Visual Storytelling 101

every now and again we partner with our friends over at MZ who are awesome enough to help us bring some great educational deliciousness for free for your faces and if you don't know MZ is a provider of online education with fantastic instructors and filmmakers like Philip Bloom if you don't know who Philip bloom is what are you doing he has been around for a long time doing some really incredible work and today we have a chunk of his class to show you where he's talking about visual storytelling ready set learn in this episode we're going to concentrate on what we film we will learn how we arrange the subject matter in which case right now me within the frame all the various shots we use in a language we have developed to describe them how lenses can affect the image and how light and contrast play a role so what makes a great shot what makes your work stand out over others the subject matter is incredibly important but to make a pleasing image we have to look at how we constructs with that image in the frame we've been creating artwork and telling stories visually since the dawn of man over that time artists have perfected my techniques and we still employ these techniques today framing or composition is as relevant in film as it is in paintings illustration or graphic design over the years we have learned there are many ways we can arrange objects in the frame using shapes and alignment that is pleasing to us we can also use composition and framing to guide the eye to what we want it to see or not see help telling your story there are many rules in filming and when it comes to composition the golden rule the main rule is the rule of thirds and it's important to understand this so you know when and how you can break it so with the rule of thirds if you divide the frame into three segments horizontally and vertically by placing objects of interest in the intersecting points we create an image that is pleasing to the eye there are many books on the rule of thirds and how it applies to nature in much more detail but just following this one simple wall can dramatically improve your shots in a wide shot we can create balance in the frame with how our subject matter relates to their surroundings and when we're in a medium we can place that person on the lines to make a pleasing frame when we're in the close-up by placing the eyes on the intersecting points helps draw our attention to them the eyes as they say are the windows to the soul and they automatically draw our attention to them by placing them on the rule of thirds we are helping to drive the viewers attention that way we can even sacrifice many other things by keeping the eyes on these intersecting points we can chop off the top of somebody's head in the frame as long as the eyes are in focus in fact we can get away with quite a lot as long as the eyes are in focus on the intersecting points another interesting form of composition is using the central frame by placing the subject matter solely in the center of the frame we draw attention to it central framing is also really good to use in fast pace editing and shot so the eye doesn't have to travel around much to see what's important in that frame central framing also allows us to play with one of my personal favorite types of shots a one-point perspective central framing playing with leading lines and symmetry as used by Stanley Kubrick and Wes Anderson draws us into the frame and creates a faux 3-dimensional fill I've been using these more and more in my work so what do I mean by leading lines well leading lines are another concept of composition it literally means using the lines in the frame to direct the viewers eyes to where you want them to look in this shot note how the lines draw your across the screen to the main point of interest using depth of field with some of these previous rules we can add to that three-dimensional space we can also denote importance or power of certain subject matter in the frame we can also use a shallow depth of field to denote the importance of the subject matter or character and their inner story filling the frame also denotes an extreme closeup like this lets you know how important the person is while shrinking the subject matter in a wide making them appear small can also show how they're feeling all they're worth to seem contrasts and lights can also play a part we are naturally pulled towards looking get brighter objects in the frame a darkened frame with an eye light or spotted area will pour you right in we can also create a frame within the frame a doorway or window can frame the subject matter another compositional subject I'd like to talk about is lead space if a character in the shot is looking to the left then they should be placed on the right this means they're looking into the enter space making a more natural shot again by understanding these rules means we can break them for effect so we know the different rules of how to organize a subject matter in the frame now we're going to look at different types of shots we regular use and how they can help us with our storytelling eventually composition will start becoming truly second nature to you whenever I'm out and about and looking at things I actually see things as frames it's become quite bad at times I go to a restaurant I sit down and I choose a table based upon hmm that's a nice background and frame for taking photos of the person I'm with watch TVs watch movies look at stuff online read experiment find the style that you like so this is the full-frame sensor and I have a 10 millimeter on this is truly an extreme wide-angle and this is a wide-angle an 18 millimeter on a full-frame it's not as crazy as the last one and this is much more practical this is used to really establish a shot it gives a sense of space and the location that you're in and this is what's got a full shot it's called that because we can see full body top to toe with a little bit of space top and bottom this is a medium long as you can see it is the knees and the head in frame we don't go wider than this where we cut off the feet because that is really unnatural this is the widest of our visual medium shots this is the cowboy shots this is a frame so we can see just by the crotch we can see our guns not that no not those there guns for cowboys hence the name it's not really