Technical Elements - Camera Work

Single Camera set-ups are different to multi camera set-ups in various ways, the first is the budget, it will cost more to hire a single camera than it will to hire three cameras, this is because it will take longer to shoot a full single camera production with having to move the camera to change shots meaning that it costs more than a multi camera production which can easily set three cameras up to the next three shots and then move one camera to the next shot once it has finished shooting. Another difference is that the director has more control over each shoot with a single camera and the shoot can begin quicker whereas a multi camera shoot needs time if more than one camera is being used in a single shoot for precision. A third difference is time, a single camera production will take longer to shoot because of the amount of times the camera needs to be moved during the shooting of a scene whereas the shooting of a scene with up to three cameras can be done two to three times quicker. 

One of the most important parts of a single camera production is the camera work, since one camera is being used, 60% of the time shots need to be perfect in one take.

In single camera productions there is a rule called the 180 degree rule which means that there is a line of action that the camera cannot pass, for example look at the diagram below,


If the camera stayed within the 180 degree area then when shooting a scene with two actors that have both over the shoulder shots and long shots that show the two actors from the side, the actor (in blue in the diagram) is on the right and the other actor (in orange) is on the left, that is how the over the shoulder shots will be seen but if the camera went out of the 180 degree zone and shot the long shots then, the actor on the left will suddenly be on the right and vice versa which will make confusing times when it comes to editing, however if it is impossible to re shoot the long shot then in editing the shot could be flipped correcting the shot but if there were any kind of text anywhere in the shot then it would be mirrored and would also confuse viewers, this is why in single camera shoots there is the 180 degree rule.

Camera Shots
Below are the different types of camera shots used in the industry as well as how these would be seen on screen,


Each single camera set up depends on the type of shot for example a long shot the layout is like below,

You see the camera is in between the two actors at a long distance. If the shot was an Extreme Close Up though then the camera would be at a close distance to the actor but instead of having the camera being shoved right into the actors face the camera would be positioned at a short distance then would be zoomed in as close to the actors face as possible.

With Over The Shoulder shots, the actors have to act out the scene twice, this is because the camera shoots facing one actor the first time then the camera is moved and the second actor then has the camera facing them, the way these sort of scenes are filmed is as follows:

If there are 10 shots of dialogue between two actors in one scene then the camera will first focus on one actors face and will record the dialogue for shots 1,3,5,7 and 9, the camera is then moved to be facing the second actor and the same dialogue is spoken and the camera gets the shots for 2,4,6,8 and 10. This is the most time consuming shot for a single camera production.

Shots such as Crane shots, where the camera captures footage high over the actors, requires larger equipment, Cranes, these are mostly made of steel which is strong enough to hold the camera, after spending time looking for places that hire out these kind of cranes I was unable to find any but I did however find out about them a bit more, cranes are manually operated as well as controlled like a normal crane, manual cranes are like see saws as soon as one end has weight on it, it goes up but with these kind of cranes although they have a small structure on the side to help stable them sometimes if the crane is filming a shot that is a long way away then the crane will get top heavy and could fall causing damage to the camera as well as some of the crew on the other end, so weights are placed on the opposite end to prevent this. The video below is from the MTV festival in Sweden, it shows the movement of a camera on a crane that is electronically controlled, it moves at quite a speed too.

Tracking shots are where the camera is attached to a either a vehicle or a device with wheels and follows the actors while they are walking or moving at a fast speed that can only be obtained in a vehicle. I want to use two examples for this kind of shot, the first is from a video found on YouTube called "Doctor Who Series 3 Outtakes" it shows a tracking shot, at the end David Tennant had to stop because the track that was laid out for the cart to smoothly move on ran out before the dialogue had finished,

The second clip I wanted to use is from a music video, originally I wanted to use the behind the scenes video from the Steps music video Tragedy but both the ones I found on YouTube had been blocked by copyright so instead I had to show the music video where several tracking shots are used,

In a different part of this music video mainly at the beginning you see the singer and her father walking towards the camera which is slowly moving backwards, this is a tracking shot but it isn't done on a cart and track, this is done by using what's called a Steadicam,

A special device that was first used in 1975 and is designed to move smoothly along the ground to give a smooth shot it has a secure fitting harness designed to fit onto a person so that it can be kept steady, hence the name, it has an arm attached to the harness so that the camera man controls the device.