Health & Safety / Filming tutorial

Health & Safety / Filming

During lesson, we were given a second health and safety tutorial relating to using the filming equipment, and how to film and use equipment correctly, in an orderly manner, and most importantly, safely. Our technician gave us this extra tutorial as it was about a month since we filmed anything, so it was vital that we were confident about the health and safety aspects of operation, handling and technique when filming.

We revisited the tutorials of actions such as correctly attaching a filming camera onto a tripod, safe tripod extension and balancing. We were also given the important tip of ensuring that the camera is set to manual focus, as auto focus can alter the recorded clips focus, and likely produce an unwanted end result.

Furthermore, we revised some shot types, and we were also made aware of some new filming techniques to ensure our filming looks more professional and of a higher quality. We learnt a new technique called the rule of thirds, and the principle of this rule is that the focus subject(s) should take up at least two thirds of the frame, whereas anything other than the focus subjects(s) should take up no more than a third of the frame of the camera. We were shown clips from films where the rule of thirds had been applied. In one of these clips, an over the shoulder shot was employed, where the person who was speaking had taken up approximately two thirds of the frame, whereas the listening person had taken up no more than one third of the frame, which clearly adhered to the rule of thirds principle.

To finish, we were also shown a small but important and effective technique to employ when filming in future, which was ensuring that no space was left above the heads of a subject, as this reduces standards of filming quality, and also reduces the professional look of the end result.