Skills Development

Skills Development

During this course, I have had several opportunities to learn new and develop skills in the creative area to not only help me throughout the course but to also gain knowledge and experience in different areas for future creative work opportunities and to develop my own skills as a whole.

Cinematography and Photography

Since September 2019 in particular, I have had more use of using a DSLR camera for photography. For the filming and on-location photography, I had the opportunity to use both a Sony A7 II and a Canon 700D. I found myself primarily using the Sony A7 II for cinematography when filming for the student short film "Caged In" as well as using the Canon 700D for on-location photography to gather a series of photos to give cast and crew a suitable idea of where we would consider/were going to be filming. With both cameras, I learnt a lot about looking at the ISO for different types of shots which would dependent on both natural and artificial lighting. This came as quite handy for both outdoor shots when filming on-location (in particular Hopton Church) where we found ourselves filming in bright sunlight. This meant we had to adjust the ISO so the light exposure would not be too bright nor would it be too dark on the camera when filming. Alongside this, I also learnt about using different types of lenses for different shot types whilst filming. For some scenes when using the Sony camera, we would use a 50mm lens for wide shots and establishing shots, whilst for others we'd use a 28-70mm lens for intimate shots and close up shots. Whilst using these cameras throughout the year, I feel like I have developed a better understanding of them as well as the techniques I can apply to using them to create unique work with them.

In addition to using cameras, I have also been using an unorthodox method for photography both during and outside my lessons throughout the year. This method, being using a mobile phone. Whilst the specs on a mobile phone do not necessarily compete well with those of a camera, I thought that using a mobile phone would be an interesting way to both use for photography but also compare when looking at the quality and technicality of a standard digital camera. The phone I used was the Huawei P20, with a 12 Megapixel dual camera, which I have found has been useful in particular for natural lighting shots as well as close-up portrait and landscape shots. Again, it may be dwarfed by the specs and technology used in a DSLR camera, such as the Sony A7 II, yet I have found it to be just as useful and impressive for both outdoor and in-door photography as I do not have a DSLR camera of my own.

Sound Recording and Editing

Alongside developing camerawork skills throughout the year, I began to learn how to use a Tascam DR-60D MkII sound recorder. This was also through preparation for filming and during filming on set. With the use of the Tascam, I was taught about the gain levels - looking at how that could affect the audio quality, and how much background audio could be picked up through recording. Alongside this, I learnt about sound prints as part of the editing process of audio and saw first hand how much the gain levels could really affect the audio pick up through the Tascam and so, I began to learn how to select and remove different sound prints to get a clearer audio recording if/when there is too much background noise due to too high of a gain level.

With the use of the Tascam, I was able to record different types of audio during filming - this was focused on dialogue and foley. However, during different days on set, there was a lot of audio interference due to strong winds as well as passing vehicles whilst we were in the middle of filming. When such events occurred, I made sure the gain was at a suitable level to still be able to hear the dialogue/foley but also reduce the interfering background noise. Often, we used a dead cat windshield to cover the attached microphone to also help reduce unwanted audio and thus, helped produce a better recording each time. This then made sound editing easier as there were little to no other sound prints of unnecessary and useless audio clips that would interrupt the sound editing process.