Copyright © 1982-2015 by Tom Schroeppel

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Print ISBN: 978-1-62153-526-3

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-62153-527-0

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AUTHOR'S NOTE

How We Got to Here

In the late 1970s, I was shooting TV commercials and industrial sales films in Miami. I was also traveling to Ecuador a couple times a year to train camera crews at a TV network there. One day as I was drawing on a Little Havana restaurant napkin to explain a setup to a client, I realized that this was the same thing I had explained in Spanish the previous week in Quito. I decided to translate my training notes back into English and print them in a book version I could give to clients. I hoped to also sell a few copies to cover my costs. I decided to call the book The Bare Bones Camera Course for Film and Video.

I based the content of The Bare Bones Camera Course on what I was teaching in Ecuador. This is turn was based on what I had learned at the Army Motion Picture Photography School at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. (I was an Army cameraman and later a Signal Corps officer.) Both combat photography and TV news coverage require quick but thorough knowledge of basic camerawork.

I hoped to sell enough copies of the book to break even; to my surprise, it did better than that. Students found it easy to understand, teachers found it helpful, and over the years more than 700 colleges chose it as a basic text. Major publishers made me offers, but I continued to self-publish because I enjoyed the personal contact with my customers and I wanted to keep the book available to them at a reasonable cost.

Now, when the time has come to pass the torch, I am pleased to have an organization of the stature of Allworth Press publish this latest edition of The Bare Bones Camera Course for Film and Video, guaranteeing that it will be around and affordable for many years to come. I hope it continues to serve you, my readers, well.

PREFACE

This book explains, as simply as possible, how to shoot usable images on film, tape, and other media.

If you are, or plan to be, a cameraperson, I suggest you read your camera’s operator’s manual in addition to this book. When you understand both, you should be able to go out and shoot footage that works.

If you’re not interested in becoming a cameraperson, but simply want to better understand how the camera is used, no additional reading is required. Just relax and enjoy the book.

This edition of The Bare Bones Camera Course includes information on sound and editing which was originally published in my book Video Goals: Getting Results with Pictures and Sound.

1

BASICS

THE CAMERA—HOW IT WORKS

The camera is an imperfect imitation of the human eye. Like the eye, it sees by means of a lens which gathers light reflected off objects. The lens directs this light onto a surface which senses the pattern formed by the differences in brightness and color of the different parts of the scene. In the case of the eye, this surface at the back of the eye sends the pattern of light to the brain where it is translated into an image which we “see.”

In the case of the camera, the lens directs the patterns of light onto a variety of sensitive surfaces. Still film cameras record light patterns on film coated with light-sensitive chemicals. The chemicals react differently to different amounts and colors of light, forming a record, or image, of the light pattern. After the film is processed in other chemicals, the image becomes visible.

You’ll notice that both the lens of the eye and the lens of the camera turn the light pattern upside down as it passes through. This is because they’re both convex lenses, or lenses which curve outward. Because of their physical properties, convex lenses always invert images. In the brain, and in the camera viewfinder, the images are turned right side up again.

Movie cameras record images in the same way as still film cameras, except they do it more often. Eight mm movie cameras normally take eighteen different pictures, or frames, every second. Sixteen mm and 35mm movie cameras take twenty-four frames per second. When these pictures are projected on a screen at the same fast rate, they give the illusion of continuous movement. The viewer’s mind fills in the gaps between the individual frames, due to a physiological phenomenon known as persistence of vision.

In digital cameras—both still and video—the lens focuses light patterns onto an image sensor, either a CCD (charge coupled device) or a CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor). The surface of the sensor contains from thousands to millions of tiny light-sensitive areas called picture elements, or pixels, which change according to the color and intensity of the light hitting them. In video cameras, the image formed by all the pixels taken together is electronically collected off the sensor at a rate of either twenty-five or thirty complete images per second. These images can then be recorded or broadcast. (See illustration on following page.)

At the viewfinder or TV set the process is reversed to recreate the original image. Persistence of vision causes the viewer to perceive the separate pictures, or frames, as continuous movement.

EXPOSURE

Exposure is the amount of light that comes through the lens and hits the film or CCD chip. The hole in the center of the lens that the light travels through is called the aperture. If the aperture is big, it lets in lots of light. If it’s small, it lets in very little light. The size of the aperture is adjusted by the f/stop ring on the outside of the lens. An f/stop is simply a measure of how big or how little the aperture is.

I find that the easiest way to understand f/stops is to think of them in terms of fractions, because that’s what they really are. F/2 means that the aperture is 1/2 as big across as the lens is long. F/16 means that the aperture is l/16th as big across as the lens is long.

When you look at it this way, it’s easy to understand why in a dark room, you’ll probably be shooting at f/2 to let in all the light you can. Conversely, outside in bright sunlight, where you’ve got a lot of light, you’ll probably stop down to f/11 or f/16, to let less light in.

Now that you understand that, let me point out that in most modern lenses, especially zoom lenses, what I’ve just told you isn’t absolutely true. An f/2 aperture won’t physically be exactly 1/2 the length of the lens. But optically it will be. It will let through as much light as if it were indeed 1/2 the length of the lens. And that’s the important thing.

F/stops are constructed so that as you go from f/1 to f/22 and beyond, each stop admits 1/2 as much light as the one before. The progression is: f/1, f/1.4, f/2, f/2,8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22, f/32, f/45, f/64, and so on. F/1.4 admits half as much light as f/1. F/4 admits half as much light as f/2.8.

Many of the newer lenses are marked in both f/stops and T/stops, or T/stops alone. T/stops are more accurately measured f/stops. F/4 on one lens may not let in exactly the same amount of light as f/4 on another lens; but T/4 is the same on every lens. It always lets in the same amount of light.

COLOR TEMPERATURE

Have you ever been out walking on a cold, dingy day and remarked to yourself how warm and cozy all the lighted windows looked? Well, that was because the light in the windows was of a warmer color than the light outside.

