Bigger Picture
I chose film as the medium that I was going to emphasis a specific aspect of. One of the most fundamental units in film is the visual image displayed before an audience. A camera, a filmmakers main tool decides what will be seen on screen and what it can hide just out of frame. In my project I emphasized the fact that so much more can be going on in a scene that the audience has no idea about because they are only seeing the part the filmmaker has decided to show them.
My project celebrates the art of filmmaking because it shows the true power that the cameraman behind the scenes has. He chooses what is on screen and what is kept secret from the audience. Without a viewer knowing there can be a crew member holding a flashlight right out of frame, a flower pot under the camera to give the border an extra touch, or actors five feet to the left reading and totally out of character. The filmmaker decides.
In my case I began with a close up on a girls face and kept that image for a time. Then, in the next shot I zoomed out a little to provide more context to the scene. After that I zoomed out further so more characters were exposed and additional information could be gathered by the audience. Finally, I zoomed out entirely so that every action within the scene was exposed and the story could be fully understood. Even in this case, the audience does not see the one filming (even though my shadow is visible a couple of times), they do not see what the actors do as soon as they are off screen, and because of editing choices, they do not see the times that the actors and camera person messed up while scenes were being recorded.
This type of "aim and shoot" action is a critical element of filmmaking. The filmmaker decides everything that will be in the shot: the actors, the set pieces, the props, the lighting, etc. It makes film a distinct art form and it is a great power that is a huge influence to mass audiences around the world.
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