From Boring to Cinematic: The Power of Focal Length

foreign [Music] hello who is this [Music] I can hear you who is this [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello there welcome back to yet another video today we're gonna talk about how we can approach shooting anything to make it look cinematic hey are you sure if you use the word cinematic like can't I just say how to make something look good and interesting like isn't that the same yeah but everyone says cinematic and the algorithm loves it also why would you use two words when you can go straight to the point anyway I believe that anything can look cinematic and interesting like literally anything any location however boring it might be can be shown in an interesting way on screen I've been thinking about it for a very long time because it was like there's got to be a way to capture something that is not inherently interesting in a way that makes that boring and ordinary thing whatever that might be look more exciting than it actually is in real life and the answer here is CGI the concept is if you don't have something interesting to shoot then don't shoot at all if you don't have something interesting to shoot then you need to find an angle a point of view of what you want to show that shows that thing in a way that you wouldn't normally experience in real life and I mean I'm kind of defining the concept of Cinema and art in general here and obviously this goal of representing reality in a more interesting way can be achieved with very different tools and composition and lighting are the most fundamental tools a cinematographer can use and at the end of the day it's easier said than done but today we're going to focus on another basic tool that a filmmaker has at his disposal which is choosing the focal length to shoot with on the focal length Spectrum we have white lenses from 10 to 35 millimeters then we have what are called normal lenses that range from 35 to 55 millimeters they kind of represent reality as it is and then from 55 onwards we have zoom lenses if you take a look at what normal lenses do they capture reality similarly to how our eyes would and I really really love them but if I'm not shooting in a location that gives me something on a visual level then I find it hard to pull off an interesting image and that's because if you're shooting with a normal focal length I believe that what you're shooting has to be interesting and there's little room for cheating this is why set design and location scouting are super important aspects of movie and video making but the beginning of the video I said that anything can look and this is where a non-normal focal length can help you immensely a non-normal focal length shows reality in an altered and stylized way and that alone since we don't experience reality that way in normal life will make the image more exciting to watch today in particular we're going to take a look at some examples of shots taken on longer lenses ranging from 70 all the way up to 210 millimeters and how we can use these long lenses to spice up your video production this is just my personal opinion about long lenses longer lenses can offer an intriguing perspective and alternative way to pick reality it's important to remember that they're not a one-size-fits-all solution behind the shot just as a longer lines and they also require larger spaces to be further away from the subject and now let's continue the video longer lenses force you to be further away from the subject and because of that they compress space making the room that you're in and the surroundings less defined so you can get away with things in the background that wouldn't really look all that good on a normal lens but if they start to get blurred out and space compressed the image will gain character so let's take a look at a series of shots and compare what we get with a normal lens and what we can get with a longer one starting from this Rush Hour shot of the freeway foreign let's take this road the subject is walking down the road and it doesn't look good because this particular road kind of sucks but if we switch to a longer focal length we can get something like this which right away makes the whole thing 10 times more exciting another thing that you can do to accentuate the movement of a character on a long lens is placing the camera on the side and pan following the character and because of the compression of the lens the movement will be more energetic compared to the same pan done on 50 millimeters let's say neither of those is right or wrong but in this case the zoom lens allowed me to cheat a little bit by making a very boring Road next to my very boring apartment in my very boring town I think I'm digressing a little bit anyway it looks more exciting to me also if you're looking for a zoom lens on a budget I can't recommend the Canon fd70 to 200 F4 enough because uh I mean it's great I paid 50 euros for it and I mean it's great in general but then you realize you paid 50 euros for it and then it makes it even better and um it's a great lens if you're just starting out with uh zoom lenses or you just want to experiment a little bit before committing financially to a modern one I think this is a great great starting point also the mechanism that allows you to zoom in and out is the same mechanism that allows you to focus oh I love it very nice streak you can use is placing lights on different levels of the focal plane in my case here I used two sets of party lights in the background on two different levels and the light bulb in the foreground and by having them out of focus that's going to create various different bokehs that will add interest to your frame and that you wouldn't be able to get on a 50 millimeters thank you [Music] foreign so do I always use long lenses absolutely not I love normal and white lenses but sometimes sometimes the solution to your problems might be a few millimeters away can you go back to 135 thank you yeah 135 . 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Channel: Jimmy on Film

Views: 221,269

Keywords: Cinematography, filmmaking, focal length, zoom lens, Cinematic, film look

Id: XauCohV3r-Q

Length: 7min 11sec (431 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 18 2023