Having covered many different areas of film production throughout my time so far studying Film & TV Production at University, this is one area of production I'm extremely excited about undertaking. I love the idea of telling a story not only through performance and dialogue, but through the cinematography and production design within the frame as well. Envisioning a story from scratch, building a world, using techniques with lighting, camera movements and angles, to name a few, really is a passion of mine and something I'm excited about expanding my knowledge and abilities on further.
At the beginning of University, I didn't particularly have a lot of confidence, with people and working in teams, but more so confidence in my own abilities as a creative individual, which something I have struggled with. Last semester, with my post-production and editing module, an aim of mine was to creatively challenge myself, push myself outside of my comfort zone and attempt pieces of work which ultimately tested me. Before, I would be satisfied with average work which I knew would guarantee myself an average grade, but I never progressed creatively - there was no improvement. With the editing module, I decided to push myself, attempt work that may not necessarily work in the end, but I can live knowing that I tried and learnt from those mistakes.
With this module, I want to continue this mindset of confidence and pushing myself. I want to try and create work that no one else has tried or thought of, either pulling it off or failing, but learning as a result.
Cinematography as a whole is down to seven different conceptual tools, which pieced together create the image that we see onscreen. Without any of these tools, cinematography itself wouldn't work. None can work without the other. These are the tools I will be focusing on when I come to the realisation of my own set later on.
The Frame / The Lens / Texture / Light & Colour / Movement / Establishing
THE FRAME
Framing is one of the primary aspects that constitutes cinematography. I find it focuses on the position of objects or characters within the frame, which creates something of a visual metaphor. It tends to be the case that everything we see in shot has been put there for a reason. One thing that seems to consistently pop up in some of the better cinematography I've seen is the use of the lines of perspective.
What the lines of perspective tend to achieve is drawing the audience's attention to something. They are visually pleasing to look at and easy to follow. If there is an important element within the frame, the lines of perspective tend to highlight this with all the lines pointing towards it.
Example of lines of perspective pointing towards the focal area of the frame - the door at the end of the corridor.
THE LENS
Rather than the lens itself, which is of course important, as a conceptual tool of cinematography, the lens refers to the idea of how it projects an image onscreen in numerous different ways. Be that through depth of field, or perhaps how much sharpness or contrast it has. Different lens' used in different ways can produce different images, and are used by filmmakers to convey, just like with framing, a visual metaphor. One of the best examples I can think of is the shot from Seven where we see the lead characters Somerset and Mills being lead by John Doe to a secret location. The lens here has been manipulated to create what's called a long lens compression shot.
Standard example of a long lens compressions shot.
Long lens compression shot from Seven.
Blain Brown in his book Cinematography: Theory and Practice states, in relation to this shot from Seven, that "the extremely long lens compresses the space and makes the transmission towers seem like they are right on top of each other: the visual metaphor it establishes is a spider’s web, a trap— which is exactly what it turns out to be". This is a classic example of how a lens is used in a specific way in order to manipulate an image to illustrate another meaning.
TEXTURE
In terms of texture within cinematography, it relates to the manipulation of an image during the post-production process of filmmaking. Texture is typically added to a film in order to add some kind of deeper meaning to an image, as with any of the other conceptual tools of cinematography. It could be in the form of colour correction, or filters, which enhance a particular mood, or setting.
In Schindler's List, we see the classic image of the unknown girl in the red coat. The use of the black and white throughout the film depicts an idea of a lack of hope. Yet with this red dress we see perhaps a symbol of hope, or innocence. She is oblivious to the destruction ensuing around her.
In Children of Men, there are tones of blues and blacks throughout it's entirety. This undertones a depressed feeling, similar to Schindler's List - a lack of hope or security. There is no warmth to the image and the narrative reflects that.
LIGHT & COLOUR
Whilst texture, for me, tends to focus more on the overall mood of a scene, with lighting and colour it can effect the cinematography on a much deeper level, particularly with the characters onscreen. In my opinion, only so much can be done with filters and post-production manipulation. With onset lighting, so much more depth can be added to a character, enhancing the cinematography even further. One of my favourite examples is from Apocalypse Now.
To an extent, the performance of Marlon Brando here demonstrates a certain degree of mental instability. What enhances this is the lighting on his face - one half being lit brightly, and the other in complete darkness. This denotes a metaphorical sense of two personalities which couldn't be conveyed any other way than with lighting.
