Choosing possible camera angle.

Putting a camera and deciding an angle is one of the most important decision for a DOP.  Either it will help to convey the story or put the viewer out of the story. Every time I am shooting I try to thing weather this shot is cinematic or not if i am shooting for a film. who's scene it is. What genre of film it is.  Whats happening in the scene. What the director what to show in this scene. Whats the message. 

And example from lee's shoot.

This scene is about the andrews character. So having him in the foreground helps the audiences  eye to focus on him.  Second it brings depths on the scene. Plus the lights from windows make it more cinematic.

if i choose this angle then it will look like a cooking show. If i was shooting a cooking show then I will show this angle but for film its too flat.

location scooting for lee's film

I always prefer to in location with the director before the shoot dates. As it gives me more idea for the possible camera angle and lighting and then I discuss them with the director in the location and it makes the shooting time fast. As I already know where to put the camera and light. 

lighting and colour for my film

I a planning to divide the mood in two parts. The first part which is light and warm. I am planning to bring bright colour and warm lights with the use of tungsten light.

As seen in above stills from the films. We can notice the bright colour which bring our eyes into the character and bring comfort to eyes and the warm colour of tungsten lights... Which enhance the feeling of love.

For the second part of the films. I am planning to use blue light and light colour to highlight the loneliness of the characters. 

As we can see the use of blue colour and very unsaturated colours bring the loneliness and the sadness of the characters. 

small elements which appear in all romantic film

all romantic films have some small elements which can be seen in almost every film.

1. looking behind game = there will b a point in romantic film where the boy and the girl will b in different end of the road and they will look at each other but miss by few sec. and think the other person is not looking at them.

2. Season =  The rain and snow is one season seasons which appears in all films.

3. transport = they will be in a ride....bike , motorbike, boat, car , horse in a romantic drive.

4. kiss = All romantic kiss in the film specially at the end.

5. Entry = Slow mo entry of the actress.

6.  Jumping in water.

7. Lovely parents / rich vs poor parents.

8. Love songs playing when they hang out .... sad song during break up.

9. Party scene/ Dance scene.

10. Guy sing for the girl with guitar.
  

Research on romantic genre

I watched plenty of romantic film from around the world right from Hollywood hits Notebook(2004) to Korean film Always(2011).  I noted the main elements of all the film. So I can bring the same elements in my film.

1. Girl and boy are opposite nature.   Bad boy -good girl, Rich girl - Poor boy,  High fashion girl - simple boy.

2. They start with a fight and then fall in love.

3.  They are in same place but still not able to meet each other.

4. both have friends.... which only appears on screen for a while. 

Deciding the genre

Before starting the film. I started by the genre. It is more important for me because we make film for certain market and its always handy to research the market to see which genre is more popular in that market.  I am planning to make the film for Indian market .

"the Indian film industry is expected to grow to 138 billion Rupees by 2014 – that’s $2.28 billion"

Indian films are mainly based on romance. Like romantic drama and romantic comedy.  "The one genre in Bollywood that is unique and is what Bollywood is famous for is 'masala'. Masala movies mix elements of many genres but are largely action and romance."

hence I decided to make a romantic drama as the genre for my end of the year film.

Reference :

http://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2014/09/03/bollywood-indias-film-industry-by-the-numbers-infographic/

http://www.ign.com/blogs/zaid26194/2013/12/29/10-movies-that-show-bollywood-is-more-than-romance-and-ott-action-flick

lighting green screen

We had two locations for green screen. The first one was for inside the space craft.

for which I lighted the actors for f8 key light. For back light i used magenta to cancel the green on both the actors and the set peace.  I lighted the green screen as f11. Three stops over. 

The second location was for cave scene and crash scene. 

For crash scene i used three point lighting as the sun as key light. 

For the cage scene I used only one source. One blonde coming from the top. 

I used dido to lit the child actor as she was not getting enough light from outside lights.