AICE Media Studies

I just reviewed what I learned in the past few days. There are a multitude of different camera angles, shots, and movements. There's also different types of film composition that's unique to shooting movies and makes up the format we still use today. I took many quizzes to test my knowledge, and the more I've done, the more I'm able to identify scenes in movies and understand the affect they have on the audience. 

 Today I went over a topic that I accidently skipped: camera movements. The camera movements are the movement of the camera in the film at the scene is being shot.  First there's the pan, which is when the camera moves steadily from left to right. The tilt, which creates a Dutch angle, is when the camera is tilted at an angle, to provide a distorted effect. The dolly is when the entire camera is moved forward or back, similar but not the same as a zoom. A zoom is only when the lens is moved forward, and it allows for the viewer to focus in on what the director wants to emphasize. The reverse zoom works the same, except the lens is moved backwards and it's usually done to reveal the background and surrounding objects.  The crane is, as the title, as shot that's done on a long mechanical arm that's like a crane, which can widely show the area around the character. The steadicam is a done with a device that makes so the camera is steady no matter how much the operator move

The composition of a film is just as important as the shots and angles. Composition is the way shots are put together in a film to convey a message. The first rule of composition is the rule of thirds. This rule is when a director puts the characters on the frame in terms of a grid. This is more visually pleasing to the eye and can show characters that are distant or close to the audience. The next rules are balance and leading lines. These rules both draw the audiences eyes to a particular part of the frame, by putting characters in the center or creating a line for the audiences eyes to follow. Then there’s a level framing, which puts the audience at the eye level of the character so we feel equal to them. The last two are depth of field and deep space focus. Depth of field is how the camera sharpens or goes blurry to emphasize on what the focus is. Deep space focus is also related to focus but instead of blurriness, multiple characters can be on the same frame but are different leng

 After camera shots, I learned about camera angles. Today I went over the high angle, lower angle, the dutch angle, the aerial shot, and the overhead shot. These are the main ones, though there are a few more.  The high angle and low angle are opposites to each other, the former is looking down on the subject, while the latter places the subject looking down at the viewer. The lower angle shot's purpose is the make the character seem superior and powerful. The dutch angle is a tilted view and is meant to show that the character is disoriented. The overhead shot is similar to the high shot but it's father away, like the character is looking up at a plane or a bird. The aerial shot is way up in the air and show the scenery, like a shot from a drone.  https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-camera-shots/#camera-angles

 This week I started going over different camera shots. There are a lot more than I thought and they all affect the scenes of a movie in a different way. Camera shots include the establishing shot, the wide shot, the master shot, the extremely long shot, the medium shot, the medium close up, the close up, and the extreme close up.  The establishing shot sets up the setting of the film and is found in the beginning. The wide shot is a little smaller than this, and is made to show off the full body of a character. The master shot is a zoomed out shot that captures that whole scene and usually serves the purpose of showing a change over time. After this, the extremely long shot, medium shot, medium close up, close up, and extreme close up serve the purpose of conveying the emotions and body language of the character on screen. They can also focus on a particular object or location that impacts the plot in some way.  There's also the over-the-shoulder shot, which shows a setting over a

 I went over everything I learned about conventions, including the related topic, codes. I learned that conventions come in many types, including general conventions, story conventions, and form conventions. I know that we see conventions all the time in every piece of media we consume, and as I was watching a movie earlier with my friends, I noticed the cowboy character was given a hat and a gun on his waist, which is a convention commonly associated with cowboys and the west. It was interesting to be able to recognize it so quickly, and then look for more as the movie went on.