Day 5 – Videoblogging, cigarettes and more – Jubaraj Baruah
I found Hindol and Soumee where I had left them – They hadn’t gone back home or had they even got time to go to their rooms. So there they were – finishing off their blogs and trying to yet squeeze in time to read the fellow batchmates’ blogs. The blogs had started coming in by the time the clock had struck 9 : 45 AM. The class had settled in and decided on their respective tasks in hand – the familiarity with extracting the best out of the camera was being dealth with – Topics were floated up for discussion : Dynamic range, color depth, color temperature, white balance. Things had been rolling out pretty fine but then backlogs need to be cleared and fine cannot be considered as an alibi. Mainak had not properly understood the scheme of things that Sir wanted him to. The blog was not suffice – the writing had been an interesting read but then it had all the elements Sir had wanted him to get rid of as soon as possible to be a part of the team building happening every day. Mainak was sent off along with Sreecheta to find the answers for themselves. Mainak was instructed to collect 28 bricks to create a statue that was of a greater height than him – 28 was chosen as the number to match with his age. Mainak took it literally and acceeded to what was being asked. Sreecheta didn’t understand a thing. Sir’s obvious metaphor of her question she was stuck with from Day 1 was still misunderstood by her and she had no clue as to what answer she was still seeking. Mainak and Sreecheta at the same time were also instructed to avoid contact with the other batchmates and to avoid a direct eye contact. A literal translation would have led to misunderstanding and more misunderstanding of what they were being prepped up for – Sreecheta wouldn’t eventually get it and would opt out of the workshop in the later part of the day. After this small tiff was settled, we went back to the experiment mode. The objective was now not to just see an image but to capture it also. Hence we removed the lens of the camera and taped to it a pin hole made out of a black chart paper. The first image we captured was of the lens in position at a shutter speed of 30 seconds. Before this experiment is done proper care needs to be taken to keep off the dust from entering the lens or the camera. Hence this exercise is done in a dust free zone. I had been shooting some good amout of footage till then to be put in my videoblog. Shooting had begun – a self portrait using the self timer mode was what was expected – when you hand over the camera to film students and ask them to shoot you would rather know the outcome – All got busy shooting and capturing their images on their improvised cameras. Reactions on their first image was a testimony to the pursuit of happiness. By this time Mainak had been building the aesthetically apt structure – and Sreecheta as told had been following him. It was apparent she was getting frustrated and it was clear Mainak had taken his words very literally. To do and to do something useful are different concepts. Bowing down with humility is a trait only few possess – I too don’t have much of this quality but I do not see any harm in trying to be humble. It feels actually really self satisfactory to be humble. I had by this time arranged for the edit room so that I could work late in the night. We broke for lunch and a little longer lunch helped in reviving our tired bones from yesterday. The next exercise immediately took off after lunch. The idea of this exercise was reiterating a previous feedback signal on how to get sharp and bright images. The answer lied in the use of a convex lens to focus. Sir illustrated to us how to determine the focal length of a lens. Repeating is a monkey business and that’s what we have to do until we master it. Sir showed us how to make the Tanmookka and we made it. We were already very tired and exhausted but Tanmookaka was finally completed. We were a bit late in going along with making a Tanmookka – once it was figured out we tried to make things quick. A tanmookka basically consists of a lens, a gateway to see the image, a tube with the possibility of the lens being navigable between the ends – this distance atleast needs to be more than the minimum focal distance to focus a source at infinity. Having made the tanmookka we went inside our rooms being it evening. The source of light was the bulb again.
Experiment #1:
If the source is at infinity the focal length is lesser than if the source is nearer –
The tube light considered to be the far away source
Metadata: Shutter speed- 1/20 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 800, image- focus at infinity.
Experiment #2:
If a stop is created in the same Tanmooka, how would it vary the foreground and background.
This experiment was misunderstoody by us and with different tube sizes we used different magnification to check for the foreground backgrould relationship. We will be repeating this experiment on Day 6.
Shutter speed- 1/6 F stop- 5.6, ISO- 800, magnification: 65 mm
Experiment #3:
What happens if you move the tanmooka closer to the subject and try to keep the subject in focus – The foreground changes rapidly and the background gradually – this is basically what happens in a dolly zoom.
With the experiments covered, I got back to editing the footage that I had got. Everybody was dead tired. They couldn’t register any more. The day was over inside the classroom but the process never stops.
Btw I forgot to actually show you the tanmookka – here it is: looks like a bazooka and was brought to us by Tanmay Sir. Hence the mystery behind the curious case of the name Tanmookka.
Hindol Deb at his best pose of retrospection and culmination.
Here is my video blog which kind of recapitulates the day, the fun and the swan song.
These following people write awesome blogs. You can check them out here:
1. http://ashokveilou.blogspot.in/ – Ashok’s tampering of the camera
2. http://blogsoumee.blogspot.in/2015/02/baby-step.html – the mother blog of all, who else – Soumee!
4. http://didlidoo.blogspot.in/ – Hindol’s pain and cinema
5.http://35mlfilms.wordpress.com/2015/02/02/mainaks-blog-the-army-of-directors/ – Mainak’s stark sense of humor
6.http://nazmus-sakib.tumblr.com/post/109841141160/yesterday-on-1-february-2015-on-the-4th-day-of – Himel’s intellectual musings
7. http://sumanabarman.blogspot.com/2015/02/digging-deep.html – Sumana’s dilemmma doubts and great answers.
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