Mistakes Beginner Filmmakers (and Photographers) Make #7...Video Composition

So some of you might be wondering if there really is a difference between composing a photo and composting for video. In short, yes there is. There’s slightly different rules when it comes to composing your frame while filming. Since the camera and your subject or subjects would be moving you’re not always going to have them perfectly in frame, and some cinematographers choose to be creative with how they want to portrait their characters.

Composing a scene, angle by angle, is a way of telling your story. Yes, composing a photograph the right way tells a story too, but with video it’s a consistent theme you have to keep through out your whole video.

For example, you could have one camera composition for one character and a completely different one for another, and as long as you’re keeping those compositions throughout the whole film.

Tips to remember while filming your next video:

Give Your Characters Head and Lead Room

First off, you'll want to know what ratio you're going to be producing your film in. 16:9, 4:3, etc... which means how much of your screen is going to be taken up be the video. In my music video for In the Darkness I filmed for my degree project 2018-2019, I used letter boxing to make my look cinematic using the 16:9 ratio. You might be thinking "I don't know what this would look like... I don't think I understand" Check out this diagram I found. It will help show you what it looks like on a tv, the different sizes of tv and what each aspect ratios looks like on those TVs.

This will help you with figuring out how much head and lead room to give your actors and actresses.

Now let me explain what each one is:

• Head room

It is the amount of space in the frame from the top of a persons head to the edge of the frame.

• Lead Room

The space in front of your character in the direction they are looking/facing.

When you're characters are stationary or in the case of the In the Darkness video, stationary in the term of not actually walking anywhere but moving in the same spot.

This gives your audience the sense of ease while watching. When you cut off the tip of the head or have your subject facing the edge of the frame when there’s open space the other direct, it gives an uneasy tension because it doesn’t look right.

You might say, "well, we see that in movies all the time..." and to answer that is: yes. This technique can be used to create tension in scenes that require it. It should only be used to add something to your story or character development and not just because. You might accidentally display tension to a scene that gives the wrong impression to your audience.

BBC's TV Series, Sherlock, uses close up shots and lots of lead room during conversation between Sherlock and Moriarty.

These are defined as extreme close up shots. They allow the audience to feel the emotion the character's facial expressions are showing to create a suspense feeling while the character is thinking, processing, and or communicating in deep discussion with others.

Angles

When shooting video, the angle of the camera says more than you might think. Highs and low can determine dominance over submission. Highs and lows can show height difference. Highs and lows can show emotion between characters.

Hugh angles can give the audience an emotional incite to the character or give them a wide or tight shot of the scene depending on the focal point. The video above talks about how to use a high angle shot the right way. Sure, using it for fun is okay but once you master how to use it right breaking those rules will make a lot more sense and even breaking the rules might even allow you to follow them without you even realizing. High angle shots can give you more close text to your atory because you can see more of the important details.

Now let’s take a look at the opposite: Low Angle

Low angles are used to convey power and also vulnerability. In the video above, Studiobinder does a great job of explaining and giving examples of how this can be achieved. Personally, I love shooting with low angles (slightly below the eye line) to give my characters the sense of power, but only when it’s necessary. There are moments when you don’t want to do low angle shots for the whole thing.

In this video I created for a college project, the use of highs and lows were used to give the characters power, emotion, and vulnerability.

Originally this video was created for an audio project so the “in frame” composition wasn’t the focus, so excuse the random stuff. As I’ve looked back on this I’ve noticed techniques, such as the highs and lows, and how they played to the emotion and power of the characters.

Speaking of in frame composition, that leads me to the final topic:

Look at what’s in your frame

When filming, everything that’s in frame should either help tell the story or tell more about your character. Don’t just set up your camera angle and shoot whatever.

Plan.

Take the last video above for instance. If this had been for a video project, this would have gotten an immediate F. There's too much irrelevant stuff in the frame. Nothing that draws you into the story, but rather pulls you away from it. First, you would need to do some location scouting. Of course shooting in an actual restaurant would be ideal, but the makeshift one I created with the sound effects would have worked. The second scene however should have been filmed in an office, at night preferably, where the props in frame would lead you to believe that you're in an office; his office. If I were to do an establishing shot of just the room with the items that were in it you would think you were in some grandmother's basement... and in fact... yes, we were in some grandmother's basement. Well, not just any one's, someone we knew.

This topic also circles back around to my previous post about composition for photography. Most of those same rules apply. In case you haven't read it or need a refresher, here's the link.

Mistakes Beginner Filmmakers (and Photographers) Make #6... Composition

To also help explain some things about video composition, here's a video from Motion Array that gives example of good and bad composition.

Thank you all so much for the reads.

I hope the tips and tricks about photography and filmmaking drive some new aspiring artists out there.

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