Yes, light comes in different colors. If you think about it, you’ll see it’s true. There’s the red glow from an open fire or a sunset; the bluish cast of a sky dark with rainclouds; and that blue-green ghoulish look you get from the fluorescents in all-night pizzerias. As a general rule, our eyes adjust so well to these different colored light sources that we hardly notice them. Not so the camera.

Color films and CCD/CMOS chips can handle only one color of light source at a time and reproduce colors accurately. They do this by means of color temperature and color filters.

Color temperature is a way to identify different colors of light sources. It’s measured in degrees Kelvin, after Britain’s Lord Kelvin, who devised the system. It’s written like this: 2500K.

The idea is, you take a perfectly black body, like a piece of coal, at absolute zero (-273°C), and start heating it up. As it gets hotter, it puts out different colors of light: first red, then blue, then bluish-white. The different colors of light are identified by the temperatures at which they occur. 2000K is the reddish light produced at 2000 degrees Kelvin. 8000K is the bluish light produced at 8000 degrees Kelvin.

As I mentioned above, color films and CCD/CMOS sensors can handle only one color of light source at a time. To take pictures under a different colored light source, color filters are used to convert the existing light to the color temperature required.

Professional video cameras have built-in filters, which you set according to the light you’ll be shooting under. A typical filter selection might include: Tungsten-Incandescent (3200K); Mixed Tungsten and Daylight/Fluorescent (4300K); Daylight (5400K); and Shade (6600K). (Fluorescent light, strictly speaking, has a discontinuous spectrum and doesn’t fit into the Kelvin system; still, a 4300K filter setting will give you adequate color reproduction.)

Once you select the correct filter on a video camera, fine tune the color by adjusting your white balance. This procedure varies from camera to camera and can be as simple as pushing a single button. It ensures that the whites in your scene reproduce as whites; the other colors then fall into place.

Color movie films are manufactured for two kinds of light: 3200K-tungsten (interior); and 5400K-daylight. If you shoot tungsten film in tungsten light, you don’t need a filter. Likewise if you shoot daylight film in daylight.

To shoot tungsten film in daylight, put a #85 filter on the front of the lens or in a filter slot on the camera. This orange filter converts 5400K bluish daylight to reddish 3200K tungsten.

To shoot daylight film inside with tungsten light, use a #80A filter. This blue filter converts reddish tungsten light to bluish daylight. For photoflood lights (3400K) use a #80B filter.

SETTING EXPOSURE ON A VIDEO CAMERA

First, select the correct filter and adjust your white balance, as discussed above.

If your camera has automatic exposure and you can’t turn it off, all you can do is avoid large light areas and large dark areas within the frame. These will throw your exposure off.

Professional video cameras have both auto and manual exposure. To manually change your exposure, look in the viewfinder and move the f/stop ring until the picture looks good. Ideally, you’ll be able to record detail in both the bright (highlight) areas and the dark (shadowed) areas. Most camera viewfinders can highlight overexposed areas with non-recording zebra stripes.

With a new or strange camera, it’s a good idea to make a test recording under various lighting conditions and play it back on a good monitor to check the calibration of your camera’s viewfinder. Sometimes you’ll have to go a little darker or a little lighter in the viewfinder to get the best color on playback.

The main problem with video cameras is large areas of white, particularly those caused by strong backlight-light shining toward the camera from behind the subject. If you include too much pure, bright white in your frame, all the other colors go dark. Sometimes the white will “bleed” over into the other colors. White problems are seen clearly in your viewfinder, so they’re easily avoidable by moving the camera or subject or both, or by changing your lighting or scenery.

SETTING EXPOSURE ON A FILM CAMERA

ISO

Check the film label to see what ISO your film is. ISO stands for International Standards Organization. The ISO number indicates the speed or sensitivity of the film. The lower the number, the less sensitive, the “slower” the film is, and the more light you need to get a usable picture. The higher the number, the more sensitive, the “faster” the film is, and the less light you need to get a usable picture.

Film speed may also be indicated as ASA, for American Standards Association, or EI, for Exposure Index. For all practical purposes, ASA and EI numbers are equivalent to ISO numbers.

ISO numbers progress geometrically in terms of sensitivity. Each time you double the ISO number, you halve the amount of light needed to get a usable image.

Slower, low ISO films generally produce a higher quality picture. Faster, higher ISO films, while requiring much less light, generally produce grainier, lower quality images.

Color Temperature

Make sure the color temperature of your film is the same as the color temperature of the light you’re filming under. If not, put on a #85 filter to use tungsten film in daylight; or put on a #80A filter to use daylight film in tungsten light.

Remember, any time you use a filter on the camera, you’re reducing the amount of light reaching the film. This means you have to have that much more light entering the lens to compensate for the light soaked up by the filter. Since your light requirements have gone up, you’ve effectively lowered your ISO. Look once more at the chart on the previous page and you’ll see what I mean: higher light requirement equals lower ISO number. To determine the correct ISO for the film-filter combination you’re using, check the manufacturer’s information sheet for that particular film.

Light Meters

Light meters measure the amount of light hitting them. Then, based on the ISO of your film and the number of frames per second you’re shooting, they tell you what f/stop to set for the best exposure of your scene.

For all intents and purposes, light meters see everything in black and white, in terms of lightness and darkness. They don’t react to the color of a subject, only to its lightness or darkness.

On most cameras with built-in meters and on hand-held light meters you must manually set the ISO. The method varies, but be sure you do it. Otherwise, the meter won’t know how much light your film requires and will give you incorrect exposures.

Overexposure means you let too much light in—the picture is too light, washed out. Underexposure means you didn’t let enough light in—the picture is too dark.

Using a Light Meter

If you have an automatic exposure camera and you can’t manually override it, all you can do is try to avoid large light and dark areas in your frame, which will throw off your exposure.

On-camera exposure meters are called reflective meters. They measure the light reflected at the camera by whatever it is you’re pointing the camera at. Handheld reflective meters work the same way.

