"A Dimension of Mind: Film" - Part 3: Lighting

"A Dimension of Mind: Film" is a facsimile of the "Sight and Sound: Film" course at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.  However, "A Dimenstion of Mind: Film" differs in some important ways because it can be replicated at home.

Difficulty level: 2

Round 3 – Light. 
It’s time to learn lighting techniques. Get a bunch of big electric lamps. Now you can shoot inside. Still no sound allowed.

Movie 9 — 3-point lighting.

• Use the lamps to create a scene that uses a basic 3-point portraiture lighting scheme. This consists of a key-light to light the figure, a fill-light to dilute hard shadows, and a back-light to create a slight highlight or shine on the figure.

This video is a very clear (if slightly hokey) explanation of how 3-point lighting works.


Movie 10 — Soft Lighting

• Use diffused and bounced light to create a soft, glowing, radiant, magical texture with the light.

This scene from the Baz Luhrmann interpretation of "Romeo + Juliet" features some diffused, soft lighting bounced/reflected off of the "water" (which of course, is a filmmaker's trick, you know).


Movie 11 — Moving Through Light.

• Create a scene that features an environment of mixed hard-lit areas and starkly shaded areas, and have a character or object move through this environment for dramatic effect.

Click Here to watch a perfect example of lighting for movement in Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull 

Movie 12 — Using light for special effects

• Light can be used for all sorts of cool things: Flashes, explosions, double-exposures, magical/scientific/supernatural light-sources, narrow illuminated beams for puppetry, contrived shadows —the world is yours! Use your imagination and your lamps to come up with some real-life magic tricks to shock and amaze your audience.

This is just one of the many successful special effects lighting projects made by NYU students under the "real" Sight and Sound: Film program:

"A Dimension of Mind: Film" - Part 4: Sound

"A Dimension of Mind: Film" is a facsimile of the "Sight and Sound: Film" course at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.  However, "A Dimenstion of Mind: Film" differs in some important ways because it can be replicated at home.

Difficulty level: 2

Round 4 – Sound. 

Sound totally changes our perception of an image. In most of these exercises, you are to record background sounds on-location using a microphone, or find sound effects on the internet for free, or create your own foley sound effects. Remember that the keys to creating realistic sounds include room tone (the basic ambience or white noise in a room at any given moment) diagetic sound (sound that takes place in the story world, like sound effects, dialogue, or a musician’s fiddle) and non-diagetic sound (out-of-world “commentary” music, like voice-overs or soundtrack music)

Move 13 — Music.

• Create a film with a single piece of music as its soundtrack. Practice cutting the movie to the sound. (Cutting images to sound is called "mickey-mousing" because it migrated to film from the world of animation)

This scene from The Social Network makes good use of music.  It's not choreography, it's just using a soundtrack.

Movie 14 — Voice-over

• Create a film that utilizes some form of recorded voice-over.

Look to films like Fight Club, or some film-noir classic, for examples of internal monologues. Look at documentary films like March of the Penguins for educational-style voice-overs. Sometimes a story is told in-media-res and is narrated by the main character from the middle or even the end. Voice-over is so versatile that the sky's the limit.

Movie 15 — Offscreen sound-effects

• You’re not quite ready to show things making noise on screen, instead, imply the environment and the action off-screen with use of sound effects.

Movie 16 — Sound effects.

• Create a film that uses hand-recorded sound effects. These sounds can either be real sounds of objects or foley (replicated sounds).
  
  This scene from Delicatessen uses sound effects in a fun way

"A Dimension of Mind: Film" - Part 5: Finals

Round 5 – Finals

No explicit instructions here. Take what remains of your individual film budgets and use it up on this. Combine all that you’ve learned about storytelling, character, lighting, and sound to create a film with a story or an idea in it that YOU really want to tell —for your own sake, not for the assignment’s. The final film should approach four minutes in length, and needs to have some character, some sound and some lighting (you can’t just revert to the easier assignments and count it as your final)

Narrative Photography Workshop: 1 - Camera Mechanics.

Narrative Photography Workshop from KCAI (The Kansas City Arts Institute) - Level 1

This workshop deals with staged photography. From it you will learn to tell stories through the use of props, sets, costumes, and acting. You will also learn to operate a digital camera. Though this is a photography course these lessons apply to the moving image as well as the still image.


EQUIPMENT:

All that is necessary for this class is a digital camera with a manual focus setting and an adjustable shutter speed.

Assignment 1 - Camera Mechanics

Terms:

ISO - The speed with which the film exposes. A smaller number represents a slower exposure and a crisper image. A large number means represents a faster exposure and a grainier image.

Shutter Speed-The amount of time that the shutter opens and the film exposes. A smaller fraction means less time and less light.

