Camera Coverage Workshop

CAMERA COVERAGE

During this Technical Workshop, we were learning about the importance of “Camera coverage”. Camera coverage is capturing a scene with multiple shots and angles used in order to create a more visually appealing final product and tell a story more effectively. 

Our task brief was simply to film someone walking and taking a seat at a chair. Although the brief was basic, there are many different ways to do this. I decided that I didn’t want to shoot something that was necessarily straightforward and wanted to add a little bit of context to the scene. I employed some inspiration from Edgar Wright and decided that I’d have a quick-fire scene of somebody making a cup of tea firstly, before the Character leaves the Kitchen and explores the office space. In hindsight, I’d have liked to have smash-cut these together and edited them a little more tightly to keep the pace snappy. At times, the lighting is inconsistent and areas are firstly overexposed and then immediately too dark. I also wanted to establish some basic characteristics of the Protagonist (Sam Keel). I wanted him to be the kind of guy you love to hate; full of himself, a would-be Alpha in the office plains who grazes, open-mouthed, on your lunch. 

The shot where he establishes this feeling of dominance is when he exits the Kitchen through the door, he takes a moment, admiring the office, his Kingdom, before taking a swig of tea. The shot is from below, he’s the guy on top. He then begins to walk through the scene and I cut to a shot behind him, to give some context of his surroundings. To offer an alternative perspective of the scene, I used a shot of Jacob to explore the feelings of others in the office towards the Protagonist, it was a simple close-up, but I feel that it helped to bring more feeling to the scene in addition to fulfilling the brief.

Our Protagonist takes his seat, spilling tea, getting himself comfortable and chewing gum. Again, these were all shots used to deliberately emphasise the characteristics of the Protagonist and to establish a more interesting idea while fulfilling the brief. I’d have liked to have tried a larger variety of shots and camera movements to explore how the shot types can alter the viewers feelings of a scene. In the future, with prior planning and less of a time constraint, I’d like to explore using some tracking shots and will shoot with editing a final product in mind. 

Overall, I’m happy with the coverage that I achieved on this short project. Given the timeframe that I had to shoot and the simplicity of the brief, I believe I fulfilled not only the task but worked towards painting a ‘bigger picture’.