Single Camera Report

Stefan Christophides

About single camera techniques:

Firstly, a single camera production is where you only use one camera for all various shots. These single camera productions are sometimes low budget and most likely used for music videos since you only need one camera to film the production. It can also be used to shoot Prime time dramas and adverts. There are some disadvantages to filming a single camera production because it’s more time consuming but it also gives the directors more control and power of each shot that is taken.

Advantage of a single camera production:

·         it is low budget so you are only using one camera, which means you don’t have to use multiple or spend a lot of money

·         by having one camera it has more flexibility with shots

·         easier to collect all the shots because they are all on one camera

·         easy to set up and take down

Disadvantages of a single camera production:

·         can be hard to reproduce scenes

·         if the camera gets damaged all your work could delete or not you would not be able to recover it

·         time consuming

About the setup:

A single camera production only consists of one camera and it is not viewed live. The setup also consists of the 180 degree rule, which states the two characters in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to one another. It also consists of the camera not crossing the axes because if so it would confuse the audience, the reason for this is that it would make the character look like they are talking to themselves.

Single Camera Setup (180 degree)

An example of this would be when Phil and Grant Mitchell from Eastenders have a one to one confrontation about their family.

                            

This is seen as a 180 degree set up because they have the two brothers sitting face to face in the local pub. The camera goes from left to right to show the two different characters facial expressions at different points in time, whether, one looks surprised, sad and/or angry.

Three examples of formats

There are different types of formats that films, TV programmes and TV films consist of series, serial, single drama, franchises and short films. Below, I will give an example of three and what they consist of.

Series:  An example of a series is The Walking Dead

Before the show starts it recaps the main parts of what happened in the previous episode, to let the viewer’s remember the main and important parts of series. Also, when the series is being recapped the main people from the group are normally the ones that talk about the last episode, this would be called the voice over.

The series ‘The Walking Dead’ is about one main group of people and others that are just roaming around in the same state since, they’re in America. This main group of people have to survive and adjust to their new surroundings because of the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse. In this particular episode the main group has been broken into smaller groups which had to show the different stories of the people in that group.

Notes

·         Lead characters (group of friends and main family)

·         Series is about a group of strangers that band together so that they can survive the zombie apocalypse and start caring for each other

·         Names – ( Rick, Carl, Carol, Daryl, Glenn, Maggie, Machone, Sasha)

·         Strangers have a much different life from before apocalypse (Police officer and Thief)

Serial: EastEnders

EastEnders is known as a serial because it is soap, which means that it focuses on many characters and their lives. EastEnders focuses on different family drama that goes on in a day and how some families get mixed up into trouble and very sad moments. In all the episodes of EastEnders there is no recap on last episode, mostly due to the fact that it is on every week day except Wednesday. However, on Sundays EastEnders hold a recap day that shows all the drama, that happened during the week.

On special days, such as Christmas day the serial EastEnders would be an hour long and something emotional, shocking and/or happy would happen which would cause a voiceover to happen, this is done by an actor or an actress.

Notes

·         No preview from last episode

·         Lead characters ( 5 main families)

·         Revisit same locations ( Families house, pub, park and garage)

·         Opening seen of EastEnders (Aerial/Birds eye view of London)

·         Names –(Phil, Ronnie, Stacey, Mick, Roxy and Linda)

Single Drama: Honey Trap

A single drama is broadcasted but only once, it provides a representation of real life.  It is often based on topics or issues that are more appropriate for television. This real life film was created to portray the story of a young teenage boy called Showkey. In this film it shows us that a young women made friends with two boys that had their differences, the boy she got closer to was the one who actually started threatening the young girl to get the boy (Showkey) to come meet her so that a group of boys could beat him up, but this led to him getting stabbed. This follows a standard narrative.

Notes

·         There was no preview of a last episode since it was a film for television

·         Inspired by true events

·         Lead characters (Group of teens that live in South London)

·         Names –(Layla, Troy, Shaun, Shiree and Tonisha)

·         Revisited locations (Block of flats, youth centre and park

Franchises:

This is a collection of media in which several movies has been made for one title. This can be carried on by other parties or partners that might have an idea for the film. For example, Fast Furious is probably the one best known for this since they are making number eight of the film now. Another, example of this is Harry Potter because they have made 7 films for their franchise.

Narrative Structures:

Tzvetan Todorov’s Theory

In 1969, Tzvetan Theory produced a theory which he thought he could apply to any film. The theory was that all films follow the same narrative pattern. Todorov thought that all films went through stages called the equilibrium, disequilibrium, resolution and new equilibrium.

1. Equilibrium - the start if a film where it shows the family as being happy
2. Distribution - this is when the conflict happens
3. Resolution - this when someone resolves the conflict
4. New equilibrium - this is the new start of the family

This is what Todorov thought that all films consisted of.

A film that follow these steps perfectly is Die Hard.

1. Bruce Willis is coming home to his family for Christmas and all is great and calm. The Equilibrium

2. Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) and his team of terrorists take over the nakatomi building which is hosting a Christmas part of which Willis and his wife are attending. The Distribution

3. The police try sending in a SWAT team in which fails. The situation is solved by John Willis throwing Gruber out of a high floor window which kills him. The Resolution

4. The police got Willis, his wife and the other hostages out of the building, and the Willis leave in a police car. The resolved Equilibrium

Vladimir Propp’s Theory

Vladimir Propp had a different approach to films. In 1920, Propp was a critic and he was most interested in fairy tales. He had noticed that all fairy tales consisted of the same character profiles.

The characters he found were: (Example,Thor)

• The hero- Thor (he is the main character that saves the world)

   

• The villain- Loki (he was taken in by Thor's family when he was young only to find out that he was not really a part of their family, and then turn evil)

• The donor- Odin (he was the father of Thor that took away his powers and gave it back when he realised that Thor learned from his mistakes)

    

• The dispatcher- Heimdall (the man who has the visions and helps Thor on his journey)

 

• The helper- Professor Erik Selvig (when Thor was taken down to earth he was helped by a Professor that gave him a place to stay because he was fascinated about space)  

• The princess- Jane ( she was also a helper but she also caught the eyes of Thor which makes her both princess and helper)

 

The reason why I chose to talk about the Marvel film Thor is because it is a great example of Propp’s theory about character profiles, this is because Thor consists of all the profiles that Vladimir Propp talks about.

Claude Levi-Strauss:

Levi Strauss was a social anthropologist that believed movies consisted on binary opposites. Levi Strauss studied myths of tribal cultures, he also realised that stories reflect the values, beliefs and myth of a culture. Strauss thought that these finding of his would be expressed as binary opposites.  Binary opposites are a pair of related terms that have an opposite meaning. For example, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, strong and weak.

An example of this binary opposites is the film ‘Twilight: New Moon’. The reason why this consists of binary opposites is because in this film it’s a fight between a Vampires and Werewolves. In this case the two opposites are the vampires and werewolves because the two mythical creatures have been at war for a very long time, we know this because in every film that consists of vampires and wolves it tells us that the grudge between the two have been going on for years.

In the image above it shows the three main characters from Twilight and in the background it shows what the two males are and what they associate in. The man on the left (Edward) is shown to be more pale than the over two and in his background you can see people in red over coats, because of the makeup used for Edward we can tell he is associated with vampires. Also, on the left next to the red coats we can see a church that can link back to vampires. The man on the right (Jacob) is more tanned and in his background you are able to see a wolf, which then we can say that Jacob is also a wolf. We can also associate him to being a wolf is because on his side we are able to see a moon and the woods which are known elements of wolves.