MOVEMENT
Movement is another important aspect within cinematography. It can be used for climatic events in the narrative, perhaps revealing a vital piece of information or a twist in the story. A great modern example of this from Breaking Bad in one of the final scenes where we see Walt revealed in the kitchen to be with Skyler, despite a phonecall from Marie warning Skyler that Walt is in the area.
Walt is revealed via camera movement to be in the kitchen along with Skyler, providing a shocking moment in the series.
ESTABLISHING
Establishing shots are just as vitally important as any other attribute in cinematography, with it's primary purpose being to give the audience context to the scene that is about to be introduced. From what I've seen, it's typically an extreme wide shot, revealing the setting and giving the audience an idea of what to expect. Moreover, whilst all these conceptual tools can be merged together, particularly with establishing shots we can see a lot of movement as well added with these as well, perhaps revealing something as well in addition to setting the scene. One of my favourite examples of an establishing shot merged with movement as well to set a scene is from The Shawshank Redemption, where we see the entirety of the outside of the prison. This gives the audience a sense of where Andy Dufresne will be imprisoned.
Whilst there is a high level of importance in terms of shot types and camera movements to distinguish a film's look, without production design there is no true overall style. With costumes, sets, props, you can create completely new worlds which further adds to the atmosphere of the film. For such a demanding role, production design is covered by seven different positions within the art department. To make it easier for myself to understand, I'm going to break down all the different areas of production design that I'm not too sure on myself personally and how each department contributes to the overall vision.
Production Designer / Art Director / Costume Designer / Wardrobe Supervisor
One primary thing to note is these roles mainly exist within mainstream/high end productions which can afford the money to hire them, for a smaller/indie production all these roles may be undertaken by one or two people.
PRODUCTION DESIGNER
Like with the director of a film who conceives the overall vision of the film, the production designer
will conceive the overall visual design based on what the director would like, or the time period the
of the story. Additionally, whilst working closely with the director, the production designer will
designate colour schemes working around the mood and tone that the director is after. I've seen with some directors that a lot of the colour schemes are repeated throughout their work, keeping a consistent and trademark style - one of my favourite examples is Wes Anderson.
Overall, the production designer oversees the management of a consistent visual design by integrating and supervising all the department within production design. This will cover areas such as costume, props, set construction and project artwork.
ART DIRECTOR
The primary job of the art director is to design and implement the initial conceptions coming from the production designer, though this is mainly if the production is a high budget/mainstream production, typically with a smaller/indie production, the production designer and art director may well be the same person. Essentially, the art director runs the creative team behind a film's production design, with the production designer overseeing everything. You could say the production designer is the mind and the art director is the body.
COSTUME DESIGNER
Whilst on the front of it, a costume designer's job may just seem like just simply organising costumes for the characters, but there's much more to it than that. Yes, to an extent the job is simply finding costumes that match the concept and context of the story, but they need to find particular costumes that match the personalities of the characters in addition to this. Not only do costume designers have to arrange all of this, but the costumes that they design must not only match the vision of the director, but also provide comfort and durability for the actors, who may spend hours upon hours in the costumes.
WARDROBE SUPERVISOR
The wardrobe supervisor typically tends to work closely with the costume designer in order to fulfil the overall vision. Once the wardrobe supervisor understands what the costume designer has in mind for each character, collaborating with the rest of the art department, they will turn the overall vision into reality. This may include buying or hiring costumes, or perhaps in certain situations, again more so with high end productions, making costumes from scratch.
For my first task for this module, I had my present my initial concept to the rest of my group, informing them which script I had chosen to recreate, as well as how I may go about changing it. This includes some example pieces of work which may inspire my final look when I come to the realisation task. The tutors made it abundantly clear that this was just an initial idea, and we weren't expected to have already planned and nailed down exactly how we would want it to look.
As it says in the presentation, my chosen script is from the dinner scene from Django Unchained, where Django disguised as a slaver, Dr Schultz and Calvin Candie are discussing slaving and the possible sale of one of Candie's slaves - Django's wife, which Candie is oblivious too. The reason I chose this scene is purely from the variety of emotion that the scene has; humour, tension, nervousness. I wanted to focus primarily on the tension, and if possible enhance it even further with my recreation.
