Podcast Video

“Podcast Video”

(Junliang, Chen Zhixing, Chen Jinxun)

Guest: Terrance

Apart from Mr TP Lim who is working in the film industry, this group interviewed Terrance who is based in Hong Kong. What I learnt from Terrance is that photography and film is a totally different concept and it does not have any relation.

Photography uses a camera that with a flash more over it is a still object that does not required any movement. Based on what I learn from the internet, the science behind videography is combining many frames of images into specific time which was played at high speed. Terrance did mention that filming is 25 frame per second which makes it hard to edit.

From the group podcast interview, I learnt that during film everything needs to be done simultaneously, for example, panning, tilting of the camera all in one movement. It needs a lot of hand and sight coordination to make a film more interesting.

One of the questions a member asks regarding the ability of the person or teamwork is important. Terrance mention that it’s not about the ability of the person but how the team work together in a film. I completely agree to what he say as individual ability can be an advantage without teamwork, working alone for the project is impossible. Every member in the team have both strength and weaknesses so we should help each other be better and move along as a unit.

Regarding the salary for Hong Kong film industry, directors have a much lesser pay compared to the camera, sound and other department. In addition to what Terrance say, filming a show goes on about 18 hours and most of the time there will be overtime payment for the workers. It is not an easy job for film makers, to be in the film industry a person should have a strong passion in the job if not it is very tough to move on. The stress and pressure on the film production significantly high, if there is a mistake at any point of time it may affect the whole production flow that cause a huge amount of money. My thoughts for filming a movie all comes with good planning and decision making, it defines how well the production crew is in functioning. A crew with bad planning will cause many issues and likewise for our school projects, if a group did not have communication with each other, individual will not have an idea on what they are doing which held back of the group.

To add on, Terrance mention that for one movie they have film it took about 20 weeks to film. What is interesting about it is there subgroups in a production and each group will take about 9-12 hours to film each segment of the movie. 12 weeks to finish a show is possible. I also learnt something about using the film camera, the camera man needs to have knowledge and estimation for the actors and the length they are in. For example, should the actor stand nearer to the camera to make the actor look bigger etc.

To conclude, I have learnt some knowledge from Terrance regarding the camera work and what to expect if I were to work in that position. Being a camera person does need to have some experience and knowledge of not it very difficult to get a good camera angle.

Just to add on, I feel that the group have demonstrated good teamwork. It is obvious that the group uses voiceover to make the theme of the video to be in Cantonese.