Photo: Donny Duncan NZCS

Our NZCS Professional Development Manager, Donny Duncan NZCS, recently ran a Camera Skills for Drama Workshop in Tauranga, at the invitation of Film Bay of Plenty.

The venue was the the Incubator Creative Hub at the Village Cinema community venue which was the perfect size for two  day-long workshops of around 20 people each. The course was pitched at cam assistants wanting to take the next step, camera ops wanting to extend their creative pallete, and writers, producers and directors wanting to know more about their relationship with the cinematographer and to gain some technical insights.

Subjects covered in the full-day session included: breaking down a script, tools to set a creative style, pre-prod and location recces, working with a 1st AD, and the building blocks of professionalism – reliability, integrity and passion.

The practical part of the course included setting up an Arri Amira kit , analysing the effect of various focal length lenses, and a demo of a variety of lighting units, including new technologies like full colour spectrum programable LED units.

Further discussion was held on why we move the camera, and how we move the camera, operator tricks of the trade, lighting approaches, useful apps, VSFX basics and the art of “cheating”.

The session finished with a look at new technologies like Virtual Studio Production.

Thanks to Jade and Tracey at Film BoP, Unitec Screen Arts for providing the camera kit and Professional Lighting Services for sponsoring a lighting demo package.

The NZCS is keen to extend professional development courses into the regions and this trip to Tauranga and our recent Masterclass in Christchurch have both been received with great feedback from participants, so with help from sponsors we will program more of these into the agenda this year.   

~ The NZCS Professional Development team