Lighting, shooting and editing research

Before I do my shooting and editing, it's important for me to know what I'm doing so I looked into some of the basic techniques I need to use.

I found out about lighting techniques for filming on Suite101.com. Because of my limited budget and the environments I have to work in, using the three point lighting system mostly isn't a possibility. I am however able to use some of the tips from the guide. For example, the key light is mostly the only one I'm able to use, so I will try to ensure it's "positioned 15 – 45 degrees from one side of the camera and angled down 15 – 45 degrees from above the subject."

Since my film isn't supposed to be comedic or light-hearted, I will try to keep the lighting quite dark, to "create suspense and tension" as stated in the guide.

Since the majority of my photographs are going to be taken outside, the lighting has more to do with timing and weather than anything I can adapt myself. As I plan to use Photoshop to adapt the image, I want as much detail as possible to give me as much scope for editing as possible. According to photographer Ted Ellis, I should pick either overcast days or when the sun is high in the sky. One of my images is meant to be at night and so I rely purely on the street light for that, however as I plan on blurring it, this isn't a huge issue.

For my studio shots, I plan on using two lights to give me a good amount of light for detail, but also contrast and shadows on the face.

The framing of the shots for the filming is very important, and I need to follow some of the conventions of the social realist genre I'm aiming for. For example, the trailers I analysed featured a lot of the extremes of framing: the extreme close-up and long shot, while most of the narrative-based action scenes are filmed in a medium shot.

My research has also given me some information on camera movement. Some things I can't realistically do, such as the use of crane shots or aerial shots and wouldn't be appropriate in a social realist film anyway, but I could possibly use a pan shot to show a landscape or a dolly shot using a car like in the Bullet Boy trailer.

For my editing I have two options: I can use Final Cut Pro or use the more familiar Sony Vegas. If I opt to use Sony Vegas there is little research that needs to be done as I already know how to edit using it, but if I opt to use Final Cut Pro I can use tutorials like this to learn how to do so. It would appear to be a fairly simple if arduous process of trimming the clips down then placing them in order on the timeline, before overlaying the audio and text. Hopefully little visual editing of the actual footage will be necessary, but if it is, there are several options for colour correction, brightness and contrast and so on in both programs.