Monday, March 10, 2014

Mise en Scene- The camera Lens

The camera lens bends light into the camera focusing it against a sensor or film stock. Digital cameras use a sensor while film cameras use film stock.

Film stock comes in  color and black and white. Black and white film stock has five layers while color film stock has up to fifteen layers. Both types of film have an emulsion layer, where the image is created. The process is based upon light exposure.



  • Black and White Stock- the area that had the greatest exposure to light comes out the darkest. The lighter areas are the areas that had least exposure. So in a way light =black and dark= white. 
  • Color Stock- There are three emulsion layers and like the rods in the eye each layer responds to a specific color, the primary colors of a camera are Red, Blue, and Green. Each layer picks up it's own color, so blue light is captured by the blue emulsion layer. 
The lens also controls the focus on an object. 



There are two types of lens- prime and zoom. The prime lens has a fixed focal length while a zoom lens has adjustable focal lengths. The focal length (measured in mm) measures the refracting power of the lens (refracting is the bending of the light). 

There are different kinds of prime lens to compensate for the fixed focal point. The focal length and proximity to the object effect the image:
  • Normal (middle-focal-length)- this is considered the "natural look" as if your own eyes were the camera. That's about 25 mm- 50mm.
  • Wide angle (short-focal-length)- increases depth of the foreground and background (foreground is the space before an actor and background is the space behind). 12.5 mm or half the length of a normal focal length.  
  • Telephoto (long-focal-length)- decreases depth of foreground and background look like they share one plane.  85-500 mm
So in a dialogue sequence you may have seen a shot where only the speaker is in focus while objects in the background or foreground are blurry. All this is a result of the lens.

actfourscreenplays.com

thatfilmguy.net

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