LO 1: Task 2 - Job Roles Report

Input

As part of unit 41, we was asked to produce a short film / documentary. At the time myself and my group members had friends who were in a band who had suddenly started becoming very well known with them headlining big places and performing at festivals like tramlines. We took different ideas from different music videos and documentaries the Ratells // behind the fire" where they're walking to the stage, the band perfuming, the crowd but we added the interview with the band to make it into a documentary instead of a music video where the band are telling you how they feel before headlining a big event, how they came together, whats next for them and more.

Topic of research

I will be investigating the different roles within the film production industry where I most specifically looked at director and camera operator. The reasons for myself looking into both of these roles is due to the units 46 and 41 where in 46 I took lead in deciding the different scenes, what was going to happen and said and told some of the people with cameras what to shoot and where to position the different lighting whilst also having a say in editing and doing some of the editing.  In unit 41 I mostly did the filming with the cameras whilst also telling the other person with the camera what to film and I also did some editing towards the documentary.

What I studied when looking at these job roles:

• The duties which they have
• Contribution
• Skills
• Equipment

Camera Operator 

Thee camera operator is responsible for a lot of things like being in charge of both assistant cameraperson(s) by telling them to do different jobs like slating and loading, preparation, labelling, logging shots, safekeeping of reels / tapes and more. The main camera operator focuses on operating the camera on the scenes to get the best shots with more than one angle being filmed to see the best angle and making sure the scene doesn't have to be shot a hundred times but just a few. The camera operator also focuses on marking and pulling with having the role of maintanence and management of camera equipment. 

My suitability 

I think I would personally achieve well in the role as I can picture which angles a scene would look good from before filming the scene where I would setup multiple cameras to capture the different angles which I think will look good which usually come out and look effective for the video. During the production of filming unit 46 and unit 41 I had a lot of say where the camera should be positioned in order to capture that particular scene which when played back it looked effective and was used for both the film trailer and documentary. 

Director 

The director is responsible for overlooking the whole production of the film by giving different roles and jobs to different people. The director controls the story of the film, the actors, how they will look,  music, locations and more whilst giving each production team a certain budget which they must stick to if they can. The director will instruct a camera operator on what they need to do and achieve to capture the scene from different angles like he may ask them to film a car chase from different points like a tracking shot following the cars, a car chasing them from behind so you can see the car chase from somebody they've just passed point of view, somebody in the streets point of view, up top to see the car chase and any objects in the road coming up and more. 

Role Comparison 

Even though both of the roles have great important when producing a film especially the camera operator trying to get the right angles of scenes to make the film look good. I believe the director has one of the most important jobs with a lot of responsibilites by delegating roles, jobs, budgets with a lot of the time the director telling people what he wants so that the different teams can capture that.