Amin Khan

My students have finally made their youtube debuts with some videos they made for a 'Practical Video' module. Please take some time to cast your eye over them and if possible leave some feedback, they would be most grateful. Big T ABC Promo The Deadline goes out of sync a little half way through, this is something to do with youtube and not the film makers fault. They are not film students or even media students and the equipment they had was limited to say the least, though some have expressed a new found interest in film making. Please try to encourage them. Thanks ever so much

well this is a start...we covered some very basic techniques: the students have been tasked with making their own videos which hopefully will be a tad more sophisticated. Not too displeased with the result considering the equipment available. The keying was awfull due to a very bad chromakey on a very uneven makeshift bluescreen. The dolly was done with a wheely chair and the tripod was broken so the tilt was guided by a shaky hand. the focus racking was aided with some post trickery. sorry for the newbish work, i realise now i should have begun this thread in another forum.

its called the moire effect and occurs with digital scanning as opposed to analogue film. I think if there is an issue when you digitize the film im pretty sure it can be overcome. here is an explanation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern

wow, what a bummer.You'll always get some who'll try it on anywhere you go. Im sorry about the rental equipment but you'll be dining out on this anecdote for years. ;) Best of luck and hope you get out soon.

I watched this a couple of times and You know what, i liked it. It was spooky - slightly sinister. As for judging the effects or camera work independently ..i dont know, im no expert but i did like the rain sound effect alot, that really made the piece - especially when it became really loud, as if one had stepped outside or opened a window. very immersive. The camera movements added to the sinister feel, like peering over the window sill and spying. The thing that ruined it was the quality of the video. Google did a bad job of converting your film to flash. I would render the piece out again as close to the native google resolution as possible, then upload. Weird little clip but in a good way.

Im sorry to hear about your pickle. Sometimes there is no easy solution, infact i imagine most shoots encounter similar problems. This is one of the fundamentals skills of producing a film: overcoming such hurdles. I work as an editor and we are always up against it, something is always going wrong and things are always clashing - if its any consolation every production is the same. The solutins to your problem can only be worked out by you but if you want to have a future in film making than you need to be determined , take opportunities when they present themselves, and take risks and be bold. Dont be afraid to ask people favours if there is no other way. Sell yourself, fight your corner and if that fails find another way. Dont make excuses and don give up.Every problem has a solution. Good luck. (i suggest by firstly explaining your problem to those responsible for allocating the schedules - how you came in at the last minute etc and see if you can get rescheduled for later. If that fails-and dont write it off untill youve tried it - then you will have to have a persuasive word with your interviewees, find a time that they will be available. Maybe go coursing with them and film them on location . )

well we are half way through getting different camera shots, we used a wheely chair for our dolly, we tried a 'ducth angle' shot and high and lo perspective. we tried a tilt and a pan - something which was an accomplishment in itself(youd understand if you ever saw the equipment we had to work with) - we will continue to try and get some more shots this coming week and maybe try and get some better equipment. Then we will edit the footage using well established editing techniques. apart from anything else the students loved it and we all had a good time. they have been set an assignment of producing their own 2-3 min short by april Ive included a bit of footage they shot previously and edited: Sorry about the quality. still figuring our way around youtube) feel free to leave comments , they will be thrilled at reading them!

Hi, The film has just opened in the UK and i got to see it last night. Overall, i left the cinema unimpresed because i couldn t accept the premise quite like i could with Blair Witch. The camerawork was shaky to act as a cue for our brains to create a heightened sense of realism thereby creating a more acute sense of shock,fear etc....just as in Blair witch. The problem was that although the camera was shaking all over the place the lighting still seemed cinematic, i mean when the guy went round the party collecting interviews the subjects were surprisingly well lit, this in itself destroyed the notion of 'found amateur footage'. The other thing was the acting, it wasnt as nearly as naturalistic as Blair Witch so it also helped undermine the illusion tha this whole shebang was real - it all seemed tightly scripted and staged. Finally the monster looked cg, the compositing wasnt realistic on some of the shots. So for me the problem wasnt that the camera shook, it was the fact that the rest of the film didnt shake quite as much. They tried to hit the balance between believabilty and watchability and fell short.

I think its a good habit to get into - that is to build and generally take an interest in the mechanics of ones equipment. Many of the innovations in cameras were invented by camera men themselves in order to overcome practical hurdles in obtaining a shot.

Hi David, I absolutely agree with you about concentrating on the fundamentals. We hope to make a video of camera techniques/editing techniques this coming lesson(not too dissimilar to those youtube links i posted). So whereas most of the shots will be basic shots(like long shot, medium close up, close up etc) Ill know ill also have to do something that excites them otherwise ill lose their attention(these kids arnt necessarily film lovers and i have to work hard to sustain their interest) I found the best way to motivate them is to actually get them to do something fun - and hopefully get them to appreciate some of the fundamentals indirectly(i guess this applies to myself aswell :) ) I guess that what i am really asking is how can i get them to say "wow thats cool!! i want to learn more" ...bearing in mind we have a SD camcorder, a rickety trolley, one 1k light with barn doors and 2 hours on a tuesday afternoon. I mean i showed them examples of establishing shots, framing shots and told them about crossing the line but it wasnt untill i showed them the clip of the dolly zoom in Jaws that they really sat up and started paying attention. Do you think it would be possible to do a dolly zoom with a rather old camcorder? Are there any other neat little things i can show them to grab their attention?? btw ive created a youtube account for the class and we will be putting the results of our efforts online - ill make sure i post the link. thanks again

Thanks David, I think that yours is the only solution to achieving this effect with the equipment we have. The course i teach is not a cinematography course but simply one module dedicated to using a specific editing software. I have chosen to expand its remit just to make it more interesting for myself and the students. I'd also like to know how a cameraman thinks up new shot techniques/transitions etc. Apart from the Bourne 'hand-held' approach Are there techniques that come in and out of fashion, what currently is the 'thing' everyone is doing? Thanks again

neat. id love to see the resulting shot from this dolly. Im trying to improvise a dolly and the best i can come up with at the moment is a shopping trolly. :lol:

Hi there, im new to this forum and relatively new to this field. I work as a freelance video editor and motion graphics animator.(mostly cheesy corporate stuff) Ive been stuck in a rut for a few years. Ive always had a vague interest in filming techniques, ive harbored a fancifull dream of one day becoming a fully fledged film maker(sound familiar?? ;) ). As time went on this dream receded into the distance and i often thought 'who am i kidding?', well now its back with avengeance. With this new job of teaching i took the opportunity to start from scratch. Researching film from the ground up, studying theory aswell as actually doing it(making films). At the age of 33 Ive decided to commit myself wholly and utterly to the art of film-making and AV. Im not here to solicit opinion on the wisdom of this decision because - for better or for worse - it has been made and that is final. I plan on covering basic camera techniques and editing techniques in my class - and have the students make a video along these lines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOdL1IiPzJM&NR=1 My question is 1) what camera techniques are currently in vogue?(either in TV or Film) is there an online resource for such things? 2) For some of the difficult techniques are there handy workarounds? cheats? (like is there an easy way to create a 'rack focus' effect on a crappy camcoder with autofocus) Equipment available to me is pretty crap to say the least 3)any advice would be most welcome Thanks.