Discussing Cinematography #2: Concordia pt.2 - Focal lengths and positioning.

 I used to detest wide focal lengths, upon seeing The Tree of life and Knight of cups (Emmanuel Lubezki @chivexp). I discovered my new found love for wide angle photography. A whole new world was revealed to me and my creative bank account had more than just pennies inside it. Traditionally I am a photographer, and my forte; documenting people. So I've always stuck to 28-35-50mm focal lengths, never going below nor above. 28mm was the boundary that I considered "wide", the wide focal length lent a lot to my images, allowing me to wash the audience with the scene while still allowing their eyes to breathe.

The "wide" angle focal gave off an uncanny but familiar feeling, but later on I'd come to understand that this feeling was in the vein of reality. Think about this whenever you're outside or talking to someone, ask yourself what focal length would you use to get the same field of view as your eyes at that moment. Most likely a wide angle. Hence why I shot most of Concordia utilising wide angles. I wanted the audience to feel like they were standing next to Emily smoking. I wanted to the audience to feel like the skyscrapers were towering over them, making them feel small and insignificant, just like Emily. I also wanted to discredit some of the "reality" I was trying to instil; by keeping the camera tilted, looking up at Emily.

This way the audience would feel some form of authority from Emily but see the buildings behind her and quickly discredit the former. Achieving shot 2 was a bit of tough one. I had Vitalija upon a ledge about 2 knees higher than me, I then laid on the floor and used my stomach to support the back end of the camera whilst resting the front just off my knees. This way I could tilt my knees to track. While limited it was smooth enough and covered a good sizeable area. For the shot I could not use cine lenses, as I didn't have any wider focal length that 24mm. So I opted to use canon's kit lens 18-55mm at 18mm.