Filming Decisions and Styles

Before you start a filming project it’s essential to have a plan. But how do you decide upon and create different styles and make executive filming decisions? In this chapter Karl explains exactly how as you go behind the scenes as he shoots some key scenes for his short film both inside a hotel room and out and about in LA explaining all the while exactly the settings and equipment that he is using and how and why he chose them.

Comments

  1. Hi Karl, what shutter speed bracket do you recommend for filming indoor and without having the flicker effect coming from the surrounding lights?

    Thanks!

    1. Hi Fadi, it depends entirely on the hertz rate of the lights and the type of lighting. Filming in slow motion is where you usually see the problems. If you film with a shutter speed of 1/25 or 1/30th it’s usually OK.

  2. Hi Karl, did you set the ISO, shutter speed, frame rate etc manually and what settings did you use? Also do you focus manually all the time? Cheers

    1. Hi Peter, yes I always set manually. For filming on DSLRs I go with 1/30th of a second and then adjust aperture and ISO values to suit depeding on what I need, so if I need large aperture for shallow depth of field then it will likely be a lower ISO. If you need to go high ISOs then on the latest cameras you can push the ISOs for filming up quite high, much higher than previously but generally as with stills use them at the lower setting for minimum noise. For video yes manual focus unless the camera you are using (like a Sony A7) has good autofocus while filming.

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