Equipment Used

We were lucky enough to use some very advanced and expensive camera equipment as our actor, Joe, was a keen photographer. This allowed us to try some more interesting and difficult shots which could not have been achieved using an iPhone which we had previously used at the research and planning stage. For the majority of the shoot we used basic setting however we took advantage for particular shots, for example a Pull Focus.

The camera we used was a Canon 700D . This allowed us to explore different techniques which we have never tried. The two main settings we used were 'auto focus' and 'manual focus'. The auto focus made simple shots easy and this helped us finish all the shots in a reasonable time. The manual focus was very useful when we wanted to focus on a certain item, for example a tree, instead of the protagonist. This gave the shots look more professional and creative. The zoom on the camera was also very useful as it kept a good quality resolution throughout and meant we could film from positions further away.

In additional, we used a separate lens for certain shots to keep a high quality while zooming, for example the pans. They were very simple to replace and swap over which helped while we were filming in the cold as it wasn't fiddly.

As both of us didn't have any filming experience, we were often shaky in previous task while using the iPhone. To counter this, we used a tripod with a lever attached which helped us smoothly pan up, down and across seamlessly. The Tripod even had a spirit level on so we could make sure shots were level on the uneven surface. Lastly, we could adjust the height and keep all the shots at the same level when wanting to keep consistency, for example a match on action taken from a different angle.

The last item we used was a 'steadicam'. We only used it once for a tracking shot as it made a lot easy then doing it handheld. Hopefully this is clear in the video and adds a professional feel to the opening.

What Have I Learnt

I was very uneducated in camera technology before researching and starting to film. Learning more has allowed me to focus on  certain and more creative shots to engage our audience. Furthermore, it has shown me that filming on a mobile phone limits the quality and what you can achieve as it only has very basic settings. Similarly, the video quality can only be as good as the camera you use, as the higher quality resolution adds great realism to our opening. Lastly, the weather can affect how well the equipment works, for example drops on the lens ruined many shots, so they had to be redone.