One of the often unsung heroes of film artistry is film framing. How the audience sees a shot can be essential to proper storytelling in film. With proper shot selection, you can make your audience nervous, excited, or afraid. Once you master creative shot framing, you can hold your audience in the palm of your hand.
Instructions
Creatively Film Shots for Film
1. Determine your needs. With a little practice, you can use creative shot framing to improve any visual medium, but we will focus on photography and motion pictures. The principles for both are the same. However, while creative shots can be vital to drawing in an audience, they can also be distracting. Shots that vary too much from visuals one may experience in real life, or too many of them, will distract an audience instead of drawing them in.
2. Do your homework. As part of making your decisions and choosing what shots you will create, you should have an idea of what you like and what you don't. No one would expect you to open a restaurant without first eating in a few restaurants first! Watch films that you remember enjoying, looking for visual touches that appeal to you. Watch how often you see a creatively framed shot, a shot that draws your attention, and why it means affects you.
3. Calculate your setup. Before you begin to set up your shot, you must determine it's composition. Select the locations where you will place your camera, arrange your subjects, check the light, and plan your angles. If you plan to move the camera or take a series of shots, make sure that you have space for any of the cables you will need, and that your footpaths will be clear.
4. Set up and take your shots. Once your subject and camera are in place, set up your shot. Line up the camera, establish the lights, and make sure the image is in focus. If you are taking a series of images, you can feel free to take more daring shots, so long as you take straightforward shots to balance them. A straight shot is where you should start from, but once you are prepared to start taking some creatively framed shots, the first thing you should do is think outside your normal motion. Very importantly, you should feel free to to break the horizons of you normal motions. Shooting from above or below your subject can make them seem small or powerful. Look outside your visual frame of reference for holes or reflective surfaces. All of these principles can be aligned with a camera movement to create even more dynamics that are available to you.
5. Edit your shots. If you are using video as a medium, or creating a moving picture, or even if you are creating a story with a photo shoot, the order your images appear will also matter. As the human eye travels from one image to another, even on video, jarring motions can startle the viewer, and break their concentration. The eye should travel from left to right, or back and forth, not be forced to jump from one place to the other. Calculate the images that will startle the eye should be used occasionally and intentionally so you keep a viewer's attention without alienating or distracting them.
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