CINEMATIC TECHNIQUE

 

Camera

 

• Firstly, make sure it is set to manual to give as much control as possible

• Cinemas play back at 24-25 fps so people are precondition to perceive films as being in this. The frames per second control the motion blur of your film so the ‘usual’ motion blur will be found in 24-25 fps

• Shutter speed also changes the motion blur

• Look at depth of field: shallow focus is good to draw attention to something as everything else is out of focus (lower f stop value, wider aperture) and deep focus is better for wide shots (higher f stop value, small aperture)

• The ISO affects exposure and also can affect quality of depth of field

• It is good to keep a neutral picture style, as an edited one (such as affecting contrast or sharpness) will look good off of the camera but isn’t as good if you want to correct the footage further in post production.

 

Post Production

 

• All professional products that you see will have been colour corrected (you can use RGB Curves or Three-Way colour corrector in Adobe Premier) to some degree in post-production

• After trying this out for the first time editing some practise lighting work (using the brightness and contrast effect, so less of changing the colour) we found it can have a dramatic effect, and makes it more professional straight away

• A popular cinematic technique is to give the lowlights a blue hue and the highlights a warmer hue 

• A big difference between amateur and professional footage is the inability for amateurs to get stabilising equipment and therefore end up with shaky footage where it isn’t wanted and this gives the wrong feel to the footage

• However, software can stabilise footage in post production with effects such as “warp stabiliser’ on Abobe Premier (the editing software our school uses), but this does increase render times and can reduce resolution

• The aspect ratio of footage on consumer cameras is also different to cinematic equipment, usually with consumer cameras it is 16:9 (widescreen) while most modern films are shown in the 2.35:1 (ultra widescreen)

• The easiest way to achieve this effect in post production is by letterboxing