Last Saturday I had the great opportunity to be one of the camera operators for DV Mission award ceremony. DV Mission is a challenge where film makers have 48 hours to create a short film and the event was an award ceremony and screening of the films. The theme this year was to do with Hip Hop robots, the films included this as well as the event. It was similar to secret cinema, so everyone was dressed up like space people, robots and aliens. I hadn’t been a camera OP for any work experience before so I was quite nervous but excited. I was placed on the stationary camera at the back with a wide shot of the event so that I didn’t have anything too complicated to do. The event was really immersive and interesting, being able to work events that you find enjoyable makes the whole experience even better. The event had low lighting in the audience but bright lights on the stage so this made finding the best iso for the shot difficult at times. I made sure that I got a second opinion on the iso settings to double check that it looked fine. Another problem I ran into was that I could have done with a tighter shot but my lens couldn’t zoom in any more, in retrospect, booking out another lens would have been a good idea. The third problem I had was that my camera was set up on a small ledge and any movement on the ledge or floor would make the camera shake. The lighting person next to me kept tapping his leg and this would make the camera shake, he stopped towards the end thankfully. Overall these problems didn’t effect my shots negatively too much but different circumstances could have made the shots even better. On the whole I had a great time and I’m glad I stepped out of my comfort zone and tried something new with being camera operator as now I can learn from the good and bad things I did on the shoot and apply it to any future camera roles I do.

Work experience hours: 8

Work experience hours total: 78