Planning cinematography (Miss Miller)

1. What is the importance of cinematography within films?
Cinematography is the name used for camera angle terminology. Camera angles are very useful within films of all kinds as they allow the director and cameraman to emphasis and reitterate a message of how the actor is feeling to the audience subtly whilst creating a big impact on the reaction felt by the audience. This is particularly important within the thriller genre as thrillers, in order to be sucessful rely on the shock, suspense and suprise factor felt by the audience. In order for these to be felt the audience must create a connection with the central character and victim and camera angles allow this to be seen and understood by the audience in order to create maximum empathy. 

2. Why is planning required in order to produce an excellent sequence?
Planning each shot that we was going to use within each scene of our film was very useful as it allowed us time to make sure we used a variety of shots and time to look at each scene and the story with in it and match an appropriate camera angle to each shot and the emotion that would have been felt by the victim within each of the frames. This would allow the victim to connect further to the audience and make our clip seem of a professional standard as it demonstrates our ability to use different varieties of shots.

3. What camera angles have you used and why? What do you hope they can portray?
One camera angle we used was low angle. This was when the character was walking up the stairs to investgate the noise that he had just heard. This makes the character appear larger on the screen making it appear as though he is confident and in control, as to be investigating the noise shows he doesn't scare easy and is inquizitive. However as the character goes up the stairs and the doors slam, high angle is used to show the victim to appear smaller than he is showing that he is now weak, affraid and insuperior of the poltergeist we assume is looking at him from above.

4. Why are they conventional of the thriller genre? How do they help the audience build a relationship with characters?
The use of the high angle is effective in terms of connecting the audience to the victim as it helps portray the emotion felt by the victim more effectively along with the actors facial expressions, dialogue and body language. Through the high angle which makes the actor appear small, it shows how they feel vulnerable, weak and inferior to the poltergeist antagonising them. This is conventional to the thriller genre as the victim has to appear to be the under dog and as though they cannot escape in order for the audience to feel any empathy towards them. This empathy helps them create a mutual bond between the victim and  the audience meaning that the story will have a greater effect on the audience.

5. How did you find the planning helpful in preperation for filming?
Planning the shots before we filmed was very useful as it ensure that we didnt over look shots and miss effective and appropriate shots out. As well as this it ensured we used a variety of different shots in order to keep our film interesting and appear as though it is insightful as it follows the scene from a wide variety of angles and perspectives. By making sure that we didn't over use certain basic shots also ensured that our film looked professional rather than basic and amateurish.