the camera as the eye....(an exercise..)

bollywood · May 25, 2005

people, i dont know if anyone has done it before, but i had an exercise in mind...nothing physical! its just that, what range of options do we have when we use the camera as the eye of the person? the actual eye... i mean, no trolleys, no cranes, no zooming in or out....(ur eyes cant zoom!)...when a character is crying, or when he is abt to cry, maybe the camera will outfocus a bit.... when a character is getting a scolding, the camera will tilt down and show something else, maybe his knee on which he is tapping with his finger....if he is bored, he will maybe look at the sky, and then look back the person talking with him....these are just three possibilities of this exercise, and there are many more in my mind... hope to get some inputs from u guys..
Suhrud Gobdole

gwyddion · Jun 9, 2005

How about a red filter if the subject is mad

bollywood · Jul 2, 2005

and how abt this..

and how abt this..

u can even outfocus the camera if we want to show that the character is abt to cry, his eyes will be all swelled up, and he wont see the person in front of him very clearly....

TimSearfoss · Jul 3, 2005

Already been done

Already been done

There was a hip hop music video where they did this. It was pretty cool. Its all first person. He sees his girlfriend off at the airport, he goes to the bathroom and we see his reflection in the mirror. He splashes water on his face, and in the end he cries and the image gets teared up.

Tim

bollywood · Jul 6, 2005

thats sad!

thats sad!

well, guess another one goes down in the dumps.. anyways, something else should be thought of now... thanks for the info anyways...

markcheng · Apr 13, 2006

hey bolly,

i wouldn't dump the idea just because it's been used before...i know the music video that TimSearfoss is talking about. I was a pretty cool effect. I think the music video for Smack my Bitch Up uses the technique really well by meshing it into the storytelling...

it's a good storytelling tool and I think you should keep it in your arsenal...just cuz someone's done a zoom before doesn't mean you don't use that convention, right?

as for me, i used the first person cam in my film. It looked cool and put the audience in the shoes of my main character to convey his sense of confusion to them...def used before, but I still thought it worked!

by the way, i think Panasonic makes a nice helmet cam periferal you can use with one or more of their minidv cams. I think it's positioned for extreme sports ppl, but it could be useful for this type of thing...

mc