The Basic Principles of Creating Audiovisual Images 1

Display Schedule

Subject guarantor

Jan ŠÍPEK

Name of lecturer(s)

Jan ŠÍPEK

Learning outcomes of the course unit

1. To present students film media as a distinctive manner of interpretation with a rich scale of expression tools.
2. To explain the basic rules of film language
3. To learn to master the camera in order so that any documentarist can understand the role of the cameraman.
4. To introduce the expression tools of film so they demonstrate in direction to guide the shooting of the Original Report and My View (films of the first study-year of the Documentary Dept.)
5. An in this, to not remove from the unlearned the joy of film which they experienced, when they first shot something.

Mode of study

Classes, film sample analyses, exercises, discussion.

Example of the photography exercise, thoguh with the students are introduced to the fundamental expression tools of the technical image. This is primarily the use of perspective, composition, field depth focus, types of lenses, plane relationships, film axis, etc.

Photo-exercise DVOJICE

Using the best digital photo camera photograph the following pairs:

1. Photograph face DETAIL, figure standing on the street

A) use of a lens with the furthest focal point (zoomed)

B) maintain the same width of photography and the photo manage using a lens with the shortest focal point; in both cases, work with perspectives of a moving street behind the head of the model, mind the purity of the composition! Do not compose to the center. Do not allow too much space above the head, on the contrary, allow more space in the direction of view...keyword: a lamp growing from a head.... I, strongly, recommend the use of a tripod.

1. Photograph your own hand in front of any background so,

A) the hand is sharp and the background as well

B) the hand is sharp and the background not at all

1. Photograph the interior of a room from a window in the dark (at sunrise, or cloudy) and inside is lit by a lightbulb. Use pre-selected considerations of white:

A) considerations of artificial lighting - light bulb symbol

B) considerations of natrural lighting - sun symbol; mind that the window is not „overlighted“ (significantly) and that the interior of the room is not too dark = look for lines in light and shadow.

1. Place any type of still life in the evening at home on a table and photograph it in two different types of lighting:

A) using flash - light source on the lens axis

B) using a table lamp, lighting the still life from the side

C) the third photo use the table lamp again but such that you aim for the same character of lighting as in the photograph A); be alert to the radical change in the sense of space

1. photograph a portrait in semi-detail using artificial light:

A) direct lighting, aim the lamp at the person portrayed

B) reflected light, on a bounce board or better yet a piece of white paper (the bigger, the better - it is possible to significantly ifluence the lighting angle)

1. Photograph a portrait (PD-D) in direct sunlight (best against the light)

A) using a bounce board for softening shadows (as a supplementary source)

B) same photo without the bounce board

1. Photograph a pair (using figures), which are standing on a street across from you so that the following photos are in editing linked:

A) C-PC, both in profile

B) PD-D, over the shoulder of a figure, who is standing to the left of the partner

C) PD-D, over the shoulder of a figure, who is standing to the right of the partner; look at the other plane and background so it is noticeable where the two stopped.

Prerequisites and co-requisites

Basic knowledge of operating a digital camera and videocamera. In the film exercises students must manage the work procedures with a 16mm Bolex camera and basics of exponometry (working with a spotmeter).

Course contents

The subject of interest in film language. Great emphasis will be placed on form: How to shoot....academic studies teach tha form is inseparable from content, so we always ask, why shoot THIS this WAY and no ANOTHER???

Film Language - we will learn to speak through film. To be able to speak, narrate through film is the same as speaking Finnish, or any other foreign language.

To learn a foreign language and write a book in it. Not only to arrange, but to create or completely change it. (A tall order but should be attempted)

Film has avaialble particular manners of narration: and these differ it from theatre, literature, photography, etc. When you don't use these tools of film, then you misuse them for something else: If you mistake it with theatre, literature, or photography then you take away from it what it is. (IT IS FILM). Confusing in this is that film borrows a lot from the aforementioned branches, but this does not mean that it does not stop being what it is.

The noise microphone on a camera is strife with nonsense (example of confusing film with radio)! The camera is not a dictaphone and the synchronus camera is the first nail in the coffin of real (cinematographic, not radio) film. Also, „Do not announce what we will see: Do not narrate, what we saw.“ (Jean-Claud Carriere)

The trouble is in that that everyone understand „cinematically.“

Warning - to understand and to speak are not the same. These are two different abilities.

From childhood we are under the influence of television and film and the internet and this has taught us to understand an audiovisual language/code. It has not taught us how to speak it.

From the beginning we will cover exclusively the static image, or photography. We will be devoted to the basics of image construction. We will cover the basics of composition, angle and breath of take, camera angle (top view, bottom view) and lighting. We move to film in the learning of the basic function of the videocamera - it is possible to cleverly present with it, simulate influential parameters of the film image. After this basic glimpse we will make the first attempts at formulating something through film:

Course aims:

The documentarist if their own crew. To master the camera and be able to link a microphone makes creative and genuine communcations with the cameraman and sound man, and posible makes it possible to substitute for them. The documentarist largely does not stage situations but follows and records that in which, to a larger measure, the cameraman takes part (a situation irrevocably occurs and the cameraman decides for the director as well how to behave in the situation, how to focus the shooting, etc.). Therefore the documentarist must be able to view the object of interest through the camera. Intuitive use of audiovisual preservative leading to the joy of the rough material: All shooting material surprises what happened by coincidene, event pleasantly. A confirmation of the purpose will be when the aforementioned surprise (and joy) drops and keeps an awareness of what occured at the given moment of shooting better and how to do it next time.

Recommended or required reading

Recommended Literature:

CARRIERE, Jean-Claude: Vyprávět příběh, Národní filmový archiv, 1995. ISBN 80-7004-081-5

JURÁČEK, Pavel: Deník, Národní filmový archiv, 2003. ISBN 80-7004-110-2

KOKOLIA, Vladimír: Slovník Grafiky II., AVU, 2008. ISBN 978-80-87108-08-6

NYKVIST, Sven: Úcta ke světlu, Paseka, 1999. ISBN 807185-268-6

MONACO, James: Jak číst film, Albatros, 2006. ISBN 80-00-01410-6

TRUFFAUT, Francois: Rozhovory Truffaut - Hitchcock, ČS filmový ústav, 1987 (lze sehnat na www.e-antikvariat.com)

VACHEK, Karel: Teorie hmoty, Herrmann a synové, 2004. ISBN neuvedeno

Assessment methods and criteria

Credit is awarded based on:

1. class participation
2. execution of practice exercises (Photo-assignment Duo and Report and film exercise Work Procedures)

Overal grading is comprised of 40% for class participation, 60% for the practice exercises (2-% for each of the aforementioned exercises).

Conditions for successful completion of the course: class participation, completion and presentation of the practice exercises.

Schedule for winter semester 2018/2019:

• Week view
• List

Schedule for summer semester 2018/2019:

The schedule has not yet been prepared

The subject is a part of the following study plans

• Documentary Film - Bachelor - 1819 (required subject)