Film Workshop Fun

I went to a film workshop Saturday.  I thought it might be useful to sit in with a real filmmaker and possibly learn something or be reminded of something I'd forgotten that would help with my photos and video for the blog. 

Local filmmaker Bob Curtis-Johnson led the eight hour workshop and there were two things that were particularly helpful.  First was the section on lighting where we got to do some experimenting with different lighting - natural and artificial. 

That's Bob in the middle.  Because I'm basically lazy and cheap, I have embraced a philosophy of natural lighting, not flash, except in extreme circumstances.  And a lot of flash simply lights up the subject, but destroys the natural sense of the scene.

But more sophisticated lighting like these lamps and reflecting boards can dramatically improve the lighting. 

So we spent time trying out different things to see how it affected the images.

The other thing I particularly liked was the mix of people in the group.  We went from high school students to a local sound engineer to a retired guy.  Each was doing different things with film and brought up issues that were of interest. 

We also spent a fair amount of time looking at short videos and then taking them apart to see how different effects were achieved - through lighting, sound, cuts, etc. 

I originally met Bob when my daughter got involved in his Throwdowns, known as Bobs Shorts- challenges to make a film in specific time period, like three weeks.  One is being planned in the near future, but the date hasn't been established.