Camera workshop: Interview Task

This video is our camera workshop task. Making this video is to practice my camera using technique, and know how to set the camera position, and how to interview an interviewee. In my group, I am the cameraman. What I have done is firstly, I chose a position with better light, then adjust the white balance, focal distance and the depth of lens. After all be settled, we can roll it.

In the process of making this video, I realized that microphone is an important equipment, because the camera built-in microphone is dull, it can not catch the sound from people stand a bit far away  camera. Therefore, we record sound and pictures seperately, and edit them together. Another thing is, the interviewer's position is not appropriate, the interviewee's vision field is not including the camera. It will make audiences feel not close to the interviewee. The best position to set interviewer is on both left or right sides of camera. Last but not least, the environmental sound is too noisy, it is hardly to hear the conversation. So in the next time, we will find some silent place for filming.

The review of Brazil (2)

The main role Sam is a goverment office salaries, with a upper-class background, finally he died because he against the institution of the country to chase his love. In the murder system, there are flaws in it. A cockroach could let a innocent person die in the jail, it is enough to ruin a family. It is the outcome of bureaucracy, and also the symbolic of the extinction of this institution.



For creating this high institution society, the director sets kinds of detail, such as the black humour to express the corrupt society. For example, all of the guests ordered the menu according to number, no matter what they order, the food are the same with different colour. A cheque can not be delivered, the boss of consulting office feels like the end of world is coming. In Sam’s final dream, for rescue Sam, Tuttle lead the his team battle with police, but the cleaner around like feel nothing and still work in the lobby.





Sam, on one hand, keeps the basic independent, on the other hand immerse into his dream. For him, the dream is as important as life, even excess life. In dream, he owns love and he can fly atleast, but the real life is pale. His dream is fantastic, but the reality is tragedy, he want to escape from the society, but he can not.

The review of Brazil (1)

Where could human’s society develop into? Exclude the fairy tale story have a happy ending, almost every current severe ideologists made an negative conclusion. It might be the imagination is not wide enough, or the disadvantages of society can not be clean out. The future is always the darkest portion of ideologists.



Brazil is not a fictional film about the future, but a film reveal some phenomenon of society. This black comedy is one of Terry Gilliam’s great works, create a negative future world. The surface of world looks peace and carefree, but the inner of the world is centralization and reveal the worst of humanity. As a matter of fact, there is no such a country, principle exists in the world. However, there are some similarities between this world and our society.





Society is a broad word that includes the country principle, ideology, and government system. In this film, the state apparatus is delicate. At the beginning, a beetle fly into the type machine, the wrong case happened. But the heroine Jill wave her hand slightly, broke the searching machine, Sam destroyed the documents delivery system in consulting office by a rubber tube. The state apparatus is hard to maintain.



Even though, the whole system is delicate, it can arise state apparatus to kill kind citizens. The more kindness citizens are, the more dangerous situation they should face.

Character study 2: A Drunk Lady

10:00pm., 143 Lower Parliament Street, a scream of brakes brock the silence of the night. I look out of the window immediately. A lady in a green miniskirt, sat on the ground, the stuff in her bag were scattered on the middle of the road, a car stopped behind her, then ran away, at that time, the zebra crossing traffic light is red. She scolded the driver several words, and picked up her belongings, her behaviour looked slow and awkward. Her girlfriend helped her to the pavement, and went back to pick other stuff up. She sat on the pavement, with a straight dull eyesight on her face.

She was drunk, due to her sexy dress, she might just come out from nightclub. Maybe she was broke up, used alcohol to ignore her broken heart. She soaked herself in sadness, she could not believe her boyfriend fall in love with other woman. She did not know what she was doing, she only known that in front of her is the pathway to her home. Therefore, she went straightly in spite of the red light. Fortunately, she had not been hurt.

Her girlfriend came back and accompany her to the next street corner. Because of the girlfriend’s plain clothes, and clear-headed action, she might came here specially for taking the lady home. After the lady fell asleep, girlfriend left a message and went home. Midnight, the lady woke up, with frightening eyes, she suffered a nightmare. She saw the message on the night table, it was: “ I hope you can remember that, if you need me, I would stay by your side forever, even if I am not in front of you, my heart will always stay with you. Since I know I have got a cancer, there are only 3 month left in my life, I decided to give up therapy and chase my dream. I will explore every unknown in my existence life. Maybe I will go to China, Sahara, Egypt, I am not sure. But I am sure I would leave my phone and computer, to keep my heart pure and clear.” The lady cried, she realised that she would lose her best friend, and had waste lot of time on an unworthy person. Nevertheless, it is not late, all of the tragedy brought her to the end of a dark world, and the start of the fresh life, all the things seemed hopefully.

Cut out practice.

The first picture is the interview in Broadway, the others are the cut out shots. This is the first practice in Broadway, shooting practice that is useful if we do some interview or make some news video. Firstly is that, we should interview people, then shoot some scenery that he mentioned in the interview. That could be used to cut out. Because if a shot is excess above 3 seconds, it would cause visual fatigue. For example, if the interviewer mentioned about that"I love milk because it is nutrition...." It is better to insert the frames with milk or something relevant with milk in this interview. 

Character Study 1: A Red Flower Woman

It was a rainy afternoon, a woman was walking in Shakespeare Street. She was in poor clothes with a heavy package on her back. What made she difference are her hair accessories that are 3 or more big red flowers. When she went across the street, she began to dance with some weird steps. However, she did not embarrassed, but with a sincere smile on her face.

Yes, she had got mental disease. She suffered from misfortune which broke her down not long ago. It seemed that her home met with a fire, her children and husband was all die from this disaster, only her survived, due to the large bag on her back, in which might hold all the things she could find from her damaged house. What is more, her face was rubbed against dust, she looked so lonely but happy.

After the ending of her dance, she would step into a future journey, found a living place, and display all of her ‘wealth’ over there. After all things was settled up, she might take a rest, then hold her husband’s photo in her hands, and looked the sun set behind the horizon, with a sincere smile on her face. Maybe only when she was in mental disease, she could not be upset, worry, pain any more. Besides, owing to she lived in her own world, there was no need for her to avoid any disagreement, and she would never lose herself in the future.

Week 15: Project Revise

Due to my topic about montage was not MA level, I am trying to answer the question mentioned by my tutor that "What new element of montage you think you can add still apply?" After one week research, I came up with two new topic.

The effects of applying montage extend the frames and create the off camera space in film."
That is to research how to create the scene that did not displayed on the screen, but the audience can imagine it, such as ‘cinema paradiso’, a elder lady went downstairs, the camera did not follow her steps, but shoot a half knitted sweater that was dragged and pulled by the elder lady, the sweater became small and small. This scene shows the space that audiences could not see. This picture not only shows the lady go downstairs, but also present the eager emotion of the lady, and generate the director’s individual style.

Another one is: "The effects of applying montage manipulate the time in film."
This project aims to research how montage expands or diminishes the time, and the effects it brings to audiences.
For example, for minimizing the time of the character’s growth, the first frame could be showed the child face, and second shot is the flowing cloud, the third frame is the adult face. Only three shots could illustrate a long period of time. The effects of the montage might be push the plot continuing without being slack.

I have also thought about my original project, that is "How post-production create the characteristics of fairy tale film."
I would research three aspects about fairy tale film: visual effect, the narration, and the sounds, and research the post-production features in fairy tale film.

The next step is choosing one of them and continuing to develop my project.