Since coming to college, I have found three things that I enjoy having in my life. First is filmmaking. As an art form and practice I enjoy it enough to try and make it my career. The second is teaching. I enjoy speaking to people and helping them acquire the skills that I have found valuable. The last is community. Forming a bond with a group of people that meet regularly and have similar interests and values.
Forming this Cinematography Workshops as my final honors experience has given me a chance to put all of these things together in a fulfuilling way. Filmmaking, Teaching, and Community.
A big goal I had for this honors experience was finding creative ways to teach and inform my fellow students. Over the course of the workshop I tried several different strategies. The first one was power point presentations.
This was great for organizing my thoughts but lost a lot of interest (as expected) when it was the only means of teaching. As the semester went on I used it in more minor ways in combination with other elements. Below are some sample slideshows:
Different Presentations Given
Lighting 101
Moving the Camera
Guiding Eyes
Story Structure
Shot Composition
Storyboarding
The more hands-on learning workshops were by far the most successful. The best way to learn anything is to learn by doing. And actually giving students an opportunity to just experiment with scarce equipment was the most helpful (and fun) thing to do. It also produced a number of cool shots.
Some of these days we focused on lighting. We used lots of fun gels, shaped lights with cukoloris, and altered lighting over time. Students also got to practice which lights to use in which situations. Other days were focused on camera movement. Doing things like dollying, panning, canting, and doing the vertigo effect.
To bolster the community aspect I added a movie night after the workshop each night. Through a complex voting system we decided on consistently amazing films that we got to watch, enjoy, and talk about together. Here are a few of them:
Overall, teaching the workshops was a wonderful experience. I made friends and helped a number of students grow as filmmakers. I hope I get to do something similar in my future career.