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CHAPTER 3

COMPOSING POWERFUL, COMPELLING IMAGES

Composition is the key to achieving powerful images

Secret 9: Four basc shots

Secret 10: Five basic camera angles

Secret 11: Use both objective and subjective views

Secret 12: Compose on the rule of 3rds

Secret 13: Perspective

Secret 14: Diagonal lines

Secret 15: Triangles

Secret 16: Layered Images

When I was in film school I decided to shoot my student film in 16mm film. At midnight. On location. In downtown San Jose. Thus violating at least four rules of sane filmmaking.

The heart of this complicated, hard to stage, student film was the robbery of a convenience store. I found a convenience store in a working-class neighborhood of San Jose, coordinated the staged “robbery” with the police department, auditioned actors, lined up a crew, and even rented a gun from a company that specialized in supplying weapons to film companies.

The night we filmed, everything went as planned, except for a fight in the parking lot. (The police broke it up. We kept going.) The shoot was strenuous, and exhilarating.

I slept late the next day. When I returned to school that afternoon, I met the kindly gray-haired man who taught the lighting course. He smiled and asked me, “Did you get pretty pictures?”

A few days later, we got the negatives back.

The images were, indeed, pretty. But they weren’t compelling or powerful. Without realizing it, I’d shot nearly every image from eye level. The overall effect was bland and indifferent.

All my work, money and time were wasted because I didn’t understand the power of camera placement (where the camera is placed in relation to the scene) and composition (how the image is composed in the viewfinder). I was so involved in the mechanics of staging the scene, and getting everything technically perfect that I overlooked composition.

I suddenly realized why the kindly film teacher was smiling. He knew I would be so overwhelmed by the challenges of setting up the complicated shoot that I would—just as hundreds of film students before me—overlook composition.

As a digital video filmmaker with a small crew and a smaller budget, you may be in danger of falling into the same trap.

A properly composed image will evoke an emotional response in the audience. A properly composed image is more than pretty. It is compelling.

Filmmakers have been evolving a visual language of film for over a hundred years. Mastery of this visual language probably takes as much time and effort as it takes to learn a spoken language like French or Chinese. Just as a spoken language can be learned, visual language can be learned. Some people learn it easier than others. These fortunate people understand and “speak” the visual language of film easily and fluently.

This chapter is not for them. This chapter is for the rest of us.

Here are a few elementary rules of composition that you can use to improve your shots. With this introduction and much hard work, you too may one day create compelling images, consistently and fluently.

SECRET 9: GET THE FOUR BASIC SHOTS

For every scene you shoot, try to get four basic shots: Establishing Shot, Long Shot, Medium Shot and Close Up.

If you use these four basic shots on every scene, you will get 80% of all the coverage you need. Coverage is the word for getting all the shots required to edit the footage into a workable scene. The word is often used as a noun, as in “Did you get coverage?”

Establishing Shot (ES)

An establishing shot shows where the scene is taking place. Establishing shots are often used to open and close a scene.

Long Shot (LS)

Long shots show the audience the actor’s body language and the environment around the actor. Beginning filmmakers often forget to shoot long shots because they are not thinking of getting all the shots they need to edit the scene.

Medium Shot (MS)

Medium shots are often neutral, uninvolved shots. The subject (person) in the shot is being observed, but not closely.

The normal sequence is to begin an interview or scene with a medium shot. As the intensity of the scene slowly builds, the camera moves closer and closer. This transition can be so slow the audience isn’t consciously aware of it, or it can be an abrupt transition from MS to CU.

Close Up (CU)

Close-ups are how the audience shares what an actor or interviewee is feeling. This means that you have to get the camera so close that the person’s face fills the screen. People avoid shooting close-ups because it’s uncomfortable to get the camera in close and record people’s intimate facial expressions. This reluctance is so ingrained in our culture that we have a phrase for it. It’s called “getting in people’s faces.”

The viewer, however, needs and wants you to get in people’s faces.

Every culture has strong taboos about personal space and how close you can get to someone. Before you get physically close to someone, make sure you have their permission.

SECRET 10: USE THE FIVE BASIC CAMERA ANGLES

The “camera angle” (where the camera is placed) makes a huge difference in how the audience reacts to footage. Different camera angles will evoke different emotional reactions from the audience. This is the reason why political ads often place the camera slightly below the politician, looking up. The politician is literally shown as someone the audience should “look up to.”

