What is the Vertigo Effect in Film?

What is the Vertigo Effect in Film? If you’ve ever had vertigo before, such as is often caused by inner ear infections, you know the sort of out of body kind of feeling that comes from it. It’s like you’re there, but you’re really not. As if you’re watching something occur, from outside of your […]

What is Rotoscope Animation?

What is Rotoscope Animation? Animating a film takes a lot of time, technique, and creativity. It’s about more than just adding some cartoon characters or special effects and it requires more technique than ever before in order to stand out as a solid, professional animator. Perhaps you’ve heard the term rotoscoping as a technique used […]

What is the Film Plane Indicator that Odd Symbol on the Camera

What is the Film Plane Indicator that Odd Symbol on the Camera

Have you ever seen that small circle on your camera that appears to have a line drawn right down the center of it? If you’re wondering what the weird symbol on your camera is, it’s your film plane indicator and it actually has several uses. While the name of this helpful little object comes back […]

How is Shutter Speed Measured?

How is Shutter Speed Measured? When cameras were first introduced, shutter speed was a representation of the amount of time (in seconds) that the camera’s metal shutter would remain open to allow light to come in to create the image before the metal shutter would clamp back down.  Shutter speed is one of several elements […]

How Does the Hole Size in Aperture Sight Determine the Distance to Shot?

How Does the Hole Size in Aperture Sight Determine the Distance to Shot? Understanding your equipment is one of the most challenging, and equally rewarding, educational opportunities that a newly aspiring cinematographer or photographer can get involved in. The more you learn about your camera’s structure and the role that each working part plays in […]

Understanding the Difference Between Vibrance VS Saturation

Understanding the Difference Between Vibrance vs Saturation Post-production editing workflows will involve a variety of tasks that draw the editor’s eye toward the details of an image in order to make just the right type and amount of adjustments to improve the level of quality in such a way that the audience can’t help but […]

What Does Aperture Do?

What Does Aperture Do? As a cinematographer it’s important for you to learn how your camera equipment works and to understand the relationship of various working parts to the images you capture. One such working part that is important for every cinematographer to understand is aperture. Aperture is the term used to describe the hole […]

What’s the Difference Between the Rule of Thirds vs Phi Grid?

What’s the Difference Between the Rule of Thirds vs Phi Grid? In filmmaking key components of any great cinematography are impacted by composition. But understanding composition requires a deeper level interest in how image placement and fundamentals play a key role in achieving impressive framing on the screen. Composition, or the basic framing of the […]

What Does Shutter Speed Do?

What Does Shutter Speed Do? As a cinematographer, you may not have as much of love for the shutter, but ask any photographer and they’ll likely tell you that they absolutely love to hear that click as the shutter moves up and down, producing the image that has been captured by the camera. The click […]

What Does ISO Stand For?

What Does ISO Stand For

As a cinematographer or aspiring filmmaker, you’ve probably started to learn a lot about various camera components and their relationship to exposure. For example, you may know that aperture, ISO, and shutter speed are all part of the exposure triangle and that they work together to influence the amount of exposure that occurs when capturing […]