Alfonso Cuarón

Alfonso Cuarón was born on 28th November 1961 in Mexico. He studied cinema and philosophy at the national autonomous university of mexico and his solo debut was with Con Tu Pareja. His first feature film was released in 1995 and was an adaptation of a novel called " A Little Princess". Other notable works of his were "Y tu mama tambien", his modern adaptation of Great expectations, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (which was one of his first experiences with using large amounts of visual effects in film) and Children of men. In total he has achieved three BAFTA awards, one independent spirit award and two Venice Film Festival awards. 
He often works with Emanuel Lubezki, and in filming frequently uses long shots and wide camera angles. Often preferring to use hand held cameras he achieves relentless camera movement throughout his films. 
Cuarón has also created a company called Cha Cha Cha films with Alejandro González and Guillermo del Toro who are also directors. Most recently Alfonso worked as the executive producer on his son,Jonas Cuaróns, film in which dialogue is played over photographs, the film is titled Año uña (which translated means the year of the nail). 

Evaluation of preliminary task

Our preliminary task was to film someone opening a door, walking across a room and sitting opposite someone and then having a few lines of conversation. We also had to include a 180 degree shot, a shot/reverse shot and match on action.

I enjoyed the task as I got to learn how to use things like iMovie, Final cut express with the razor tool and edit in the timeline, as well as exporting to final cut and then to my blog. Overall I am pleased with the outcome as it was my first time shooting and editing, but on looking back at my final product I feel there are definitely some things that I would improve upon next time round. For example one of the things I would make sure I do is that, when filming that the top of the frame is near the top of the person's head to reduce the amount of space above the persons head and also the amount the scenes jump. As well as this I learnt it would be better to move the camera to follow the person moving rather than keeping the camera in one place. I would also adjust the lighting as I feel that it meant the shots weren't so clear in a few scenes and I would make sure that the person’s eye line matches up to the camera.

BBC Tour

Preliminary Task!

Here is my Preliminary task, in which we had to film someone opening a door, walking across a room sitting down opposite someone and exchange a couple of lines of conversation. We had to include the 180 degree rule, shot/reverse shot and match on action.