Reflective meters work on the basis of a theoretical average subject which is gray and reflects 18 percent of the light hitting it. (You can buy an 18 percent Gray Card from Kodak.) No matter where you point it, the meter will tell you the f/stop needed to reproduce that subject as if it were 18 percent gray. This usually gives you a satisfactory exposure. However, for lighter-than-average gray subjects, you have to open up your aperture to reproduce the subject as lighter than 18 percent gray. For darker-than-average subjects, close down to let less light in and reproduce the subject correctly as darker than 18 percent gray. How much, you have to learn by experience.

For most film work, the best way to measure light is with a hand-held incident light meter. The incident meter has a white half-sphere which you hold in front of your subject, pointing toward the camera. The meter measures the light falling on that particular spot and calculates an f/stop for an average 18 percent gray subject. (It’s essentially the same as taking a reflective reading off a gray card held in front of your subject.) This gives you the correct exposure for almost any subject, since once you set your exposure correctly for 18 percent gray, all the other reflectance values fall into place. A white subject with 90 percent reflectance reproduces as 90 percent white. Zero percent black reproduces as 0 percent black. Fifty percent gray reproduces as 50 percent gray. And so on.

Normally, the only time you have to adjust an incident reading is when you want to reproduce something darker or lighter than it really is. For example, you might want to open up your aperture to lighten and show more detail in a very black face, or close down and darken a very white face to see more detail in it.

LENSES

The human eye is a wonder. With a single lens, it can concentrate on a tiny detail of a scene, excluding all else, and in the next instant take in a whole panorama. Unfortunately, the camera is not so versatile. It requires many different lenses to even approximate the performance of the eye.

Every camera has one lens which is considered the “normal” lens. This is the lens which comes closest to reproducing objects with the same perspective as the human eye; that is, objects appear to be the same size, proportion, and distance as if we weren’t looking through the camera at all, but seeing them with the naked eye. The normal lens usually includes a horizontal area of about 25 degrees.

On a 16mm camera, the normal lens has a focal length (its optical measurement) of 25 millimeters. On a 35mm camera, it’s 50 millimeters long. On a video camera with a 2/3” CCD/CMOS chip, the normal lens is 25 millimeters long.

The other lenses on the camera are classified “wide angle” if they include a larger area than the normal lens, and “telephoto” if they include a smaller area.

Wide angle lenses are shorter than normal lenses; telephoto lenses are longer. If your normal lens is 25mm, your wide angle might be 12mm and your telephoto 100mm.

Wide angle and telephoto lenses have special characteristics which can be summarized as follows:

Wide angle and telephoto lenses reproduce faces in different ways:

The more extreme wide angle lenses suffer from geometric distortion. Vertical and horizontal lines become curved near the edges of the frame. This is referred to as “barrel distortion.”

Focus

The healthy human eye normally sees images in focus—that is, sharp and clear, not blurry. This is because the lens of the eye automatically brings each light ray to a sharp point on the light-sensitive surface at the back of the eye. The pattern formed by all these sharp points of light taken together forms a clear, sharp image.

Automatic focus cameras, which emulate the eye, don’t always work the way you want them to. When you have the time, it’s usually best to do the focusing yourself.

To focus a camera which doesn’t have through-the-lens viewing, you measure or estimate the distance of the subject from the camera, then move the focus ring on the lens to that setting.

Focusing is easier, quicker, and surer on cameras with through-the-lens viewing systems. This is because there’s no guesswork involved—what you see is what you get. All you do is look in the viewfinder and turn the focus ring on the lens till your subject looks sharp and clear. (If possible on a film camera, you should open the lens to its widest aperture for focusing—I’ll explain why in the following section on depth of field.)

Some cameras have focusing eyepieces, which use little diopter rings to adjust the focus of the image in the viewfinder to the individual eye of the cameraperson. Adjustable eyepieces are especially useful for people who wear glasses but who prefer or need to shoot without them. (It’s not a good idea to wear glasses when shooting with a through-the-lens film camera—light entering the viewing system from around the edges of your glasses can fog the film.)

If your camera has a focusing eyepiece, do adjust it to your eye—otherwise you’ll never see a perfectly sharp image through the lens and you’ll never be 100 percent sure of your focus.

To adjust a focusing eyepiece, first point the camera at a bright area—the sky, or a white wall, for example. Open the lens to its widest aperture. Throw the lens out of focus—turn the focus ring until everything is as blurry as possible. Then, on a film camera, turn the diopter ring on the eyepiece until the ground glass of the view-finder screen is in focus—until the textured surface of the screen is as sharp and clear as possible. On a video camera, adjust the diopter ring until the messages on the viewfinder screen are as sharp as possible. That’s all there is to it. Now you’re ready to focus the lens with complete confidence.

Zoom Lenses

Most cameras use a zoom lens, which combines a wide range of focal lengths in a single lens. By moving a single control, you can switch from wide angle to normal to telephoto, or anywhere in between, without changing lenses. This makes it a lot easier and quicker to compose your shots. If you want a little wider frame, zoom back to wide angle; for a closer shot, zoom in to telephoto.

There’s a special way to focus a zoom lens. First, zoom all the way in on your subject, with the lens in maximum telephoto position. Focus the lens, even if all you see is an eyeball. Then zoom out wide and find your final framing. Your subject will remain sharp and in focus at any zoom setting, as long as neither the camera or the subject changes position. (When possible on a film camera, you should also open the lens to its widest aperture for focusing—we’ll learn why in the following section on depth of field.)

“Zooming” with smart phone and tablet cameras: When you use the “digital zoom” feature on your average smart phone or tablet camera screen, you are not zooming, you are simply cropping the image produced by the device’s fixed wide angle lens. You will not see any of the effects of a telephoto lens as discussed earlier. You will achieve a lower quality image, as you are filling the screen with fewer pixels.

DEPTH OF FIELD

Depth of field is simply the area in front of your camera where everything looks sharp and in focus. For example, if you’re focused on somebody standing ten feet in front of the camera, your depth of field might be from eight feet to fourteen feet. That means objects falling within that area will be acceptably sharp and in focus; objects falling outside the area will be soft and out of focus.

