Cinematography Reel - ID# 130

Hillcrest

Cinematography

Entry Description

This is a cinematography reel composed with a few of my favorite shots I got this past year. Permission to use music by De Wolfe Music.

Copyright Info

Recent Teacher Comments

• 4/29 9:13 pm - Pros - Excellent compositional skills on display. Framing, movement, and blocking all exemplary, particularly in the music video clips. Exposure control was strong, as was focal skills in the majority of the piece. Wide variety of exterior lighting conditions and all were controlled well, with the exception of some highlight detail issues at the skate park. Cons - No artificial lighting skills on display; the painting and boxing gym are both flat high key. Would have liked to see a wider variety of lighting skill demonstrated. Minor focus issue in the ski shot and contrast was low (although snow hills are very hard places to control contrast). Overall very strong work!
• 4/6 1:08 pm - Great reel showcasing a variety of shots, movements, and environments to clearly demonstrate your ability to control your camera manually. Would love to see a few more shots using lower frame rates to demonstrate a softer, manual look as the jump between objects looks like it's either auto focus or deep aperture.

Judge 1

Positives: Great variety of shots here that show off a range of camera and lighting situations. Good composition and camera movement especially with car shots.

Improvements: Although you have several indoor/low natural lighting situations I would have liked to see more actual mastery over the lighting itself. It seems that you have just used the natural light. A specific example would be in the proposal footage. If more control was put on the light there would be better exposure on their faces. The music video footage looks good generally, but again with some more control over the light you could have made this look even better . She could have used a bit more light on her face either from bounce or from an artificial light source.

Judge 2

Positives: A very nice series of images woven together as a cinematography reel. It shows an excellent use of the camera and incorporating techniques that augment the scene (whether static or dynamic). The cinematography is very good technically, and shows the kind of pacing that allows this reviewer to appreciate the full presentation. The bookended shot of the young singer against a backlight was very successful at the beginning and at the end. In the scene (46-48 sec mark) the slow approach of the girl against the crashing wave scene was highly effective and the best use of the slow-motion cinematography. Another specific shot was the reveal of the art work being painted. The move was great in terms of what the scene suggests: the discovery of the the painting. A beautiful shot is with the young female singer in red/black (19-21 sec mark) merging from the shadows and then cut with the black/red segment of the cars (21- 23 sec mark) (though the red Honda should have been in the front). A highly effective and nuanced sequence.

Improvements: Having just commented on the painting reveal, the focus was a bit off and could been more 'rehearsed' so as to rehearse the sharpness of the scene. What this reviewer found a little bit off-putting was the technique used in the boxing rehearsal (49 - 54 sec mark). The Dutch angle approach, coupled with the rotating scene seemed a bit of an overdone scene... a rotating scene from above could have been more effective, to show the distance and the sparring nature of the two pugilists in the ring. While some of the shots were good, the actual boxing scenes (49-54 sec mark) (1:04-1:06 sec mark) seemed to be littered with laser spots (perhaps a focus element of the camera?). Sort of distracting. Focus in a shot is critical and significant; it would be an advantage to get rid of the scenes or reshoot it (but this time, with one fighter pretty much in place while the other fighter is moving... one way to keep focus on the two - or just practice focussing on the subjects with more practice). Some of the scenes are repeated and appear somewhat redundant; search for more scenes, good lighting and production designed backgrounds. One car scene from the front (the red and black one) tying into the young singer dressed in black/red is a good cinematic tie-in, actually, as is the punching bag.

Judge 3

Positives: Something that worked well with this piece was the variety of locations. The drone shot of the ski slope was great and the singer walking near the water was creative and different. I liked the use of rack focus throughout the piece as well.

Improvements: I felt one of the strongest shots in this piece was the opening and closing shots of the singer with the sunset and I felt this piece as a whole could have benefitted from more creative lighting techniques such as that. Most of the shots were similar in style and I wished there was more of a variety.

Judge 4

Positives:

Improvements: