TAHIDI HIGH CRITIQUE

This is the continuation of the last two episodes
07-1240

TAHIDI HIGH CRITIQUE
2ND NOVEMBER.
 Today I will just deal with camera shots, movements and lighting.
 The show starts with a lady cat walking- she is panned.
 There are girls who are modeling and are shown from head to toe through tilting of the camera up and down.
 There is also a medium shot on the modeling ladies.
 There is a close up shot on the gents watching the ladies modeling.
 We have a medium shot on OJ and Shish.
 Two ladies conversing on the background, the lighting is blurred.

9TH NOVEMBER.
Today I’ll concentrate on the camera shots, movements and lighting.
 There is a close up shot on Mr. Tembo as he is making a call to Omosh.
 There is a wide angle shot as Mr. Tembo is talking to Omosh about being the watchman and a gate keeper.
 Two boys are reporting about the mad man to OJ- a close up and medium shot.
 Mrs. Ngatia happens to see the mad man who says he is a parent to a form three student . There is a close up shot here to show how the mad man looks concerned and scary.
 There is a close up shot on some ladies dancing
 There is a tilt up and down of Omosh to a close up to show a scary face.
 There is a close up shot on Omosh, mad man and Mr. Tembo.

TAHIDI HIGH SUMMARY CRITIQUE
VERA MARION SEWE(07-1240)
marionvera07@gmail.com
Doing this critique has made me see the difference between sitting down and watching your favourite program and sitting down and critiquing the same. With the latter it has really opened my eyes and every program that I get to see, I watch it with a critiques eye.

Tahidi high is a local program that airs in Citizen TV every Tuesday from 7:30pm -8:00pm. It is approximately a 20 minute show given the advertisements that are always on, because hardly have you started watching than it is over. Be that as it may, the show is produced and directed by Catherine Wamuyu and helping her in script writing is Naomi Kamau.

The program is a high school drama full of intrigues, love, as well as any infighting as any typical Kenyan secondary school will have especially if it’s a mixed secondary school. It also depicts the conflicts between teachers, students as well as parents.

The episodes in this program always end abruptly and leaves one with the feeling of “something should come after that.” The continuity of the program, I must say is unrelated. Even though the episodes are always different every day. There at least should be a link to help someone piece two pieces together, but it always is not so.
The episodes also do not have subtitles to at least help the viewers know what is happening. The program sometimes plays on without you having a clue as to what is happening. For instance on the 7th of September, the story line was about a student hiring a parent. Apparently the “parent” happens to be drunk. Mr. Tembo gets a wind of it but nothing is done about it. It leaves one with questions. The fact that the high school students are the targeted audience and they take everything at face value it will not be a surprise that such stunts have been done in their schools.

I started the critique way before we tackled the topics of camera movements, shots and angles as well as lighting. But through asking around, I got the basic camera shots like a close up shot, extreme close up, establishment shot as well as a long shot. Having delved into the topic, I realized there is much more to these. When it came to camera movements, I only knew of zooming in and out but thanks to the class session I have come to realize there are more to these movements than just zooming in and out.

Tahidi high like any other production uses different camera shots and movements. The most camera movements were dollying in and out. This is the movement of the camera towards or away from the subject. Here the camera is mounted on a dolly stand that permits smooth forward and backward movement. As one is watching you can actually tell that the camera is moving either towards or away from the subject. Through dollying, the camera takes the audience to the subject.
There is also the famous zooming in and out. The zoom gives the feeling of moving the subject closer or further from the viewer. It is used to accomplish the same purpose as the dolling. The zoom narrows the angle of view and compresses depth making people or subjects appear closer. In other words, it takes the subject to the audience. There was also tilting up and down. Also known as panning up and down. Tilting means pointing the camera up or down, thus changing the view from the same position to a higher or lower part of an object.
There was also right or left pan. Here is where the camera moves on its own axis. This is the movement used to direct the audience’s attention to a particular subject.

Then there were the camera shots. These are the short lengths and angles. The camera shots refer to how far or close the subjects should appear in terms of the viewers’ perspective as well as the angular relationship between the viewer and the subject. The camera shots are achieved by manipulating the lenses of the camera and/or the actual movement of the camera.
In Tahidi high, they had different angle shots and the most common ones were:
The full shot or the cover shot, commonly referred to as the establishment shot. This shot occurs covers the entire scene or subject. The shot was always seen at the beginning of the program in order to acquaint the viewer with the total environment.

There was also the long shot or wide shot. This shot may or may not reveal the entire scene. I realized that when there was a long shot, the camera then went to a medium shot and then to a close shot, thereby creating a dramatic move from an overall or general view to the essence of the scene.
In Tahidi high I came to realize that the entire close up shots started as long shots or wide shots. Then there was the close up shots which usually consisted of the face butt may also include some upper body.
The lighting in the program I could say was good given that the program is acted during the day. They do outdoor shooting and when in doors, I guess they do not need to light up the room. Except for some few tomes when the lighting was too much, all in all the lighting was good.

All in all, Tahidi high has been well produced, taking into consideration their camera movement as well as lighting. I must say that our local production are doing something professionally that can really sit and enjoy. Tahidi high is one such professionally produced program, but there is always room for doing the best than just being content with being the best. Given the fact that they have won several awards, their stars will always shine only if they continue with the good production that they have given to the Kenyan viewers.