There are several important things to know about depth of field. First is this: Your depth of field decreases as you increase your focal length.* In other words, with a telephoto lens, you have a much shallower area in focus than with a normal lens. That’s why with a zoom lens, you zoom in to telephoto for focusing—it makes it easier to see the exact point where your subject is sharpest.

The next thing to know is: Your depth of field increases as you decrease your focal length.* With a wide angle lens, you have a much deeper area in focus than with a normal lens. This is why, when you’re shooting in uncontrolled situations with a zoom lens and don’t have time to zoom in and check focus, you’re better off setting an approximate focus and staying at wide angle. This will give you your best chance of keeping everything in acceptable focus.

Another thing about depth of field: Your depth of field increases as you close down your aperture. At f/16 you have more depth of field than at f/2. When you make your aperture smaller, it’s essentially the same as squinting your eyes to see something sharper in the distance. This is why on film cameras we open the lens to its widest aperture to focus: it makes it easier to see the exact focus point.

Next: Your depth of field increases as your subject gets farther from the camera. The farther away the subject, the more depth of field; the closer the subject, the less depth of field.

Finally: You always have less depth of field in front of your point of focus than behind it. This is especially noticeable at distances of twenty-five feet or less. At these near distances, you can usually figure on your depth of field extending approximately 1/3 in front and 2/3 behind your point of focus. So, if you’re working with a shallow depth of field and you want to take maximum advantage of it, focus on a point 1/3 of the way into the area you want in focus.

*   Focal length = the length of the lens measured optically, not physically.

2

COMPOSITION

THE CAMERA—A TOOL FOR SELECTIVE VISION

The camera is a tool for looking at things in a special way. It’s a window on the world which you control. Your viewers—the persons who will look at the pictures you take—will see only what you decide to show them. This selectivity is the basis of all camerawork.

Say you’re shooting a program about a high school. The decisions you as a cameraperson make will shape the reality of the school as perceived by your viewers. Leave Student A out of your frame and for your viewers she will never exist. Include B, C, and D in a number of shots and they become important persons. Show E studying by himself and he becomes a loner. By choosing what to shoot and how to shoot it, you create your own selective version of the high school. How close your version comes to reality depends on your camera skills and how you use them. The opposite is also true; your camera skills can be used to distort reality if that’s your goal.

USE A TRIPOD

To appreciate a good composition, your viewers must first see it without distractions. One of the most common distractions is camera jiggle caused by shaky handholding of the camera.

Shaky pictures are okay if you’re shooting an earthquake, or if you’re in the middle of a prison riot or some other precarious situation. Most of the time, though, shaky pictures are just plain annoying to your viewers. They make it harder for them to see what’s happening and they remind them of the camera; they destroy the illusion that they’re seeing the real thing.

In editing scenes together, the only thing more distracting than a shaky shot of a building inserted between two nice steady shots is two different shaky shots one after the other, with one shaking up and down and the other shaking side to side. Where they come together, it looks like the cut was made with a chain saw.

So use a tripod whenever possible. A good tripod, preferably with a fluid head, will give you a steady frame, make your camera moves smoother, and keep your arms and the rest of your body from getting tired so quickly.

It’s not that much trouble to use a tripod. With practice, most people can set up and level a tripod in less than 30 seconds. But, if you don’t have a tripod, or you’re someplace where a tripod would get in the way, or you’re just moving too fast to bother with it, you can still try for tripod-like support. Use a monopod or a shoulder brace. Lean against a wall, a chair, or your assistant.

Try for at least three points of support for the camera. With a well-balanced news camera, these would be your shoulder, your hand on the grip, and the side of your head. If you can brace the elbow of your camera-supporting arm against your side, so much the better.

RULE OF THIRDS

The rule of thirds is an old, old theory about composition that still works pretty well. It won’t compose the picture for you, but it’ll at least give you someplace to start.

The idea is to mentally divide the frame into thirds horizontally and vertically. Then you place your elements along the lines, preferably with the center of interest at one of the four points where the lines cross.

Here are some examples of compositions improved by using the rule of thirds:

In paintings, still photos, and feature films, you’ll see many interesting and good compositions that don’t comply with the rule of thirds. But remember, such compositions, being more complicated, require more time from the viewers to comprehend. Their eyes will roam around more before they see what you want them to see. If you can afford to leave an unusual composition on the screen fifteen or twenty seconds or more, it can work—often quite nicely. But be sure you know what you’re doing and why. For most documentary film and TV work, the rule of thirds is a good safe bet.

BALANCE—LEADING LOOKS

One of the most common errors among camerapersons everywhere is the failure to leave enough space in front of people’s faces when they’re looking to one side or the other.

A shot like this

is annoying to look at. Psychologically, your viewers perceive the man as boxed in, with no place to go. By moving the frame just a little, like this,

you get a more comfortable composition. You’ve allowed for the compositional weight of the look. This is also known as head room or lead room.

People aren’t the only things that have looks. Almost everything has a look. Some examples:

BALANCE—MASSES

Sometimes you see a scene with a large object on one side and nothing significant on the other side. Even though it doesn’t look all that bad, you still feel a little uneasy about it. That’s because it’s off balance in terms of mass. This is most pleasantly corrected by placing a smaller object at some distance away within the frame. Visual leverage then balances the two nicely, like this:

Of course you can balance out with another object the same size in the frame, but it usually ends up kind of static and unexciting:

Remember, when we’re balancing masses we’re not concerned with the true size of things. All that matters is how big they look through the camera. Objects closer to the camera will always appear larger; those farther away will appear smaller. Depending on the camera angle, a house in the distance can balance out a man in the foreground:

BALANCE—COLORS

The most important thing to know about colors is that bright ones attract your viewers’ eyes. How often have you seen a TV interview on location somewhere and found yourself watching, not the interview, but some guy in a red shirt in the background? Your eye just naturally goes to white or brightly colored areas in the frame. Once you know this fact, you can use it to help your pictures.

First off, try to arrange your frame so that the brightest area is also the area you want the viewers to look at first. Consider the following example, where we want the viewers to look at the man:

When you do include a bright object or area in your frame, remember that its brightness gives it extra weight in the composition—weight you have to balance out, either with another bright area, or with a larger mass.

