Understanding Camera Shots & Angles

Understanding camera angles and shots is essential for anyone to learn photography, some of the techniques we learnt have been applied in our practical work.

Tasks to take pictures with different camera shots was assigned to us;

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This is an extreme long shot, showing clearly the background and where a certain act is taking place with little focus on the characters itself.

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This is a long shot which shows the background but also gives a specific idea of the character and where the action s going to take place.

 

This is a full shot that gives a complete view of the character and what it looks like and represents.

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This is a mid-shot that shows the character from the waist-up.

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This is a close up which focuses only on the characters face.

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This is an Extreme close-up which focuses on a specific part of the characters face.

The camera angles are:
1) Birds- eye view: Angle that looks directly upon a scene.
2) High- Angle: camera angle that looks down upon a subject to make it look inferior and weak.
3) Low- Angle: Angle that looks up to the character to show that it is stronger and more powerful.
4) Eye- level angle: the audience is at equal footing with the character.
5) Dutch Angle: Is to demonstrate confusion of the character, it shows uneasiness of the situation.

Understanding Media Studies

Media is used to communicate information in the everyday world. To understand and analyse media, an individual needs to be media literate. Media literacy enables people to analyse, evaluate and create messages using a variety of media forms. Some essential tools are needed to analyse any kind of media text; it is basically tool box that would be needed at all times.

Remembering media concepts is extremely easy, with a word as simple as:
M- I- G- R- A- I-N

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M
edia forms
Institution
Genre
Representation
Audience
Ideology
Narrative

These concepts allow us to understand the message that is being transmitted and why and how a media text is effective.

Some detail about these concepts:
Media Forms: It means the different types of media or platforms used to create messages, such as, print, film, TV, Radio, Music, Radio, Video games, Billboards, etc. For example, a magazine is a form of print media. Different media forms help us decide the type of media text that is to be used. For instance, if a newspaper has to be analysed, then the headlines, captions, bylines and cropping, etc. A lot of media forms are hybrid.

Institution: Media Institutes are basically people who are involved in the construction and transmission of media. They cover three areas: Production -> Distribution -> Exhibition.

Genre: Way of categorizing a media text through style and form. Categorizing text in genres is vital for production and analysis.

Representation:  All media texts are representation of reality. Representation is a two way process, producers position text in relation to reality and audiences asses text in relation to reality. 

Audiences: People who consume media text, also known to be the victim of media.

Ideology: Are the views, beliefs and values in the society. These values and beliefs are often perpetuated as dominant ideologies; also known as hegemony. It is referred to as hegemony because there is complete agreement over whatever is being told to an individual.

Narrative: Coherence given to a series of facts. Narratives are stories that make sense of the scenes being shown. Media text is understood through a narrative.