Transitioning from Photography to Cinematography?

[DoctorDino]

This is a bit random.

I've been into photography for a while now (not portraits sadly) and now I'm being trained in wedding cinematography. Long story short, if the wedding I'm shooting with my instructors in September goes well, they're hiring me full time. So I've been practicing a lot, but I'm running of stuff around the area to film in between now and my first practice wedding in May.

The difference between my style of photography and wedding cinematography is extremely huge. Like, huge-huge-huge.

Any advice or ideas regarding what to shoot? Any tips for a new cinematographer? Thanks.

 

[Derrel]

One MAJOR tip is to learn how to pan the camera so that the on-screen image does not just go whirring by, with basically ZERO information absorbed by the viewers. One of the single most common newbie mistakes is to set up the camera, and then to pan as if one is simply turning the head. No,no,no, a thousand times Noooooo! I saw a video a noob had shot the other day on Vimeo. OMG...it was plain as day this guy had never studied a damned thing about cinematography! Every single pan was like Ziiip! His little film looked like c***. Make the pans sloooooow. Think about a slow pan...then cut the speed in half: that's a start.

Also...learn how awful zoom-ins and zoom-outs can be when done too often, or poorly. Try NOT to zoom-in and zoom-out all the time...this is one of the biggest noob mistakes.

Have you heard of the 180 degree line? I saw a video on YouTube made by a young band...almost made my head spin...they had zero idea of how to portray the world in motion video.

Get a BOOK on filmmaking...not a bunch of web tuts on YouTube...learn from masters, not noobs on the web.