One of my favourite shots in cinema is the long take - I love seeing how scenes play out naturally without cuts. Furthermore, long takes tend to give a feeling of the scene dragging out and somewhat a sense of realism - like you are there experiencing it with them. That's just how I see it personally. How I could really imagine this scene playing out, is a long take dolly shot, moving up the table towards Candie sat at the end, as I've drawn in a rough sketch on page five of the presentation.
To even further increase the tension, on top of the long take dolly in, I would like to change the lighting from Django Unchained, to something more along the lines of Inside Llewyn Davis, as I cover on page four of the presentation. The low key lighting increases the shadows and silhouettes in the frame, which for me increases the element of mystery as a result, as we cannot see the characters' faces - how do we know if we can trust them? This relates back to the lighting section of my Conceptual Tools of Cinematography post. In addition to performance, lighting plays a strong role in the determination of who a character is. If we cannot see that character, we don't know how they are at all, we cannot judge them on based on appearance, just by what they're telling us - this is something I would like to emulate in my realisation task.
FEEDBACK
Overall, my idea was received fairly well. It was somewhat different in a way that I was focusing more on long takes in comparison to other people in my group. Which for me was a good thing, because I wanted to try something that no one else really was, as difficult as that is, it would be nice in the end to have a unique piece of work. I was praised for my discussion of colour and how to drives the narrative forward cinematically - whilst it is quite a dialogue-heavy sequence, the audience can gauge what is going on and how to feel from the visuals and subtext alone.
There were, however, a couple of things I was picked up on. Firstly, I didn't really go too much into production design as I wasn't particularly sure which time period I wanted to set my sequence in. As I decided purely on the basic concept alone and a rough style I would like to achieve. Fortunately for myself, one thing I was sure on was changing the context from a slaver meeting, to a drug meeting between rival crime families, which gave me a lot of flexibility in choosing my time period, because it could literally be set any time, so my decision would be based on what I could make look the most realistic. The second thing I was picked up on, was how I was going to fit a long dining table into the set I would eventually be shooting in - as the set itself is a fairly small space, so this would prove difficult. This was just given to me as something to think about and consider when coming to properly planning my realisation, bringing everything together.
Following my first task, involving presenting my initial concept to my tutors and peers, before focusing entirely on how I wanted to execute my idea, I wanted to concentrate more on the cinematography of Inside Llewyn Davis, by Bruno Delbonnel.
What I love about so much about the cinematography in this film is how moody it is, it's extremely atmospheric. For my scene, the dinner table meeting discussing slaves in Django Unchained, I wanted to recreate it in a way that clouds the scene in mystery. The low key lighting and abundance in shadows in Inside Llewyn Davis fit just that, so I feel it would work for my scene. Rather than keeping it as a meeting discussing slaves, I want to slightly modernise it and have it as a meeting between rival kingpin drug lords.
What I like about this colour scheme is that the colours are very blunt and not particularly 'comfortable' colours. There is a lack of warmth and just generally give off a sense of cold, loneliness, with no real emotion. This is the kind of colour scheme, or dark and dull colours of a similar nature I'd like to implement into my realisation to reflect how grim the crime underworld is.
A lot of Inside Llewyn Davis is shot in low key lighting, conveying a sense of mystery around the characters, not really being able to see their face and their expressions - are they to be trusted? This would work with my realisation since we're unsure who these drug lord kingpin are, we don't know what their intentions are, whether or not to trust them.
Another aspect of the lighting I like from the film, and what I will use as inspiration for my own piece, is the use of natural lighting shining in from the outside onto the dark interior. Since I will be using the studio, I will have to artificially create the effect of natural lighting. The reason I like this is that it seems as though the world we are getting an insight into an environment that is separate from conventional society. Almost like they're not supposed to be there, or doing something they shouldn't be doing - such as with the drug meeting in my realisation.
Another example from Inside Llewyn Davis of natural lighting pouring into a dark interior.
The camera, in terms general knowledge on how to use it, I have always been a bit weak, so I've made a conscious effort to really improve this, consistently researching all the functions, as well as buying my own camera and practising - seeing results for myself and seeing what needs changing in terms of things such as the ISO, aperture and shutter speed to improve picture quality. As well as the conceptual tools I've already covered in an attempt to further enhance my knowledge of cinematography, there are still areas I haven't covered, going into further detail of the technicalities of cinematography. This is more so focusing more on the camera linguistics rather than onset lighting etc, such as exposure, depth of field and dynamic range.
