Analyzing some of "Super"-Hero's camera shots and angles!

 Welcome back bloggers! In today's post, I will be going into some camera shots and angles that we used for our film opening, "Super"-Hero, as well as how they fit in, why we chose them, and some ideas we tried that didn't work out!

Low Angle

Canted Angle

Full Shot

Medium Shot

High Angle

How was acquiring these shots and angles?

Since we ruled out acquiring any special camera equipment, all of these shots and angles had to be done with our phones, a small tripod, and our hopes and dreams. Luckily though, we are resourceful, so we were able to get some harder shots by using what we already had on set. Of these 5 sample shots, the hardest one to capture was by far the canted angle for the scene of the robbers leaving the Homeowner's room. This is because we didn't have a lot of experience with holding cameras steady and producing as little shake as possible, so it took us a couple of practice shots before we finally got it right! We captured the high angle shot by grabbing a nearby stool, and the low angle was achieved by setting the phone face-first on the Homeowner's belly so the camera got a close-up of the Hooded Robber and Alien Robber. As for why we chose to use these shots, it all comes down to what we want to be conveyed in the situation: A high angle at the beginning shows the disorganization of the robbers and them scrambling to get in the house, a low angle makes the Homeowner look totally vulnerable to the robbers, and a canted angle adds to the absurdity of the Homeowner's reaction to the robbers. As for the two shot sizes we used in these samples, the full shot from a distance adds to Power-Man's mystery and the medium shot was merely coincidental since we were trying to film the robbers' reactions to Power-Man.

What didn't work?

There were a couple of shots that we tried getting from both the original storyboard and on-the-spot during filming that unfortunately didn't quite work out! The biggest of these was the robbers' reactions to Power-Man when he first arrived in the scene. This would've featured 3 different close-up shots side-by-side of each robber's reactions (As you can see by the basic masks, our plans for this film changed DRASTICALLY!). We actually were almost able to fit this multi-shot into the final product, but there were a couple of issues we ran into. First of all, our facial expressions for this scene were absolutely ridiculous in that we couldn't keep straight faces if our lives were on the line! Secondly, we underestimated how long this shot was, and it ended up putting us over the 2 minute mark. With these limitations, we sadly had to cut this beloved scene from the film, although removing actually helped us in the end since it DID kind of disrupt the flow of the scene!