Aperture - The size of the opening for light. A larger number means a smaller hole and less light.

Part 1 - Depth of Field

Find a subject to photograph with a distinct foreground middle ground and background. Fist set your aperture to it's lowest setting so that you have a narrow depth of field and adjust ISO (film speed) or shutter speed appropriately to compensate. Photograph your subject first with the fore ground in focus then with the middle ground in focus and finally with the background in focus. Next set your aperture to it's highest setting and adjust the ISO or shutter speed. With your aperture at it's highest setting photograph your subject so that all parts are in focus.

Part 2 - Shutter Speed

Take three photos to experiment with the effect of shutter speed. First photograph an action with a highs shutter speed in order to freeze the motion. Next photograph that same action or a different action with a slow shutter speed in order to blur the motion. Last Take a photo a night or in dark space with a very long exposure, if your camera has the a bulb setting (marked with a B) use that.

Narrative Photography Workshop: 4-9

Narrative Photography Workshop from KCAI (The Kansas City Arts Institute) - Level 1

This workshop deals with staged photography. From it you will learn to tell stories through the use of props, sets, costumes, and acting. You will also learn to operate a digital camera. Though this is a photography course these lessons apply to the moving image as well as the still image.

EQUIPMENT:

All that is necessary for this class is a digital camera with a manual focus setting and an adjustable shutter speed.

Assignments 4-9 have only one step apiece

Assignment 4 - Narrative Tableau

For this project produce one photograph of a scene from a story. Use costumes sets and props to communicate the story clearly. A viewer should be able to “read” the information in the photograph to figure out the story.

Assignment - 5 Miniature

Create a scene using miniature objects. You can play with scale by including life scale objects. Photo manipulation is allowed.

Assignment 6 - Sequence

Tell a simple narrative in a sequence of photographs. Can be anywhere from 3 photos to 12 photos.

Assignment 7 - Character

Do a series of five portraits of the same person as five different characters. Try to choose characters along a theme. Communicate the characters using costumes or makeup as well as through their actions and body language.

Assignment 8 - Childhood Photo

Find some photographs from your childhood. Do something with these photographs to recontextualize them. You could manipulate the originals or stage a photograph in someway based on the originals.

Assignment 9 - Final

For your final project take what you've learned about set, characters, costume, props, lighting, and narrative and produce a final photograph or series. You may use photoshop, you may do a series of any size, stretch the boundaries of “photography” and “narrative.”

Narrative Photography Workshop: 2 - Faces

Narrative Photography Workshop from KCAI (The Kansas City Arts Institute) - Level 1

This workshop deals with staged photography.  From it you will learn to tell stories through the use of props, sets, costumes, and acting.  You will also learn to operate a digital camera.  Though this is a photography course these lessons apply to the moving image as well as the still image.

EQUIPMENT:

All that is necessary for this class is a digital camera with a manual focus setting and an adjustable shutter speed.

Assignment 2 - Faces

Part 1

Capture a series of portraits of a person expressing 10 emotions.  Include only their shoulders and up in the photographs.  The focus of this study is facial expression so do not include hand or body language in these photos.

Part 2

Similar to part 1, however this time do a series of 10 self portraits showing how you express emotions.

Narrative Photography Workshop: 3 - Body Language

Narrative Photography Workshop from KCAI (The Kansas City Arts Institute) - Level 1

This workshop deals with staged photography.  From it you will learn to tell stories through the use of props, sets, costumes, and acting.  You will also learn to operate a digital camera.  Though this is a photography course these lessons apply to the moving image as well as the still image.

EQUIPMENT:

All that is necessary for this class is a digital camera with a manual focus setting and an adjustable shutter speed. 

Assignment 3 - Body Language 

Part 1

Find a location from which you can covertly photograph people interacting.  Take at least 10 photos to study how people behave when the are not aware that they are being observed.  You must photograph the from the same location looking at the same space between all 10 photographs.  Find a place where you know people will be passing through and wait for subjects to come into frame.

Part 2

Go to place with many people interacting.  Try to capture people behaving naturally.  Unlike part 1 you may move about.  In this set of 10 photographs you should practice capturing events spontaneously as well as how to compose photographs quickly based on you environment and what is happening.

Part 3

Hang a sheet and an set up a single light source such that a person behind the sheet will cast a crisp silhouette onto the sheet.  Capture as series of 10 photographs of a model's silhouette expressing 10 different emotions only through their body language.

Part 4

With the same set up as part 3 study the body language of a pair of people.  Capture a series of 10 photographs experimenting with the body language of couples using the silhouettes of two people.

Part 5

Cover two people in fabric sheets to conceal their bodies.  You could either have them under one sheet or two separate sheets.  Produce a set of 10 photographs of this pair interacting out is a space (Non studio).