something that I do much of I haven't filmed many Westerns especially down here in Richmond Rock but this is the cowboy and this is our medium shot this is a 50 millimeter on a full-frame sensor this sees what we see with our eyes our field of view 50 millimeters very standard and beautiful shot and this is our medium close-up otherwise known as an MCU and this is our nice shot we use very frequently for interviews and for dialogue scenes of our main characters and this is our close-up this is the tightest shots we do before we start cutting off the top of the head this close-up is called the choker because it is just above Sara's choker cutting top of the head off and just below the chin and this is our extreme closeup this is as close as we get to whilst keeping the mouth and the eyes in frame this is used for getting that heightened connection with your character it also is the one that's going to show them most floors not that you have any flaws and this is our macro this is about as extreme close-up as you're going to do it's so close you can see me reflecting in Sara's eye and a depth of field is incredibly narrow [Music] in Episode one I talked about that standard field of view what we essentially see with our eyes which is 50 millimeters on a full frame 35 millimeters on a crop super 35 mil sensor and whilst we can shoots so much with just a single lens we want to get a close-up we look closer to the subject and if you want to go wider we've walked back using different lenses has a really profound impact on both the subject and the background in this shot of Julien both he and the lock are very prominent in the frame you look at it all you take it all in 18 millimeters a nice wide angle and as we go onto a longer lens we are narrowing our field of view so we're seeing less of the lock Julie is still the same in the frame background that is knocked out he is becoming more important and it's the same as we go tighter 15 millimeters a narrower field of view the background is continuing to get knocked out of focus we're seeing a lot less of that and as we go onto a longer lens we're sewing to see what's behind the lock we are pulling that background closer to Julian we're starting to see the bridge and that had gone to a longer lens we can now see the traffic on the bridge Julian is still the same size in the frame he is still important but the whole frame has completely changed from the beginning one which had the lock and him and at 300 millimeters you can really pull that background close to Julian it's a completely different shot it tricks you into thinking they are much closer together here's a great example of that down on Brighton Beach this is a 400 millimeters and it looks like these kids are in imminent danger of being hit by this way but in reality they're actually completely fine and not that close to it it really is a dramatic effect using a long lens to pull the background closer to a subject something you can only do by using a longer focal length you cannot do this with a standard field of view lens this is why lenses and lens choices are so [Music] your choice of lens will also affect how a person's face will appear so we're filming Julian on various lenses from a long telephoto to a super super wide and you'll see the changes in his face as we go wider and wider on our field of view on the telephoto lenses they do look very similar he doesn't change that much but his face is slightly broader and somewhat flatter as I just explained in the previous section you are seeing that change in the background as well so there is a double effect on that both to the subject matter and to the background it's when we get into the focal length range of around 50 to 90 millimeters which is the portrait range this is the most natural and representative of what julienne looks like in real life around 85 millimeters is pretty much him as I know him 50 millimeters is also very similar when we start going wider we start seeing an unnatural distortion of the face it's not what he actually looks like but the lens is making things look different his face is looking somewhat wider his nose bigger it's not as flattering so we get to the point where we go so insanely wide ah he looks just completely bizarre sorry dude if you're a budding filmmaker entrepreneur innovator domain.com is place to go in that next great idea hits you when you buy a domain name from domain.com you're taking the first steps in creating an identity and vision for your brand or idea and the world's top two premiere most recognized domain name extensions are calm and net which means those are the ones that are gonna help you build your brand and expand your presence online the best and of course they're hooking up a 25% off when you use the coupon code film riot at domain.com check out when you get your domain names web hosting and email just use that coupon code when you think domain names think domain.com okay again a big THANK YOU to mzd for letting us hook you guys up with some free educational goodness and just like the others this is a small section of a nine and a half hour course from Filip that goes into drones slow-motion interviews lens whacking and a ton more for a link to that you can find that in the notes below and there's a lot more courses to be had on emsy things on directing editing cinematography sound so if you're interested you can either buy classes on their own or sign up for MZ subscription service and get all the classes for a massively reduced rate so check out the links below if you want some of that and that's it I'll see you guys next time when we find out we're going to contention [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Film Riot

Views: 1,430,424

Rating: 4.9692965 out of 5

Keywords: film riot, triune films, ryan connolly, filmmaking, tutorial, how to, adobe, film school, philip bloom, visual storytelling, visual, storytelling, filmmaker, film, lens, lenses, cinematography, mzed, 101, tool, movies, free, online, teach, directing, direct, director, DP, light, easy

Id: iWQQgZh9EyE

Length: 13min 37sec (817 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 04 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/kjaersoeren]

Interesting! Thanks for sharing!

[u/kjaersoeren]

Do anyone have links for other videos like this? I love to binge watch storytelling lessons.