points that included when filming outside the dolly would shake quite viagoursly if the ground wasnt completely smooth and made the shot seem unprofessional. However indoors with a much smoother surface it worked perfectly helped us piece the opening together nicely.
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Sound recording is a re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording. Acoustic analog recording is achieved by a small microphone diaphragm that can detect changes in atmospheric pressure and record them as a graphic representation of the sound waves on a medium such as a phonograph.

We used the sound recorder mainly for sounds that the camera didn't pick up too well. This included the alarm sound, dialogue and keyboard typing. It was extremely easy to use and i believe will allow our film to sound more clearer to the audience, this will add the feel of authenticity which is important in adding tension. The only problem that could arise is whether we are able to dub in the sound inappropriately. During editing we are going to have to work hard in making sure that everything fits and is appropriate.