P5 and P6: Cinematic Lighting Techniques and Manipulating Camera Settings to Record Cinematic Footage

 In this report, I will demonstrate how we have cinematic techniques and mise en scene to record our music video. Our music video is for the song Nightmare by Set It Off. This song falls into the pop punk music genre so we have reflected this in our rushes.

                       Here you can see a selection of rushes that we recorded for our music video.

Explanation of Camera Settings

  There are lots of settings you will need to be aware of to ensure your photo/video in the best quality possible. The main camera settings are: Frame rate, Shutter speed, ISO, Aperture and white balance. All of these settings effect each other so it is important that you change each setting accordingly. The area/setting in which you use your camera will change what levels you will need to have your camera settings on.

 Frame rate is how many frames the camera takes in a second. This is usually 24fps in the media industry (animation, film and TV...). The higher the FPS, the slower your video will become since the camera is taking more photos in that second. This is usually used at around 60-120 FPS. Movies use this slow motion effect to show action slowed down or show a character in distress/about to faint. 

Your shutter speed must be about twice the speed of your frame rate to ensure that your video will look natural. Shutter speed controls how long the camera is exposed to light. The lower the shutter speed, the more motion blur there is and the lighter the footage is. The higher the footage speed (less light goes in the camera so it is darker) the less motion blur.

ISO refers to how the camera sensor is sensitive to light. The lower your ISO, the darker your footage and there will be less grain. However, if you used a high ISO, your footage may be lighter, but the footage will be very grainy and static like. 

Aperture controls how much light you let into the camera. The higher the aperture number, the less light is let into the camera and the background will be in focus. The lower the aperture number, the lighter the footage and this increases background blur. Aperture is measured in F. Stop.

White balance is used to make sure the colours are correct in different lighting. If white balance isn't used, the colours could be warmer or cooler (red and blue) than they are in reality. To have the correct white balance in an enviroment you will need to use a white object in the scene, a piece of paper or a white balance card. If the colour white is correct, then so are all other colours. The lighting changes the colours of a setting therefore you will need to recalculate the white balance depending on your location.

 

 

 

 Camera Settings and Lighting

For our music video, we decided we wanted it to be a hybrid (performative and illustrative). To help the audience differentiate the two different sections of our music video, we chose two different locations and outfit choices. For the illustrative section, we decided to film in the woods. For the performance chorus sections, we filmed in the lecture theater in our college. We filmed our music video using the Cannon 250D camera and two Ambiful FL80RGB lights.

 

In the rushes above, you can see that we filmed in daylight in the sun for the woods scenes. This was for general safety and to also make sure the video looks bright enough. We will probably decrease the brightness slightly in edit. We used standard ISO, Aperture and shutter speed for these scenes. This made sure that our video was bright enough and that the video wasn't blurred.

In the chorus scenes, we used two Ambiful FL80RGB lights. We decided to use two point lighting. Using these lights and the app, we could change the intensity and colour of the lights. We decided we wanted red lighting to fit pop punk genre conventions and to show how angry the character is. This also gave us a little bit of a chiaroscuro effect which is conventional for the genre. This means that half of the character's face is darker than the other side. This allows us to create an uneasy feeling for the audience. Camera wise, we used a lower ISO since the lighting was very bright. We turned the room lights off to make sure that the red lighting was the best it could be. We used standard aperture and shutter speed.

 

 

 

To conclude, I have explained how we used different lighting and camera settings to achieve a cinematic effect for our music video. You can see our evidence for this in our rushes above.