In the example at the bottom of the previous page, although the masses of the flower and the pot balance out, the brightness of the flower pulls the composition to the left.

The brightness of the pot now balances out the brightness of the flower.

Here the brightness of the flower is balanced out by placing a larger mass on the other side of the frame.

ANGLES

Reality has three physical dimensions: height, width, and depth. In pictures we have only two dimensions: height and width. To give the illusion of depth, we show things at an angle, so we can at least see two sides.

The angle created by the difference in height between the camera and the subject makes a definite impression on your viewers:

When the camera and the subject are at the same height, it gives the feeling that the viewers and the subject are of equal value.

When the camera is higher than the subject, it gives the feeling that the subject is inferior, smaller, less important.

When the camera is lower than the subject, it gives the feeling that the subject is superior, larger, more important.

By raising or lowering your camera, you can subtly influence how your viewers will perceive your subject. This is used to great effect in horror films and political TV commercials.

FRAMES WITHIN THE FRAME

Often you can make a picture more interesting by using elements of your location to create full or partial frames within the camera frame.

This type of framing can also be used to hide or obstruct unwanted elements. For example, a cut tree branch held near the camera can cover up an ugly sky or a billboard in the background.

LEADING LINES

A nice way to direct your viewers’ eyes to your subject is through the use of leading lines. Here are some examples:

BACKGROUNDS

The best background is the one that stays where it belongs– in the background. Unfortunately, some types of backgrounds push forward and call attention away from your foreground subjects. Let’s look at some of the more common distracting backgrounds and ways to avoid them:

PROBLEM: Door frames, window frames, trees, poles, etc., that grow out of people’s heads.

SOLUTION: Move the camera, the subject, or both.

PROBLEM: Backgrounds that are too visually busy, so full of details and colors similar to those of the subject that the subject becomes buried in the background.

SOLUTION #1: Move the camera, the subject, or both.

SOLUTION #2: Move the camera far enough back from the subject so you can use a telephoto focal length. This will give you a more shallow depth of field, throwing the background out of focus while leaving the subject sharp.

PROBLEM: Unusual or persistent movements in the background.

SOLUTION: Move the camera, the subject, or both. One quick way to remove a distracting background element from your frame is to move closer to your subject, drop the camera to a lower level, and shoot up:

Another way to eliminate a distracting element in the background is to place either the subject or another object in the foreground to block the camera’s view of the distracting element.

A plant placed between the camera and the sign hides the sign.

IN SEARCH OF A GOOD COMPOSITION

A common mistake made by camerapersons everywhere is to arrive at a location, set up the camera in the first clear space that looks pretty good, and go from there. If you do this, you’re short-changing yourself.

Sure, go ahead and set the camera down. But then take a quick walk around. As you walk, go up on your toes, squat down, lean from side to side. Find your best angle for framing, background, color, and balance. The whole operation could take less than a minute, and it’s well worth your time. If you have trouble visualizing shots, carry the camera around with you and look through it to find your angle.

Remember, you don’t have to accept the location exactly as you see it. If you’ve got a couple minutes, you can rearrange furniture, remove distracting elements, add interesting ones—do all kinds of things to improve your composition.

Look, then look again, as critically as you can. The human eye has a tendency to cancel out unimportant details, but the camera sees and records everything equally. Think back to that “perfect” shot of a wilderness sunset you took on vacation, only to discover when you looked at it later that you had telephone wires running across the frame. When you learn to see the wires before you take the picture, then you can call yourself a cameraperson.

3

BASIC SEQUENCE

HOW A BASIC SEQUENCE WORKS

Look at this shot. Imagine that the man is talking to the boy. Let’s say he talks for thirty seconds. Try looking at the picture while you count one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, and so on, up to thirty seconds.

If you’re normal, you won’t get much past one-thousand-ten before your eyes start wandering. Now look at the sequence of shots on the next page. Count to one-thousand-five at each one before moving to the next.

That was a lot easier, wasn’t it? So what have we proved?

We’ve proved that it’s easier to look at six different images in thirty seconds than to look at one single image for the same time. That’s the idea behind the basic sequence—to break up one long scene into several shorter scenes. This makes the story more interesting for your viewers. It also gives us the opportunity, in editing, to vary the length and emphasis of the story as we desire. Let’s review the basic sequence we’ve just seen, shot by shot, and see how it works.

A WIDE SHOT or ESTABLISHING SHOT is simply that—a shot that’s wide enough to establish your subject in the mind of your viewers. In this particular case, we see the man, the boy, and enough of their surroundings to establish that they’re in the great outdoors.

Remember, a WIDE SHOT doesn’t have to show everything—just everything that’s important. A WIDE SHOT of a mountain would be a landscape. A WIDE SHOT of a man writing might show only the man and his computer, eliminating from the shot the rest of his desk and the surrounding office. A WIDE SHOT of an ant would be a fraction of an inch across.

The MEDIUM SHOT and the CLOSE-UP are, like the WIDE SHOT, endlessly variable, depending on your subject and your own point of view.

Essentially, the CLOSE-UP is the tightest, the closest you choose to be to your subject. In a person, it’s usually a full head shot, as shown here. The MEDIUM SHOT falls somewhere in between the WIDE SHOT and the CLOSE-UP.

The CUTAWAY is the one shot that lets you easily change the length and/or order of your sequence. It’s the shot most often forgotten by camerapersons and most often needed by editors.

In our sequence of the man and the boy, let’s say that instead of talking for thirty seconds, the man talked for two minutes, the middle minute-and-a-half of which was boring. So, in editing, you let the man talk for the first fifteen seconds, cut away to the boy listening, throw out the boring middle of the talk, then cut back to the man for the final fifteen seconds. So instead of this:

we have this:

The splice in the sound track between Scenes 1 and 6 is covered by the cutaway of the boy listening.

The most common cutaway is the shot of the reporter listening in TV interviews. However, anything can serve as a cutaway, as long as it’s related to the main action, but not visually connected to it. That’s the great value of a cutaway: when you cut to it, you don’t have to match anything in the main shot you’re cutting away from.

