Wondering if most here took camera courses.

[syrom]

Hey guys, Ive done tons of tutorials through out several years. Learned cgi by myself through gut wrenching passion. Ive leaned everthing from the web and good forums like this one. But I am curious if some of you have actually gone to school for the arts or just plain gnomon type campuses or online courses. I am taking on animation since Unreal is so epic at the way it works compared to other renderers. Here is my latest project and if you watch it, camera work is not the best. Any tips on good online sources to learn better at camera works? Also… any critiques are welcomed. I do have a photographer background but not film.

Terminator

[syrom]

@franktech

@syrom

2c: Here’s some things to take away and think about maybe… But ultimately, there’s no perfect or 100% right answer…
Except where you ‘break the form’ and everyone in film goes: Wow that worked, you’re an amazing auteur / genius etc!

Feedback:
Starts ok! Always good to use the camera to ‘tell a story’. So a slow-pan-in is usually often a good thing (delay the reveal).
But the horizontal cut across the teeth??? That comes across as strange, unless you’re promoting Terminator dental work.

Starting idea maybe: Re-edit the video to start around 46 secs in. That way you show the back of the head first etc.
Like shooting a ‘live actor’ who starts the trailer with their back to the camera, but flicks a glance around in the end.
Then pan around and stop at 55 secs, and slow things down, and then move vertically downwards with the camera.

1:03 secs in, is probably too abrupt to jump to that ‘full-face-on’. Plus the zoom-in after feels wrong (its offset not even).
If you’re going to do that, then zoom-in all the way up-close into just one eye (left eye in this case for ‘camera narrative’).
9 secs: The transitions between each key focal point are too blurry and fast, makes them kind of worthless to the scene.
You could zoom-out then zoom-in again to a new point of focus, but it doesn’t work as is. Remember this is all just imho.

If you were planning on going into TV or Film I’d say do some courses. But if not, don’t risk boiling off your own creativity.
Every time you pick a camera shoot some film, and look back at it closely on large screen, and think of new things to try.
Have fun with it, or try to… Can’t think of any camera courses I did that I’d recommend, I found screenwriting more useful…
Using 'a ‘real-world model’ first with a handheld camera can help generate some ideas before you go back into CG etc

Awesome tips! I’ll take all that into consideration. lol @ dental work.