As you watch films and advertisements, pay attention to the camera angle. Try to see what reaction the filmmaker is trying to get from the audience.

Here are seven angles to consider using when you shoot your scenes:

Looking-down

When you place the camera above and looking down on a person or scene, the viewer has the emotional effect of “looking down” on the scene. When used with a character, it subtly makes the audience feel superior to the character, or it suggests someone who is beaten down, submissive or powerless. This angle is often used to suggest that the actor or person being filmed is a victim or a contemptible character. Someone you “look down on.”

Looking-up

If the camera is below a person and looking up, the image suggests an overpowering being—someone you “look up to.” This angle is commonly used to make political leaders appear authoritarian and decisive. Watch for this one in political advertisements.

Straight-on

If the camera is looking straight on at the person, the person appears “equal” to the viewer. This angle is commonly used in infomercials to make the narrator appear to be a person who is honest and “straightforward.”

Dutch angle

A Dutch angle is created by simply tilting the camera sideways. When you tilt the camera slightly, you suggest that things are “out of order” or “skewed.” (You see this angle a lot in horror movies.)

Dutch angle is also used subtly—and sometimes not so subtly—by political operatives who want to suggest that an opposing political candidate is untrustworthy or out-of-control.

Angle plus angle

Shooting at an angle to the subject, while tilting up or down is called an angle plus angle shot. This is a simple technique that you can use to give visual interest to otherwise boring shots. When on buildings it can add depth and indicate volume.

SECRET 11: USE BOTH OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE VIEWS

When you think about how you want to shoot a scene, ask yourself whether you want the audience to see the action through the character’s eyes or whether you want them to watch the action from one side.

Objective view

Objective angle shows the scene to the audience as if they were standing off to one side and watching. This view has the effect of giving the audience information without pulling them into the scene emotionally.

Subjective view

Subjective angle is the view as seen by a character in a scene. This angle has the effect of pulling the audience into the scene emotionally and building empathy with a character.

SECRET 12: COMPOSE ON THE RULE OF THIRDS

The rule of thirds is a centuries-old rule of composition. It says that the most visually important places within any frame are located on the four lines that divide the frame in thirds.

When you compose a shot, begin by placing important visual elements on these lines. If you are shooting a landscape, frame the image so the horizon is on the top third or the lower third. See which you like. If you are shooting an interview, place the interviewee’s eyes on the top third.

To really see how the rule of thirds is used, tape a piece of clear plastic over your television screen, and then use an erasable dry marker to draw four lines on it: two horizontal lines at the upper and lower third of the screen, and two vertical lines at the right and left third of the screen. Play any Hollywood movie, or watch any broadcast show and you will see immediately that nearly every professional shot is composed on the rule of thirds.

SECRET 13: ADD PERSPECTIVE

Whenever possible, look for ways to add perspective to your shots. Perspective gives your shots depth and interest. Look for something in the foreground that frames or somehow identifies the scene.

Common uses of perspective in films: train tracks that recede in the distance. Roads that recede in the distance. Lanes with trees or fence posts on the side of the road, in which the trees or fence posts recede in the distance.

SECRET 14: LOOK FOR DIAGONAL LINES

Another way to add visual interest to your shots is to look for compositional elements that add diagonal lines to your shots. The diagonal line will draw the viewer’s eye, so you look for lines that lead the viewer’s eye to the most important element in the picture.

SECRET 15: USE TRIANGLES

Painters have used triangles to give visual interest to paintings for hundreds of years. You can create a visual triangle by framing your shot so that three dominant elements in a scene are at the points of an imaginary triangle. The audience will subconsciously “create” a story from the three elements.

SECRET 16: CREATE LAYERED IMAGES

One of the most powerful techniques you can use to create compelling images is a “layered” image in which three elements are placed in spatial relationship to each other.

This technique is usually used with deep focus. In deep focus, everything in the scene is in sharp focus. Use a small f-stop to achieve deep focus. Deep focus is easy with most digital video cameras.

The front element in your image may be one character. Behind this character is a second character looking at the first character, and behind these two characters is a third character looking at the first two characters.

This technique is closely allied to the triangle technique. When you “layer” a scene, the audience will create relationships between the three layers and build a story in their mind. A layered image can be like a little visual gem, in which each facet reflects a different view of reality.

Layered images are an advanced technique to engage the viewer’s imagination, and pull an audience slowly into a film.