For example, a sequence of a man making toys can be shortened or rearranged by cutting away to shots of already completed toys on the shelves. Or the toymaker’s face can serve as a cutaway from close-up actions of his hands working on the toy.

If you look hard enough, you can find a cutaway for just about any sequence you shoot. In an interview with an athlete, his photos and trophies are cutaways. If a woman is just sitting and talking to the camera, a close-up of her hands in her lap is a cutaway. An extreme wide shot, or a shot from behind, can also be a cutaway.

Cutaways can serve to enhance the story. If a man is talking about how he won an auto race, you can cut away to footage of the race, while continuing his voice on the sound track. If an interviewee mentions a person who helped her in her career, you can cut away to a shot of that person.

SHOOTING A BASIC SEQUENCE

The most important thing to remember in shooting a basic sequence is that each new shot should, if at all possible, involve a change in both image size and camera angle. This not only makes the sequence more interesting but, as we’ll see, it makes it much easier to cut back and forth between shots. Below is a diagram, from above, showing where I placed the camera for the sequence of the man talking to the boy.

Notice that between WIDE SHOT, MEDIUM SHOT, and CLOSE-UP, I changed my camera angle by at least 45 degrees. You should always try to move your camera at least that much.

It’s pretty obvious that a change in image size and angle between shots makes for a more interesting sequence. What’s not quite so obvious is that it makes the transition from shot to shot smoother and easier to accomplish. With rare exceptions, most non-studio work is shot with a single camera. This means your subject has to repeat himself for the medium shots and close-ups. He’s not always going to be able to remember and duplicate his actions exactly for every take. So you might end up having to cut from a wide shot where he’s looking straight ahead:

to a medium shot where his head is inclined slightly downward:

If you change image size and not camera angle, you’ll see the man’s head jerk down on the cut. This is called a jump cut.

But, if you change not only the image size but also the camera angle, you’ll be home free. The combination of image change and angle change will alter your viewers’ perspective just enough for them not to notice the slight mismatch in head position.

Often, you’ll find that a change in image size and camera angle will cover even greater mismatches.

One special situation: When your subject is talking directly to the camera and you change camera angles, be sure to show the subject physically pivoting his body from one camera position to the other. Otherwise, the abrupt change in background will confuse your viewers. If you prefer, in the editing, you can cut on the action of the turn. They do this every night on your local news show when the anchor turns to a new camera and says, “On the local scene . . .”

CUTTING ON THE ACTION

A good way to get smooth transitions between shots is to cut on the action. Your viewers’ eyes naturally follow movement on the screen. If a movement begins in one shot and ends in the next, your viewers’ eyes will follow the action right across the cut, without paying much attention to anything else.

Let’s say that the man in our original basic sequence takes off his hat. We shoot the wide shot down to the point where he completes the action of removing his hat. Then we set the camera up for the medium shot, and have him begin the medium shot by repeating the action of removing his hat.

Then, in the editing, we CUT ON THE ACTION, so that he starts removing his hat in the wide shot and completes the removal in the medium shot. Without even realizing it, your viewers are carried smoothly from one shot to the next.

There are lots of obvious situations where it’s convenient to cut on the action. For example: opening doors, getting out of cars, sitting down, standing up, reaching for objects, walking, running, jumping—almost any kind of movement. The important thing to remember is that the last action of the first shot has to be repeated at the beginning of the second shot. So you have to shoot the same movement twice. This is called overlapping action.

CLEAN ENTRANCE / CLEAN EXIT

Having a clean entrance and a clean exit is almost as good as having a million different cutaways. Clean entrances and exits give you terrific flexibility in your editing. Let’s say for example that you are shooting an explanation of the controls on a complicated piece of equipment. Your master shot—the one where you keep the camera running for the whole explanation—looks like this:

As the man explains the different buttons, he touches them and turns them. When you’ve finished the master shot, move in for close-ups of the different knobs. Start each shot showing only the knob on the machine. Then have the man’s hand come in (CLEAN ENTRANCE), fiddle with the knob, and go out again (CLEAN EXIT), leaving once more just the knob in the frame.

So what does this do for us? Well, first off, if you cut to the knob, wait a beat, then have the hand enter, you don’t have to worry about matching the position of the man’s hand from the wide shot to the close-up, because when you cut to the close-up the hand isn’t yet in the frame.

Secondly, let’s say you decide after the shoot that you only have time to explain the most important controls and you’re going to have to eliminate some of the middle explanations. Easy as pie. Just go to a close-up of the last knob before the section you want to eliminate, let the hand exit cleanly, wait a beat, then cut to the wide shot, picking it up after the dropped section. Since you’re cutting from a close-up of the knob without the hand, nothing has to match when you go back to the wide shot at a much later point in the explanation.

If you think about it, you can see there are many ways this sequence could be rearranged by taking advantage of the clean entrances and exits of the hand.

Let’s look at another example. Say you’ve got a wide shot of a car driving by and you have to cut to a different shot of the same car, but the background is different. If you just cut from one shot to the other, the change in backgrounds will be very noticeable. But, if you let the car exit the frame in the first shot, hold a beat, then cut to the new shot with a different background, it’ll work. By not seeing the car for a second or two, the audience will accept that it had time to get to a different place for the following shot.

Or you could accomplish the same thing by cutting to the new shot without the car there, waiting a beat, and then letting the car make a clean entrance.

Clean entrances and clean exits are very helpful in getting people quickly from one place to another. Say you have a sequence of a boy walking into his house and upstairs to his room. Rather than follow him all the way up with the camera, just show him walking in the front door (CLEAN EXIT), wait a beat, then cut to his room as he enters it (CLEAN ENTRANCE).

Clean entrances and exits are good for almost any kind of shot where somebody or something is moving from one place to another, picking something up, putting something down, hitting, pulling, selecting, etc. Whenever you have anything moving through your frame, particularly in a close-up, you’ll be doing yourself a big favor by giving it either a clean entrance or a clean exit, or both. This will always allow you greater freedom in your editing.

