Single Camera Techniques - Essay.

In this essay, I am going to be addressing and explaining various points and key terms that are all to do with single camera productions. These points I will be explaining are the following: Camera, Lighting, Sound, Editing, Single camera genre and formats and Multi-camera techniques. Single Camera productions are motion picture films and TV that are filmed with only one camera. Throughout this essay I will also be comparing the differences between multi-camera and single camera films. Multi-camera films are when something is filmed with more than one camera, there will usually be three.

Camera:
Single Camera productions are filmed using 1 camera, and 1 camera only. Most films you see nowadays are all filmed with 1 camera. Apart for when there are action scenes. Many scenes in Marvel films are action packed and these tend to be filmed with multiple cameras. For example, In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, there is a scene where they are fighting over the key to Davy Jones' chest. This would have been filmed with multiple cameras. However, the rest of the film would be filmed with a single camera.

The reason for this is so they can film a lot of the action within a few takes and not have to re do anything over and over. Single cameras are used a lot more however because it would be cheaper for the film company to do. Using only 1 camera would mean that you can get involved a lot more within the scene and allows you to get a lot of varying shots that you wouldn't normally be able to get. In contrast, multi camera productions are static meaning you can only get shots of one side of the set. For example chat shows are multi camera, that also means they do not have to do many re takes as they can film it all in one.

Lighting:
In Single camera productions, lighting is very important. It can be changed in many different ways to suit the directors needs. It is a lot easier to do this in single camera productions because there is only 1 camera being used, this means that there can be more lighting equipment set up on and around on the set of the film. This also means that the camera is less likely to accidentally film any lighting equipment. If this were to be multi-camera, there would have to be a lot less ass having 3 cameras means you are more likely to film unwanted equipment. An example of good lighting would be lighting in horror films. Lighting in a single camera production is better because they can have light on specific objects or characters. However on a multi camera production, you can only film the lighting from specific angles because other wise you would be able to see the lights in the set.

Sound:
Sound being used in single camera productions is usually recorded with a boom mic. The boom mic will be controlled by someone known as the boom guy. Their job is hang a large microphone above the actors when they are filming so their voices can be picked up. Because most films are single camera productions, it is much harder to record the sound as the microphone cannot be seen on set. Where as if you were filming a multi-camera production, such as the BBC news, the microphones can be seen, usually clipped to one's shirt.

Editing:
Editing is a lot easier to do during multi-camera productions. For example: during live shows there will be more than one camera filming, this allows the team to cut from camera to camera smoothly and without any problems. This is the same for news channels too. Another thing is that the cameras during news programs and live shows are seen a lot of the time and this is not a problem. However during a single camera production. There mustn't be any equipment seen on set. A lot of films in this day and age have a lot of CGI involved in post production. It makes things harder for the editors if any CGI scenes are filmed with a single camera because all the footage is on one camera and they have to search through everything to put pieces of continuity of the film in the correct place. Here is an example of a film with heavy CGI.

Single Camera Genre and Formats:
There are a lot of genres that would be difficult for multi-camera productions to do, but at the same time, there a lot of genres that single camera productions are not able to do either. TV programmes such as TV soaps are perfect for multi-camera productions, because they usually have a lot of tension involved and cutting to different shots quickly is a good way to create tension. Single camera productions would not be very good for filming TV soaps. Single camera productions are good at making dramas and horrors, because of the atmosphere they create, using a single camera would be perfect for these.