Help from Axil

Last week we were lucky enough to have a camera operator come in and talk to us. Axil works as a camera Operator in films and this was particularly useful as he helped us and gave his top tips for our film openings. First of all he looked at all of our Preliminary Test and gave us corrections. It was interesting as all of us had made similar mistakes. He told us straight away that first of all we have filmed our frame too high so therefore had too much head space at the top. In this case for me I had chopped out Alainah's feet at the very start of the shot. For future reference, I would tighten up the frame and come down to eye line when she sits down.  I also needed to cut when she sits down instead of doing it all in one shot and towering over her. Finally, I needed to keep the same distance away from each actor when I'm doing match on action. This will prevent it looking unbalanced.

Just before the end we were able to use the camera and let Axil show how panning in one shot is done. By placing the camera in the right position first and practising panning before shooting made sure we weren't chopping any feet off or having too much head room.

I think Axil's advice was very valuable to my work as I have learnt techniques that I didn't know before. Now I can apply all these tips to my film opening to make it the best it can possibly be.