Chris Williamson
Director
Chris Williamson was one of the first high school students in the United States to edit video on a personal computer in 1996 at Highline High School just outside of Seattle, WA, when it took over a day to render a few minutes of low-resolution video on Windows 95. That year he also created his first home page, teaching himself HTML.
It was difficult to find productions to work on in the days of Web 1.0 but he kept his dream alive and in 2006 he began film school at Avila University. After a year there he took two years off and shot his first feature-length documentary film “Racing Heart.” He started school again and while attending the University of Missouri - Kansas City he shot his second feature-length documentary “Mics on Fire.” He freelanced on various film and video productions to put himself through school, working on local productions and shows for HBO, MTV, CMT, FOX, and others.
He graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2011. He applied to grad schools and landed a full-ride scholarship and fellowship at the University of Central Florida. At UCF he taught courses and completed production his first feature-length narrative film “Treasure” as his thesis film. He graduated with his Master of Fine Arts degree in 2015. Also that year, he became the festival manager of Global Peace Film Festival.
In 2016 he joined the board of the Global Peace Film Festival and began teaching for The Los Angeles Film School’s Online Filmmaking program. He also started a film production non-profit company called Orlando Filmmaker’s Coalition, Inc. and started a company for the production and sale of his films called Sunfire Films, LLC.
NFS Score
98
(Freshman)
Boards Comment
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May I get your opinions on this Cinema Camera Deal?
2 years ago
This sounds like a great deal. Adobe Premiere Pro made it much easier to shoot in 2.5k because they now have an integrated proxy workflow. I own this camera and Shane Hurlbut also says that this is THE camera to have if you are a budding cinematographer.
Boards Comment
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How to shoot a conversation with 6 characters.
2 years ago
Typically you will have a wide master shot, or two. Get some groupings. And then shoot your singles from somewhere in the middle of the table or group of characters and/or get some over-the-shoulder shots.
Because of the script, you'll know ahead of time who is speaking to whom and when, so you can plan out your pivot shots, or just shoot for coverage. It's up to you. Planning could cut down on setups.
To plan this: draw an overhead diagram of the scene with every line of action possible between all of the speaking characters. Then note who talks to who and when. Then 'activate' each line for the dialogue and make decisions on setups. Use groupings to keep the audience oriented spatially and cut to a wide if it get's too confusing.
In the end, the 180 "rule" is only there to prevent you from accidentally spatially disorienting the audience. Line crossing isn't wrong, you just want to be aware of the consequences of doing so. If your audience won't be disoriented or you WANT them to be (more or less) disoriented then please for heaven's sake feel free to break the 180 "rule". Sometimes, such as in the "Little Miss Sunshine" example someone else mentioned, it can make a simple conversation more visually/mentally interesting to frame characters with their 'space' cut off, or by jumping the line, especially if the conversation is tense, you can create tension with it.
I hope this helps! :-)
So to "break" pretty basic rules just use other pretty basic rules. Title is clickbait.