There are three things that control exposure; ISO, aperture and shutter speed. Though for my realisation task, it's only really ISO and aperture that are relevant to my idea, so I will focus primarily on them here in order to improve my understanding.
ISO
ISO stands for International Standards Organisation, with the 'ISO rating' ranging from 25 to 3200 - this determines the light sensitivity. The image quality tends to be smoother the lower the ISO rating, with it becoming 'noisier' the higher the rating. Essentially, the more sensitive the image sensor is, the harder it has to work in order to produce an image, therefore producing more 'digital noise'.
Comparison between a noisy image and a smooth image.
In terms of my own realisation task, since my scene will be lit with low key lighting, I'll need to be aware of the fact that my ISO setting may need lowering in order to keep the digital noise away from my final images.
APERTURE
A lens's aperture is ultimately determined by the size of the diaphragm opening - this is how focused light passes through the lens. Whilst image quality is based on the ISO rating, the aperture is based on f-stops. At a smaller f-stop, the diaphragm is larger, therefore letting significantly more light into the lens, whereas at a bigger f-stop, significantly less light moves into the camera. So at a smaller f-stop, for example something like f/2, you would say that it is a large aperture, and a larger f-stop, such as f/22 is considered a small aperture.
This is where shallow and large depths of fields come into it. With a large aperture, in image quality we see the main focal point in a sharp focus quality, with a blurred background, yet with a small aperture we see the whole image in focus and a good sharp quality. Something such as portrait or nature photography, is typically used with a large aperture/shallow depth of field, and something such as landscape photography would typically use a small aperture/deep depth of field.
This is a significant step up from my previous presentation. From an initial concept and brief idea, I had to transform my idea into reality on paper, nailing down the look I wanted, but more so how I was going to achieve this look, conveying meaning through the cinematography. Focusing primarily on one of the key pieces of advice I received from my first task, was to decide which time period I was going to set my piece in - to which I chose 1920s New York. The reasoning for this is that it allowed me to be more creative with my costume and props - this relates back to my initial plan to challenge myself rather than opting for the easy way out. I could've chosen a modern day criminal setting, but I wanted to attempt an authentic 1920s setting. In a way, I was mixing elements of the noir genre, with the costume and low key lighting in some places, along with more modern and common camera movements such as the dolly in and tracking shots in order to create somewhat of a neo-noir sequence - something that is a little bit different in my opinion.
Staying with the 1920s New York gangster scene, this would require my actors to wear classy outfits, generally suits or smart shirts with the common item of a fedora hat - an item that gangsters such as Al Capone were known for wearing. I wanted to illustrate that the meeting had possibly been going on for a while, so making subtle changes to the costume such as the shirts being slightly more creased, or details such as having sleeves rolled up, buttons undone, etc, would hopefully enable me to achieve this look. Moreover, in terms of props and how I can further show the class of these criminals, but also their stress at being there, I decided to use a bottle of whiskey (apple juice) and a small pile of cocaine (sugar) to show this. Additionally, the drugs and alcohol will help the audience gauge where they are, but more so who they are.
What else I had to focus on was the location itself, how I was going to set up my scene with the space provided, but also the risks involved with shooting there, which I cover on page 4/7. Health and safety needs to be taken seriously shooting anywhere, and to be aware of any risks - no matter how big or small - not only makes shooting a much more overall safer experience, but ultimately it speeds up shooting as well, so the cast and crew are aware of any hazards and how they be avoided prior to starting. Some of the risks included working with lighting and specialist equipment, as well as electricity which can be placed under these risks as well. I found the primary risk to be cables, which could and would cause the most harm in terms of the set, but more so the people involved with the crew, such as the cast and crew. Tripping over cables could cause injury to cast and crew, ranging from anything to mild cuts or bruises, to serious head injuries, depending on the fall. Additionally, equipment could be damaged from poor cable management if it's pulled over by someone's foot.
The main issue with my realisation, was fitting the long table onto the set and still be able to film comfortably and safely. In order to tackle this, I decided to reduce the size of the table and have one still big enough to fit 4 or 5 people, but not ridiculously long. I would also place the table diagonally in the set, giving myself enough room to shoot from either side, as well as fitting significantly more easily in the set as well. With the set only being 3 walls, placing the table diagonally would allow me to get shots which showed the walls in frame, rather than the TV Studio surroundings. Logistically it just made so much more sense, so this is the positioning I went for, as you can see in page 4/7. I also decided to use a lot of the set features, particularly the build in arri lamps, to my advantage, specifically for creating the natural light, allowing me to focus primarily on lighting the room itself a lot better.
