Lighting Practice

3-point fill lighting

3 lights is used to create a normal-looking scene with soft shadows and average colours. Using a 3-light setup to provide normal lighting across an entire object, the exact opposite of chiaroscuro. This is used in the most 'normal' scenes with any object in focus.

Chiaroscuro lighting

Chiaroscuro is characterised by harsh lighting that creates an extreme contrast between different areas of shot so that there is extreme blacks and whites.

High key lighting
High key lighting uses harsh, bright lights to reduce contrast in a scene. Giving the scene a white-washed, clean look and does not have any shadows in frame. Low key lighting is the opposite of this.

Backlighting
Backlighting is when the scene is lit directly from behind, where it is used to create a silhouette. It is often used to make a scene seem romantic.

Natural lighting
This can either be the natural light coming from the sun but can also refer to a light source that has a light yellow or white hue.

Artificial lighting
A light that comes intentionally from man-made light sources, for example light bulbs. They often have orange or a blue-green hue.

Gender textual analysis of a clip from 'The Fall' . Click to view

Although I completed this as part of my study of the representation of gender for my AS exam, it is relevant to the my coursework as, in planning for this, I will need to consider how the representation of gender is constructed through the use of camera shots, mise-en-scene, editing and sound. This will hopefully enable me to represent characters in a variety of different ways in my film opening.

Preliminary evaluation

This is a short video answering five questions which reflects what we have learned whilst making our video.

Question 6:

The final question we were asked to completed was to evaluate our contributions to the group work.

My role within the group was to take the camera shots and film. I really enjoyed doing this as I learnt a lot about continuity and the importance of 180 degree rule, shot reverse shot and match on action. I also helped with the editing and learn't about the software, as well as how to comply these techniques and use it to make our video better. Therefore this task has taught me an arrange of new skills i did not know beforehand.

The final two days we had to complete our task, I was away on a field trip. Therefore believe i was not very flexible on these days and i was not able to help complete the finishing touches.

Finally i believed we worked extremely well as a group as we all got along great. Each of us added our own input and made the decisions about the film together. We had our own roles but we still worked together and helped one and other out.

The final result from our preliminary task!

After two weeks we completed the task and this is the final outcome:

Location for our preliminary task:

Before we started filming our preliminary task we took photos of where we thought our clip should take place. In the end we decided to use the school corridors and a store cupboard in order to set the scene. We thought that we would make the bully storm up the corridor and the stairs in order to create tension. In order to make the victim look worried and frail, we thought that a small dark room  would be the best place for the exchange of dialogue to occur as it emphasises the loneliness of the victim. Furthermore as the room was quiet so it was easy to hear what the characters were saying as well as having great lighting for our camera shots. 

Storyboard showing our preliminary task

Before we started our preliminary task we planned and organised our ideas into a storyboard. This is done in order to help us film as we know exactly what camera shots to use, the location we are filming at as well as the props needed.

Storyboard 1

Storyboard 2

Storyboard 3

How TV series Utopia got it comic book look:

Post Production 

This is the tasks that must be completed or executed after the filming or shooting ends. Post production isn't used for correcting mistakes but for editing, sounds and titling. This is the final stage of film creation and is always completed after filming or recording has taken place.

Post production is used throughout the series of Utopia to make the colours within the scenes turn into the palette of 1950s Hollywood. The three-strip Technicolor process used, comprise the opposite colours of yellows, cyan and magenta's in order to create boldness and achieve the comic book look the creators were after. For example the skies shot were often grey so within post-production were turned into the bright blues. This same technique was used in order to make the grass greener and to turn a blue van yellow.

Furthermore there is now plans to make series two even bolder and brighter as they now have more money to dress the scenes in yellows,cyan and magenta's.

Before post-production

After post-production

Article used: http://www.wired.co.uk/article/utopia-channel-4