Rules of Framing and Composition

[Music] hi guys this is Jordan with emotion array and I know that a lot of the times the things that we talk about here are related to editing but as an editor one of your biggest limitations is the footage that you have to work with when you're given amazing footage it makes your job of piecing it all together a lot easier but it can be really frustrating to be asked to make an amazing masterpiece when the footage you're given to work with is so today we're going to go over an aspect of filmmaking that can really help to boost your overall project in specific it'll help your video to taste a little bit more delicious as it goes into the eyes of your audience composition when we're talking about composition we're talking about what your camera sees and by extension what your audience sees so often it can be really easy when we want to get a shot to just throw up the camera hit record and then go for it without any second thought but if you take just a moment and think your next shots with these tips in mind I guarantee it'll make a huge impact on your next video so let's get started number one the rule of thirds this rule comes down to the basic principle that things look really good when you put points of interest on the thirds of your frame what do I mean by that basically any of these points with emphasis on the places where the lines intersect let's take a look at the shot of the ocean right now it's just centered on the horizon it's a nice shot but let's try moving the horizon to the lower third it feels better doesn't it let's start with a person now we have our main character in the dead center but let's try moving them over putting their eye on the intersecting third now the image just looks a lot better when it comes down to it you should be able to feel the difference of this rule it feels better it feels like a stronger image now there's a lot of different reasons why people claim this work but I'm just going to give you a brief overview summarizing a lot of other people's thoughts when you have a shot of anything you've got a crazy amount of things that people could focus on there's more than two million individual pixels in this shot alone that you could technically look at and if you don't know where to start you need a lot of time to take in the image but now we place the person on the third of the shot now we're saying okay this person is where I'm going to start looking when I mentally take in this shot it's like a road map for you're in start here move this way and take in the rest of the image from there but I can go deeper than that to now everything that we see in this shot is in the context of what this character is thinking and feeling so then how does it work for all those times you see an item or a person placed directly in the center of frame kind of like I am now for that we have to go to rule number 2 symmetry typically there's two different situations in which this happens one is when you're highlighting the beauty in a shot for some reason as humans we really respond to symmetry it looks and it feels good and to be honest that's the main reason why a lot of people will choose to use it because symmetry just feels good to look at but you've got to keep that in mind with this second piece whenever you put someone or something in the center of frame you're telling your audience I really really really really really want you to focus on this this is why you'll see these kind of shots used a lot when a character is experiencing a powerful moment but if that thing isn't really worth focusing on or if that person isn't saying doing or feeling something important it feels like you're getting a conflicting message number three leading lines plain and simple visible lines in your shot will subconsciously tell your audience where they should be looking at when your eyes look around the screen and they see those lines those lines are basically saying hey how's it going there's nothing really going on over here but let me show you where the great stuff is happening so let's go it acts as a gentle way to help guide your audience to focus on a specific point that you want them to and like symmetry it adds an element to your shot it's just really nice to look at number four leading room and Headroom typically you'll use this rule in combination with the rule of thirds basically Headroom just refers to the fact that you don't want the top of your character's head to leave the frame it helps to prevent your image from feeling squished or claustrophobic the time when you'd forget about this is when you're doing a close-up or an extreme close-up we are trying to get closer to your subjects eyes and it becomes impossible to keep everything in frames now the second piece of this is the direction that your character is looking take the direction that your character is facing or if that's not obvious the direction that their body is turned more warts now place your character on the opposite side of frame so that the direction they're looking to has more space the reason you do that is to give a sense of context for the space that they're in if your subject is moving and you short side they're framing it can become really hard to tell if they're going to run into anything it becomes really unnerving to watch them move because we can't really get a read for what's happening in the space around them the same thing applies for if they're speaking if you bought them right up to the edge of frame you can't tell whether or not the person they're talking to is 2 inches or 20 feet away from their face use this rule to prevent your shots from getting really uncomfortable number 5 step every shot has a foreground a mid ground and a background and what you choose to show or to not show tells a lot about what's in your shot there are times when you're going to want absolutely no distraction from your subject and you take the mid-ground and background away so that you have no discernable element other than your character but most of the time that's not going to be the case most of the time you're going to want to establish your character in the world that you've placed them in how do they relate to the world around them including the things that are out of focus a lot of this will be impacted by two things where you shoot and what land you shoot with if you choose a shot with a wide-angle lens you'll notice two things one you'll see that there's a larger amount of space that's in focus even when shooting wide-open making it more difficult to separate your subjects by blurring out the background and two you'll see that the distance between your subject and the background is exaggerated in terms of how far away it looks the reverse is also true using a lens is a longer focal length will make it easier to get a shallow depth of field even if you're using the exact same f-stop it helps when separating your character from their background while at the same time making objects in the background appear closer than with a wide angle your choices will help your audience to determine what they focus on what they find important and how your character relates to the world around them number six size equals power this one seems really simple but it actually has huge implications for your project if an object takes up a large amount of the frame then your audience will see it as big and important if it only takes up a small amount then it's small and insignificant in our minds this can be used in a couple of different forms one is it can help us to choose what to focus on there's things with a background of the shot but nothing is as big as our main character whose dominates the frame so they take our attention when choosing your shots it's important to think about how your framing will impact how your audience you use your subject choosing a wide shot of someone standing in an open space can give the sense that they're insignificant or maybe they're lost while switching up that same shot to a medium or close-ups can subtly tell us that they have more control over their situation camera angles also play a big role in by setting up your camera low and angling up towards your subject it can convey that they're looming over you and that they have a sense of dominance as we literally have to look up to them but the reverse is also true by setting up the camera high and angling down we literally end up looking down at our subject and therefore viewing them as weaker so keep this in mind next time you're shooting your subject and finally number seven don't follow these rules wait what I actually mean is don't follow these rules religiously everything that we've gone over so far is valid information that you should use whenever you can but those rules aren't the end goal in and of themselves they're just avenues to get to your bigger goal which is conveying your message and telling your story the longer you film the more you'll find ways that either following or breaking these rules will help you achieve different results following proper leading room can feel nice but sometimes it's not your objective sometimes you really want your audience to feel uncomfortable sometimes you want to put an object in the center of frame that's not important and because of this clash it comes across as funny or shows how ridiculous the situation is the point is at the end of the day people won't walk away from your videos thinking about how great that 27th shot was the walk away with thoughts and feelings and you get to help decide what those are but this is just a starting point take this information use it or don't use it and see where it leads you I hope you found this video helpful thank you so much for watching and I hope to see you next time [Music]

Channel: Motion Array Tutorials

Views: 1,530,478

Keywords: filmmaking, cinematography, camera tips, camera tricks, composition, framing, rules of cinematography, how to get nice shots, how to film nice shots, how to film, get nice shots from your camera, how to imporove cinematography, how to imporove my videography, filmmaking tutorial, filmmaking tips, filmmaking how to, filmmaking technique, Motion Array, Motion Array Tutorials, filmmaking techniques, filmmaking 101

Id: fM64ycm7tz4

Length: 8min 17sec (497 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2017