Filming guide

This guide will show you:

• How to layout your subject • How you should layout your background • How to use your camera equipment • How to use the Rule of Thirds • How to use the 180 degree • Camera angles and movements • How to use shot-­‐reverse-­‐shot

By Noor Zakaria

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When filming, always consider the persistence/purpose of why you have chosen to film in this way before you set it up.

You have to consider why you have chosen to choose this particular way of shooting this scene and what you want to tell your audience.

You want to know what your characters would want to be wearing, what props would they be using.

Also, you have to think about what it represents and whether is this the best way to show it.

For every shot, you need to consider your background, as this will present the atmosphere of your scene.

Also you have to think about if you have chosen the right background for the right scene. Consider what colors and textures you would use.

Does the background give any additional information to your subject and why?

By choosing particular backgrounds, you can make your subject much more powerful and prevailing.

In a making of a video, you need to have a: • Video camera • Tripod

This is because a tripod is used to keep the camera in place and to make it stable to the ground, its gives the scene a clear and professional view. On the other hand, if you film using your hands, this will give the scene a shaky and scary look to look like something is happening.

If you are using the tripod to give your scene a stable look, you can change the height of it by making it higher or lower. This is often used to give the audience different views of the characters in your film.

When you are filming, you should always try making sure your main point focus is one of the four intersection lines. This is to stabilize the audiences view and to make them concentrate on a particular point of the scene.

This makes your film look more professional. E.g. if you were shooting the scene in one corner of the camera, then it wouldn’t look professional whereas if the eye level was touching one of the crosses, then it would stabilize the audiences view.

The guideline proposes that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally-­‐spaced horizontal lines and two equally spaced vertical lines and that important compositional elements should be places along these lines or their intersections.

* The Rule of thirds means that you should

always try to make sure your main point of focus and the part you would like to highlig most is on one of the four intersection line

In filmmaking, the 180-­‐degree rule is a basic guideline regarding the on-­‐screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within a scene. An imaginary line called the axis connects the characters and by keeping the camera on one side of this axis for every shot in the scene, the first character will always be frame right of the second character, who is then always frame left of the first. If the camera passes over the axis, it is called crossing the line or jumping the line, which is wrong.

Camera angles and movements combine to create a sequence of images, just as words, word order and punctuation combine to make the meaning of a sentence. You need a straightforward set of key terms to describe them.

Describing shots When describing camera angles, or creating them yourself, you have to think about three important factors: • The framing or the length of shot • The angle of the shot • If there is any movement involved When describing different cinematic shots, different terms are used to indicate the amount of subject matter contained within a frame, how far away the camera is from the subject and the perspective of the viewer. Each different shot has a different purpose and effect. A change between two different shots is called a cut.

The different shots that there are is: Extreme long shots – a shot taken from a distance, used as a scene – setting. Usually shows where the scene is set.

Long shot – the whole of the person’s body is shown. More than 1 person in the scene can be shown as well.

Medium shot – a shot from a person’s waist up or down. Only little background is shown.

Close-­‐up – shots of the persons face. Focuses on object. Not much detail of the background is shown.

Extreme close up – no background is shown at all.

Magnifying beyond what the human eye would experience in reality. The person wouldn’t know where that person is.

Birds eye view – shots from the top, directly overhead, unnatural and a strange angle.

High angle – filming just above the characters head. Gives a view of that person is scared of view, smaller and less significant.

Eye level – neutral shot, camera is positioned face to face with someone else you’re talking to.

Camera placed approximately five to six feet from the ground.

Low angle – opposite from high angle.

Lower angle from the ground to seem small and other character more bigger and powerful.

Oblique/canted angle – tilted angles to make the feel that the place isn’t stable /scary or that something isn’t right.

Shot reverse shot is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.

If you were to use shot reverse shot in your film, this would make you’re film more professional looking.