Lecture

1. Achieving Good Composition

2. What are some things that
make up Good Composition?
 Obeying the “rule of thirds”
 Single Point of Focus / Selective Focus
 Avoiding Tonal Mergers, Dimensional
Mergers, and Border Mergers
 Proper Amount of Nose Room
 Shot Composition in a Minute:
 http://vimeo.com/1461280

3. Composition Evaluation
 The Beach: http://vimeo.com/10363683
 Formal Composition: The Beginning of
The Royal Tenenbaums
 5 Dollar Cover Seattle: The Beast
 What concepts from good composition
do you see examples of in this video?

4. Photography vs. Video
 What are the differences in the ways
that we should approach shooting video
vs. shooting a photograph?
 In many ways we should treat them the
same in terms of a center of focus
 Video is a dynamic composition
 Choose a center of interest for a shot and
hold on it – this is especially important when
you are shooting handheld footage
 Nathaniel & Angie

5. Demonstration of Elements of a
static composition
 We are now going to demonstrate the different
things that we should strive for in achieving
good composition
 Shot demonstration – We want to demonstrate
the following:
 Focal Length
 Distance between camera and subject
 Center of Interest
 “Rule” of Thirds
 Nose Room and Head Room
 Avoiding Mergers
 High and Low angles
 Balance

6. Balance and Depth in Comp
 Shallow Depth vs. Deep Focus
 Shallow Depth of Field
 Controlled by a Variety of Factors
 Allows us to draw attention to a detail
 Beginning part of Citizen Kane
 Innovative use of Deep Focus made
possible by faster lenses
 Use of characters and objects to balance
composition

7. Camera Shots
 From Millerson and Owen
“Video Production Handbook”
 ELS (Extreme Long Shot) –
shows significant space above
and/or below the subject
 LS or WS (Long Shot or Wide
Shot) – features the entire person
in the frame
 MS (Medium Shot) – cuts the
body just below or above the
waist
 CU (Close-up) – Just above the
head to the upper chest
 ECU (Extreme Close Up) – Detail
shot for part of the body

8. Composing Your Shot
 Drew Keller on Composing Shots

9. Dynamic Composition
 Often times you will want to make your
scene more dynamic and therefore you will
move the camera around
 Demonstration of dynamic movements
 Pan
 Tilt
 Zoom
 Track
 Dolly
 Holding beginnings and ending
 Rack Focus
 Leading the subject

10. Handheld Techniques
 Occasionally, you may choose to use
handheld techniques to bring realism
and movement to your project.
 You want to make sure that you have a good
stabilization system before you shoot the
video
 Try to put your body into position so that you
can steadily hold the camera

11. Handheld Examples
 Beginning of Children of Men
 “Intergalactic” from Awesome…. I shot
that

12. Capturing B-Roll
 The purpose of B-Roll
 What B-Roll you Grab
 Videomaker: Capturing B-Roll

13. Exercise
 Composition Scavenger Hunt
 Shoot, Edit, and Turn in today.
 Projects will be screened at the
beginning of class next week