Camera Workshop 1

Because we're going to be doing the production of the opening sequence of a movie ourselves, we need to learn how to shoot first. On January 17th we started our first Camera Workshop. We were shown a box that includes the camera, the lens, the battery, and a tripod beside them.

The camera we are using is Black magic 4K mini URSA. As the camera is really heavy and expensive, in order to prevent it from falling during the handover process, we have to say ‘yours’ when we give it to others, and correspondingly say ‘mine’ when we take the camera or other heavy equipments. 

The teacher also showed us how to use the tripod correctly. So first, we need to open the legs of the tripod. And we can twist the control pole up. Then, we can extend the height of the tripod by opening all three of the latches.We should open the bottom latches first, because it is easy to balance if we need to open the second layer of latches. When adjusting the height, our feet can step on the bottom to prevent it from being unbalanced. And before placing the camera on the top, we need to make sure it is balancing. While shooting, we should let the camera elevated to the same height as the object.
 

The first thing we need to check before shooting is the spirit level also called the bubble level. The spirit level can help us to determine the horizontal and vertical directions by moving the camera on the tripod to centering the bubble. Next we learned how to focus and zoom. This is done by twisting the ring to adjust the lens. The ring that close to us is to focus, and the ring furtherest away is to zoom.

We need to zoom in to focus and then zoom out every time because it can make sure the camera is focusing on the objects that we want.For example, if we want to focus the title of a magazine cover, we need to zoom in and adjust the camera to focus on the small detail. Then we zoom out to the whole scene. When filming a person, we normally focus on the eyes because it is the most detailed part on our face.

Moreover, we learned about the white balancing, it is used to change the colours which match the colour of the lighting in different settings. It can remove the unrealistic colours in the shoot. For example, if the camera is shooting outside (the sun), the light source will be very blue if the white balancing is for inside. And if we use the white balancing for outside while shooting inside (the man made lights), the scene will be orange. So we need to change the white balancing while shooting in different light sources. We can change it by pressing the WB sign on the touching screen.
 
At the end, we should striking the kit which is putting all the equipments away. First of all, we need to turn off the camera and remove the battery. Then we carefully remove the camera and put it in the box. Next, we need to twist the central pole off from the tripod. At last, we should open the latches and retract the legs to the lowest height and close the three legs together. The central pole and the tripod goes into the black bag.