Camera Focus

The use of camera focus is usually to ensure that the image your filming is clear and at the best quality when you actually film. However the use of a cameras focus is and is commonly used for other effects as I shall explain. Although we may not notice it, the human eyes never have everything their vision completely focused, this is why films that use shots that have the entire image in focus can appear un-natural to us the audiance. Therefore by adjusting the focus the director can achieve a naturalistic shot which is visually more apprpriate. Notice how the background in the image below is out of focus while the persons hands holding the camera are in focus.

Another common use of focu is to make the audiance aware of what is the subject. So for instance in the image below you can see the exact same image with two diffrent things in focus, by doing the director can communicate two completely diffrent things. The image to the left has the building in focus, maybe this forshadows that the next scene will occur in this building, maybe the director wants us to notice the person in the window. We can't be sure unless we see an entire scene with the cut in there, however the point is that the director has sucessfully got us to look at a specific subject. The picture to the right would tell us the audiance something completely diffrent. The fact the flowers are in focus means this may be an establishing shot of a picturesque village, maybe the flowers symbolise something to do with the movie. Once again we can't be certain unless we saw it in a sequence, however once again the director has communicated a completely diffrent thing with the exact same image.

                                       

Finaly the director may want to just have everything out of focus. This is used slightly less in film than the others, however is still considerably popular and some of the most iconic films have used it. By having everything out of focus can symbolise a number of emotion or communicate certain things about a scene. To make a scene calm and naturalistic is a good example as things that may be visually sharp are softened down when out of focus. Feelings of confusing can be represented due to us the audiance not beeing able to quite see whats occuring in the sequence. Finally a exstremely iconic sequence with this technique was in the film Gladiator. When General Maximus Decimus Meridius passes away we see shots of him walking through a field of wheat, sections of this we see just his hand touching the corn, all of this out of focus. This communicates to audiance that he has passed onto the afterlife which is calm a scerine for him.

                            

Film Techniques - SnorriCam

A SnorriCam is specialised rig/camera mount used in filmmaking that is attached to the body of an actor, facing the actor directly, so when they walk, they do not appear to move, but everything around them does. A SnorriCam presents a dynamic point of view from the actor's perspective, providing an unusual sense of vertigo (dissorientation) for the viewer. The effect was most iconically used in "Requiem for a dreamer", below are images of the rig that was used in the film along with an image of the final effect:

I feel that this technique may be appropriate for our music video. The effect would not only create a first person view that would help the audiance better relate to the characters but be an insight ito the suituation in the video.

Film Techniques - Jump Cuts

A jump cut is a cut in film editing in which two sequential shots of the same subject are taken from camera positions that vary only slightly. This type of edit causes the subject of the shots to appear to "jump" position in a discontinuous way. For this reason, jump cuts are considered a violation of classical continuity editing, which aims to give the appearance of continuous time and space in the story-world by de-emphasizing editing. Jump cuts, in contrast, draw attention to the constructed nature of the film. Although the term is sometimes used in a loose way, a cut between two different subjects is not a true jump cut, no matter how jarring.

Film Techniques - 180 Degree Rule

The 180° rule is a basic guideline in film making that states that two characters in the same scene should always be on the same side in every shot. So if a character is on the left of the screen, then they should otherwise always be on that side. This prevents the audience from becoming disoriented and confused. If the camera passes over the imaginary 180 degree line connecting the two characters, it is called crossing the line which should be done in one camera shot to explain visually what is happening.


A short video which demonstrates/explains the 180 Degree rule-