SOME FINAL WORDS ON BASIC SEQUENCES

Only amateurs and some geniuses plan on making every cut a match cut. The more you cover yourself with changes in image size, changes in camera angle, cutaways, overlapping actions, and clean entrances and clean exits, the better your final product will be.

Remember, any still photographer can shoot a bunch of pretty shots, but only a real cameraperson can shoot a sequence.

4

SCREEN DIRECTION

SCREEN DIRECTION AND CROSSING THE LINE

Screen direction is the direction people and things face when viewed through the camera.

Have you ever been watching a conversation on TV between two people when suddenly the scene changes and it looks like one of them is talking to the back of the other’s head? That’s called reversed screen direction. The cameraperson causes it by CROSSING THE LINE.

The line is also known as the axis of action, or simply the axis. By whatever name, it’s an imaginary line which determines the direction people and things face when viewed through the camera. When you cross the line, you reverse the screen direction of everything you see through the camera, even though nothing has moved but the camera.

In our sequence of the man talking to the boy, the line would intersect the man and the boy:

As long as the camera stays on the front side of the line, the man will be looking screen left and the boy will be looking screen right. If you cross the line, they’ll be looking in just the opposite directions, although they haven’t moved at all. Now, this is really no problem, as long as you stay on one side of the line or the other. But you can’t go jumping back and forth.

Say you make your wide shot from one side of the line, like this:

Then, for some reason, you shoot your cutaway of the boy from the other side, like this:

When you cut them together, you get this:

It looks like the boy has turned completely around, with his back to the man!

Let’s take another example, a person working at a computer. On the following page, see what happens when you cross the line.

It looks like she’s got her head twisted on backwards!

There are circumstances in which you have to cross the line, whether you want to or not. Maybe your subject’s body is blocking a new detail you need to show. Maybe part of your sequence just looks better from the other side of the line. Maybe you have no control over your subject’s movements. Whatever, don’t fear. There are ways to cross the line without confusing your viewers.

The easiest way is when your subject changes direction on camera, within the frame. You stand still, and the line actually crosses under you. For example, a car turning around. Or a person turning from a friend on his right to a friend on his left. As long as the change in screen direction is made on camera, there’s no confusion.

Another way is to cross the line in one continuous move with the camera. In uncontrolled situations, this is sometimes your only recourse. Say a race car mechanic is working on a car and he moves so you can’t see what he’s doing. All you can do, if you want the shot, is to keep the camera running and walk around to where you can see what’s going on:

You see this type of shot frequently in TV commercials and feature films. It’s usually done with a dolly—a camera platform on wheels. Low budget productions can make this kind of move using a wheelchair or even a skateboard to simulate a dolly.

You can cross the line if you stop on it:

Sooner or later we all get in a situation where we’re finishing up shooting a sequence and we know we’ve jumped back and forth across the line. No matter what the reason, we’ve got to figure some way to save the day. This is where my favorite line-crossing method comes in handy. It’s based on a simple truth: you can cross the line if you stop on it. You can go from one screen direction to another if you put a neutral shot with no screen direction in the middle. As long as you have at least one neutral shot as a bridge, you can cross the line. (See diagram on opposite page.)

You’d be amazed at the mileage you can get out of one or two good neutral shots.

One neutral shot which doesn’t always occur to everybody is the POV, the point-of-view shot. In the sequence of the woman typing, the point-of-view would be a shot of the computer screen from the point of view of the typist.

Often you can fake a point-of-view shot after your subject has left. For the closeup of the computer screen, who says you have to use the same person, if you don’t see her hands in the shot? Or, if you need to show hands, you can still use another woman with similar hands.

There are two other ways to cross the line which, though not perfect, are certainly better than nothing.

First is the situation where you have a clean point of reference to help the viewers orient themselves a little. In a lot of old movies, you’ll see a wide shot of people going up a gangplank to a ship, followed by a medium shot from across the line. The argument here is that the gangplank serves as a reference for the audience to hold onto.

Other common references which can ease a reversal in screen direction are sidewalks, roads, hallways, tables, cars, boats—anything that’s in both shots and has a clearly defined direction of its own. Please note: this does not make a perfect cut, but it’s better than nothing.

The other not-so-perfect way to reverse screen direction is to cross the line at the same time as you cut on the action. The idea is that the continuity of action over the cut will psychologically cover the reversal in screen direction.

Again, it’s not perfect. But in a pinch, it’s better than nothing.

USING SCREEN DIRECTION TO SOLVE SHOOTING PROBLEMS

As we learned earlier, screen direction is the direction people and things face when viewed through the camera. It’s determined by the axis of action, the line. When you cross the line, you reverse your screen direction, even though nothing has moved but the camera. The corollary to this is: As long as you don’t cross the line, as long as you keep the same screen direction, you can move people, things, and camera anywhere you want. This can help you solve many shooting problems.

Let’s say you’re shooting an interview with a well-known naturalist. Since he’ll be talking about the wonders of the great outdoors, it would look best if he were in an outdoorsy setting. But for reasons of time and money, you have to shoot in his suburban backyard. After a quick reconnoiter of the backyard, you find your best location and select two camera positions:

From Position #1, you can do your wide shot over the shoulder of the reporter, as well as medium shots and close-ups of the naturalist—all with lush trees in the background. So far, so good. But, when you move around to Position #2 for your shots of the reporter, you see an ugly fence and the neighbor’s clothesline in the background. Not exactly the lush natural setting you’d like.

The solution? After you’ve finished with all of your shots of the naturalist from Position #1, pivot the naturalist and the reporter counter-clockwise so that the trees are now behind the reporter, who is still facing screen left.

You see, you haven’t crossed the line. You’ve merely pivoted it—and your subjects—from Position A to Position B. As long as you stay on the same side of the line and keep the same screen direction, you can move the line anywhere you want. In fact, in a pinch, you could even shoot the reporter’s close-ups—without the naturalist—at another place and time!

Aha, you might say. It still won’t work because we know there’s a fence behind the reporter and not trees. Well, maybe we know it, but the viewers sure don’t. All they know is what they see on the screen. Screen geography has nothing to do with real geography. Nothing exists for your viewers except what you show them. Once you understand this, you can work wonders.