Now I know I have a strong idea on what I'm doing in the build up to my actual realisation task, I have to focus on organising it and bringing it all together so it works, sort of reiterating my points from the second task. The first thing I need to focus on is risk assessing the TV Studio and book out the equipment I want to use, as well as arranging actors to play the drug dealers. The risk assessments were my priority, ensuring that if anything needed sorting out prior to completing my task, I could do so without any issues. Of course, this was followed by booking the equipment 48 hours in advance to confirm I definitely had the gear I needed in order to achieve the shots I wanted in order to tell my adapted version of the story.
ANNOTATED SCRIPT
RISK ASSESSMENTS
It's always essential to risk assess every location before shooting, as it not only resolves any health and safety issues prior to filming, but it ultimately speeds up the shooting process knowing that any potential problems have been resolved, or there will be already attained knowledge on how to deal with any arising issues that may occur - which is likely during shooting.
EQUIPMENT
The noticeable thing about my chosen equipment, is that I've decided against using the sound kit, mainly because I felt this task is focusing more on the visuals rather than the audio and I felt that it was extra and unnecessary effort to set up sound, when in fact it wasn't particularly needed.
Canon C100, along with a standard tripod.
Canon EF Macro Lens - to enable me to get shots with a large aperture and shallow depth of field as I discussed earlier, particularly close ups of what the drug dealers are doing with their hands - the body language may give the audience a brief insight into each characters personality, despite not knowing them whatsoever.
Tracking Dolly - allows me to get shots that dolly in, which achieves the dramatic and tense long takes, which drag the scene out, further increasing the tension. Additionally, as I've previously said in relation to camera movement, it allows me to play around with my actors and props and use movement as a means to reveal something.
Dedo Lights - these lights are fairly flexible when it comes to brightness. I chose the Dedo's as my primary lights because they can be set to be quite dim, which is what's required for my scene, however if I need light to be brighter in a specific place, they allow me to do this.
Arri Lamps - I only really booked out the arri lamps as a back-up, whilst there was little to no chance of me using them, especially considering the TV Studio I was using already has some built into the set, it was very unlikely. However, I wanted to have a kit anyway, just in case I needed it for whatever reason.
THE SET
Prior to filming, I went into the set to take pictures in order to gauge an idea of how I could place my props and still function comfortably with the camera - baring in mind it is a relatively small space to film in. More so, I looked at what was already built in the set (lighting, for example) and how I could use this to my advantage.
As you can see, there isn't a lot of room, especially because my plan was to fit a long table in there in order to fulfil my long take dolly shot, so I had to figure out a way around this, as well as where I was going to place my lights. The built-in blinds work well for what I want, as I can use them to create the effect I mentioned earlier with the natural light intruding the darker interior on the set.
Set from the other side.
Around the side of the set there are already built-in arri lamps pointing at reflectors to soften the light, considering how bright arri lamps are. Shining an arri lamp with nothing else would be too bright and ultimately too unrealistic, so using the reflectors provide a more natural look. Allowing me to use only the dedo lights for the interior.
Again there are arri lamps already built into the set around the back, pointing at reflectors to produce the same effect as the others. In order to produce the effect that it is night time, I will likely place blue filters onto the lights to recreate a moonlight effect.
After bringing together all my ideas and planning, I finally filmed my realisation to the closest way I possibly planned it to look. Like I've previously said, this is strictly visuals only. I didn't want to focus on sound as I didn't deem it necessary for this cinematography and production design module, so any background noise and general chatter has been recorded from the camera's built in microphone and isn't supposed to be part of the scene.
HANDHELD DOLLY
I had to dolly in with a handheld camera movement rather than on the track, as it proved relatively awkward to do, so going handheld was logistically a lot easier, although the smoothness of the shot suffered as a result. I feel this shot shows the simplicity of my scene and that it doesn't take extravagant props or costume to convey the importance of characters, but rather lighting does. I feel my idea to light the leader's hands worked well, because it draws attention to his hands and his body language can show his authority. The fact that the rest of his body in unlit, clouds the character in mystery, which is what I've been planning to have from the start. I also attempted to implement to notion of lines of perspective - relating back to the Frame section of my Conceptual Tools of Cinematography post, with the lines pointing towards the direction of the leader, further enhancing his importance within the scene.
