Atmosphere

[Orangeday]

I got a new camera yesterday, the sony a7s. My projects are stuck at the moment because of some problems with the actors, so today I took the camera with me for a test at family bowling.
While testing the camera I also wanted to test the way of creating an atmosphere, so I filmed the son of my cousin while he was bowling and tried to cut something together.

Creating an atmosphere is one of my problems so it would be really nice if someone could critizise it or give me some tipps / links for improvement.

Here is the video:

https://youtu.be/6MVG8CaHdOM

sorry that its shaky! just wantet to test it and havent brought a tripod

 

[DPStewart]

Well you have some nasty banding in a few of the early shots - I assume that was the house lights causing that.

As for the shaky..now this is just me, but I can't stand it anymore. I feel it's audience abuse. But to be more objective for a moment, it prevents the viewers eyes from being able to focus on what you're showing us...at least it's harder than a stable shot.
If you are without tripod, put the camera on anything, a counter top, a chair, some books, a box, the floor!...anything really. If you look around yourself you'll be surprised by just how many things are in your environment and can help. You may end up with different framing than what you were after, but the shot will be stable, and in my opinion - SAVED.

As for your flow. Even in a little event snapshot like this, there are still ways to think about delivery, and THAT will definitely help you establish atmosphere. Think about your footage you shot and compile it into clips that you feel can represent a beginning, a middle, and an end. This will also help you narrow down when things like slow motion and other effects should be used to best boost the atmosphere you are starting to build.
Even in something without a "story" there is still a story in the images. Immerse yourself in seeing it and it will reveal itself to you.

And shoot, shoot, shoot!

 

[Orangeday]

Well you have some nasty banding in a few of the early shots - I assume that was the house lights causing that.

yes, this was very shocking for me. I thoght my display would be broken and I would have to send my camera for repair. but at home I saw that the bading is alo in the video. I researched and it turned out the fluorescent light caused that and there is so way to avoid it. Good that it was only a test and not a shoot for a real project, so I will not shoot in a room with fluorecent light again.

As for your flow. Even in a little event snapshot like this, there are still ways to think about delivery, and THAT will definitely help you establish atmosphere. Think about your footage you shot and compile it into clips that you feel can represent a beginning, a middle, and an end. This will also help you narrow down when things like slow motion and other effects should be used to best boost the atmosphere you are starting to build.
Even in something without a "story" there is still a story in the images. Immerse yourself in seeing it and it will reveal itself to you.

hm, I thought I did this.
impression of the room (show the audience where it is)
bowling track is getting ready (beginning of the action)
protagonist shows up, prepairs his hands and takes the ball (middle part)
rolls it, displays the result (climax)
and is happy about the result (end).

is there something you would change about this order?
I thought I used the typical storytelling order

 

[DPStewart]

I did see your time flow.
im not just talking about the timeline the events happened in. I mean that you can establish different atmospheres with different kinds of shots.
There were a lot of edits that took us to shots that could maybe have been differentiated more

For example; fast shots, slow shots, slow motion shots, long shots, closeup shots, with faces, without faces.
As an editor, you will find that when you group certain types of shots with each other and leave out certain other types - you can create stronger Identity, stronger feel, stronger atmosphere in a scene or section. This may often involve using shots in a different order from how they really happened, but if you have enough shots to work from you should be able to create something that still flows well and feels correct to the viewer. This is where the "art" in editing comes in.
this is what I meant by the story in the images. Sometimes it's the same as the story of the event but sometimes not. And sometimes you can use it to make the sense of story stronger.

In your piece here, you may find that you can increase the sense of story by grouping types of shots as much as you can.

Another example would be long versus close shots. Now it is common to start with a long shot to establish the scene and then move in close to show the detail...but there is an entirely different way to think about it: the emotion of a long shot is much less personal - it's distant, like how we are when we are too far away from someone to feel emotionally connected with them. Then when we move in close we do much more than just show details - we create intimacy, we bring the viewer in to the emotional space of the subject where we can feel the scene more from the subjects point of view...or point of feeling.
Now think of your edit in terms of "when do I want to make the viewer feel distant and separated from the subject, and when do I want to make them feel connected to the emotional experience and viewpoint of the subject?". You'll probably then see that jumping back and forth between these two different points of view upsets the human pace of the emotional experience if it is done too quickly.

Note: this kind of editing is not easy. It often takes a lot longer because you yourself have to assess the emotional "feel" of each shot in addition to just knowing the timeline. But it's worth the extra time and effort.