DON'T SHOOT!... Gotta Fix The Camera First

You know, I really enjoy working in the gallery. There are no intense lights beating down on me and I don't have to stand around for long periods of time. That and as long as I've remembered to switch various thingmahoohahs on, everything should be working just dandy.

 Playing lighting director's great craic as I feel a little in control of the scene and what's going on in it before we actually start any run throughs. 'Move this over yonder', 'tell what's-her-bake to stand here so I can shine light 24 in her face at 100% intensity... please' so I can achieve the effect I want, whether it's a happy accident or not. Once that's done, I just sit there and become increasingly frustrated every time I look at the monitors because it looks like the cameras are drunk. Other than that, I start getting bored.

 Vision mixing, on the other hand, is great fun. That is, once you get over the initial stress that, despite seeming like a complete dosser job, you have to press particular buttons at particular times otherwise it's all your fault if things go wrong. Unless, of course, the cameras suddenly seem to move sporadically about the place 'cause they're drunk, apparently, in which case you switch to one that looks at least a wee bit sober.

 For the most part, you're in control of the visuals. Or, at least, in charge of it, to an extent. It's especially fun to do, so to speak, if the studio is conducting interviews because you don't need to rely so much on specific cues in order to switch which camera comes up on transmission, but whichever you feel is right. Is someone making a funny face? Switch to them. Audience love silly faces. Should we see how everyone is doing in the scene in case the audience forgot where we were? Switch to your establishing shot. Have we been looking at somebody's ugly mug for too long? Give the audience a break and look at the other person's ugly mug.

 Before all the shot switching, we really gotta sort out said shots so they look at least aesthetically acceptable. In an interview, for example, if the interviewee sits on the left, s/he must always occupy the left. It gets a bit confusing for viewers when we switch to his/her close up, s/he is, all of a sudden, on the right. Rarely, if ever, in the middle of the frame. I mean, what if said interviewee suddenly leans in towards the interviewers? This goes for shots with the interviewers as well except, of course, vice versa. Anyway, if your interviewee sits on the left and you have him/her occupying the right of the frame and s/he leans in, said interviewee is going to get cut off, maybe completely, leaving you with a ton of empty space in shot. This is what I mean here:

I so totally am good at art. Shut up. ...His name's 'Lou'.
This man would be a pain if you had to use a chroma back drop.

Lou is on the right. He's facing the interviewer, who is sitting on the left. This is right (ha!). Now, if Lou were to lean in as if he were comfortable with the interviewer...

Lou is an eccentric art critic. He's not so much a critic as he is an art admirer.
His name's short for something. Guess what it is.

That looks much better than this, where it kinda, sorta looks like Lou is talking to himself:

That open space is just asking for someone to pop by for a jump scare.
How could you scare someone as lovable as Lou? I mean, really.

Open spaces are for entities to enter into, be it another subject or a body part, for example, Lou's hand as pictured previously. When Lou inevitably leans in, this will end up happening:

No, Lou! I'm not finished asking you about your
fictitious life yet!

Now, say if Lou were to lean in (or out, by the looks of the framing) so much that his entire face were to be cut off, and if he were to make a silly face, we wouldn't be able to capture that tender moment. You might a wee bit on the master shot but you won't get as much emphasis on it or as much detail from it as you would in Lou's personal close up. Well, 'medium close up' in this case, I suppose. Anyhow, you want to see Lou's pretty face as much as possible, so we don't want it getting abruptly cut off.

 Speaking of framing and the like, I haven't really had the chance to have a proper go on the studio cameras yet. I would absolutely love to. I've wheeled them about on the dollies to get to grips with them, to get used to the movement and feel of them and what have ye, but I haven't really had the chance to really use them properly. I intend to! Mind you, mentioning the cameras, I just remembered that one of them is actually currently broken and the other has something wrong with it. It still works, it just means we have to pretend we're sophisticated by shooting film noir scenes. We've come out with some pretty nifty lighting effects, though, so it's worked in our favour thus far!