TRUCKING SHOT
The long trucking shot sprouts from my Wes Anderson inspiration and his use of trucking shots in order to establish a setting or scenario of some kind. Additionally, they could be used to reveal a vital piece of information, relating back to the camera movement section of my Conceptual Tools of Cinematography post.
MACRO LENS SHOTS
With the macro lens, I could go into greater visual detail with shots and add a bit more texture visually, rather than staying with the standard lens. It ultimately gave me good close ups of what each individual drug lord is doing at the table, for the audience to gauge what they might currently be feeling through subtle body language. Small hand movements could be a sign of nervous tension. For example, with the candle light, the fact that the drug lord is waving his hand across the candle suggests he's possibly somewhat relaxed in this situation.
FEEDBACK
After finishing filming and uploading the footage, I asked a few people to objectively watch my work and give me any feedback, be that positive or constructive. One thing many people said was that they could see what I was going for, such as dimly lighting the characters so we don't really know who they are, what their purpose is, we don't know whether to trust them. Someone noticed the fake candle, to which I explained that for health and safety purposes, as well as potentially setting off the fire alarm, I decided not to use real candles. Whilst looking less realistic, I could still produce the same effect I wanted with a fake candle and that's all that mattered to me - as long as I got across the hand movements and what this means, then I was satisfied. A couple of people noticed the unsteady camera movement in the dolly, which made me aware that I should have planned better for a situation where I wouldn't have been to use the dolly track on the table, I need to always have the mindset that the shot cannot suffer as a result of my incapabilities.
The trucking shot received a lot more praise, with a few common comments being that it was very smooth and showcased the element of mystery I was hoping to achieve as a result of low key lighting. There is a lot of darkness and shadows, which is what I wanted in the end. It mirrored a Blader Runner-esque style shot, which I found as a great comment considering I wanted to achieve a neo-noir style, in that I mix classic examples of production design and lighting, with more modern camera movement. Back to the handheld dolly shot, one person noticed the different colour light on the blinds, one being blue and there other being orange. This was a mistake by myself, the blue had been the evening natural lighting I wanted to try and create, and the orange from the other blind is the standard arri lamps with no filters or gels over them, I had just simply forgotten to set those up properly, which was really unprofessional of me and slightly ruins my work. However, I can learn from this in that I will check everything has been done properly before shooting, possibly with a check list of some kind to remind myself.
The macro shots as a whole were aesthetically pleasing to look at, although people felt they didn't really gauge what sort of emotions characters were feeling at that point, which I'm not sure is down to the cinematography itself, or performance. One thing that really irked me was the unsteadiness of the camera movement in the dolly, so for future projects I would definitely plan not just one, but two or three methods of shooting in order to achieve the same shot. I only planned for one and it failed, so I had to resort to the handheld approach.
As I mentioned in my first post, coming into this second semester and this cinematography and production design module I had little to no confidence in myself in terms of editing and my abilities. For tasks throughout first year, I always took the easy approach, that would guarantee average results every time, but I never learnt anything, which is what this course is all about. Coming into second year I wanted to change this way of seeing things and just push myself, and try things I didn't try last year. I knew I may end up work that wasn't particularly great, which last year would have bugged me, but my mindset this year was that I wanted to try risky work, and if it pulls off then I can be thankful I took the risk, and if it failed, then ultimately I have learnt a lesson in that area and for future reference I will know what and what not to do as a result. Put simply, I wanted to finish this module more confident in myself and more confident with taking risks, rather than just doing basic scenes with flat footage and getting predictable feedback that is little to no use to me.
My development in terms of general knowledge regarding cinematography itself, the terminology, meanings, processes, construction has improved vastly. Rather than putting together a scene because it "looks nice" like I used too, I always have a reason for constructing a scene now, be that using an extended long take in order to create suspense, or using different angles to convey different meaning. Rather than my work being one layered, my vastly improved knowledge on cinematography, from the conceptual tools, to the camera linguistics - there are multiple layers and meanings which can be unpicked and analysed, which I believe is a key part of cinematography and production design.
