Lighting is an essential element in the film making. I have some experience in the documentary film making, photojournalism and sound design. Lighting in the film is what I am really curious about and want to have an exploration to. Lighting creates the mood for the film and renders the atmosphere of the scenes. I want to know the way of adjusting the lights and getting in control of them to improve my work.

In the first class, we used a camera(Sony PMW-EX3) and a tripod to shoot a single shot interview with our group members.

This exercise for us was to focus on light and the camera was preset so that we only made decisions on focal length, focus and exposure. The camera has a viewfinder which is different to the cameras which I used to shoot with. The viewfinder has its own setting which does not affect what has been recorded from the camera. (To adjust the viewfinder, the camera has to be set to black and white first. First, press the colour bar button. Second, rotate the brightness to grey and then to black. Third, rotate the contrast to grey and then to white. )

During the shooting, I proposed the idea of zooming in the camera a bit more and when I reviewed the work the other class and I felt I should just do it right away at that time. I really enjoy the way of teaching and learning in this class, I get chance to practice a lot with different types of equipment and understand detail functions of them. After the first week’s class, I get to notice more about the lighting when I watch the films and start to think about how it affects the final expression of the film. Hopefully, I will be more capable to control the lighting when I shoot my work after this semester’s learning.