You won’t always have to go the extremes illustrated by this example. Sometimes it’s just a matter of moving or pivoting your subject a few feet one way or the other to get a better shot. Remember, as long as you keep the same screen direction and everything else matches, you’ve got nothing to worry about. I’ve moved people closer to windows to get better light on close-ups, put them in different rooms to get better backgrounds; once, in a very tight situation, I shot five different angles without moving the camera, but moving the subjects instead—and it worked!

5

CAMERA MOVES

The basic camera moves are ZOOMS, PANS, TILTS, and combinations thereof.

In general, a ZOOM-IN (from wide shot to close-up) directs our attention to whatever it is we’re zooming in on. So if you zoom in, try to zoom in on something interesting or important.

A ZOOM-OUT (from close-up to wide shot) usually reveals new information. Often it tells us where we are.

For example, you can start on a close-up of a man’s face talking about flowers, then zoom back to reveal that he’s surrounded by flowers.

PANS (horizontal moves) and TILTS (vertical moves) also reveal new information.

One caution about pans. If you pan too fast, vertical lines, like fenceposts, doorframes, etc., will strobe on you, trailing ghost images behind. When in doubt, pan a little slower.

An effective way to lead your viewers through a long pan is to follow a smaller object—a person walking, a car perhaps—as it passes by your subject. For example, a wide shot pan across the front of a building is much more interesting with a person walking by, leading the move.

MAKING CAMERA MOVES

The first rule of camera movement is this: begin and end every move with a well-composed static shot. It’s very distracting to cut from a static composition to a move that’s already in progress. Likewise, to cut from a move to a static. Oh, you can do it, and sometimes it works when you want to create a feeling of excitement and action. And you can dissolve between static shots and moves, visually blending one scene into another, with good results. But why limit your options? If you’re going to make a move, hold it steady for a beat or two at the beginning, ease into your move, make the move, ease gradually out of the move, and hold for a beat or two at the end. You’ll be glad you did when you start editing.

The other rule of camera movement is this: always move from an uncomfortable position to a comfortable position. This is especially important in pans, when you’re moving in a wide horizontal arc. Have you ever seen a cameraperson start to pan with a passing car and, as he follows the car by, slowly twist himself into a quivering pretzel? He’s starting with his muscles relaxed and then twisting them into a tense, unnatural position. For the smoothest possible move, you should be doing just the opposite. You should get comfortable in your end position, then twist around into the beginning position. That way, when you make the move, your muscles will be relaxing, untensing, returning smoothly to their natural position. You’ll be moving from uncomfortable to comfortable, smoothly, naturally. This is true of any move, not just pans.

There’s a tendency among camerapersons, especially beginners, to be continually moving the camera—zooming in, zooming out, panning left, panning right, tilting up, tilting down. I guess they feel they’re not earning their money if they just hold the camera still. They’re wrong. A camera move should have a purpose. It should in some way contribute to your viewers’ understanding of what they’re seeing. If it doesn’t, the move distracts and calls attention to itself.

Camera moves limit you in your editing. If the only shot you have of a certain subject is a zoom and the zoom lasts fifteen seconds, but you only have five seconds of narration to go over it, you’re stuck. Either you leave the whole move in, and your viewers sit bored for ten seconds of silence, or you cut in and out of a five-second piece of the zoom, which is visually jarring. The safe thing to do is shoot your move, then cover yourself with a couple of static shots of the same thing. You’ll be glad you did when you start editing.

One final tip. I’ve found that when combining a zoom with a tilt or a pan, it works smoother if I start the pan or tilt just a fraction of a second before the zoom. I don’t know why it works better this way, but it does.

6

MONTAGES

A montage is a series of related shots used to condense time or distance, set a mood, or summarize information. For example, a montage of highway signs, a montage of pretty nature shots, or a montage of company products. Most TV commercials are montages.

For a montage to work, it’s usually best if each shot is clearly different from the one before it; otherwise it looks like a bad cut between two similar shots of the same thing. If you shoot an employee montage with everybody framed the same, it will look like one face changing abruptly into another. But if you shoot a variety of angles and image sizes, the effect can be very nice.

An easy way to make a nice sign montage is to tilt each one a different way. For some reason, these are called Dutch tilts.

7

LIGHTING

EXTERIOR LIGHTING

The most powerful and common source of light is the sun, but for film and TV it has one big disadvantage: it’s always moving. It traces an arc across the sky, east to west, horizon to horizon, every day. This means that the angle at which sunlight is falling on our subjects is also constantly changing. Most people look their best in sunlight when the sun is no higher than about 45 degrees above the horizon. When the sun is higher, around the noon hour, it casts ugly shadows on faces. Eye sockets go dark and little shadow “beards” show up on chins and under cheekbones and noses.

Most exterior shots are made with the subject facing the sun, so it illuminates him directly. Sometimes, though, this isn’t possible or desirable. Perhaps the location doesn’t permit it; or maybe the sun is bothering your subject’s eyes; or maybe your subject looks really nice with the sun behind him. So you end up shooting with backlight or sidelight. Both conditions cast strong shadows on your subject’s face.

The shadows cast by backlight and sidelight can be filled in—brightened up with light—in two ways: reflectors and fill lights.

A reflector is anything which reflects light. It’s normally a board covered with silver paint or foil. But it can also be a white poster board, or a white wall, or a piece of canvas. You use the reflector to bounce sunlight into the shadow areas where it’s needed.

Any light can be used as a fill light outside, as long as it puts out daylight-colored light, with a color temperature of 5400K. The lamp can be 5400K, or it can be 3200K-tungsten, with a dichroic filter or a blue gelatin sheet in front to convert it to 5400K.

One disadvantage to using a fill light instead of a reflector is that you need electricity to power it—from a battery, a portable generator, or an extension cord. Another disadvantage is that, in order to match the tremendous brightness of the sun, you either have to bring the fill light in very close to the subject, or else use a very powerful fill light, requiring a lot of electricity.

The advantage to a fill light is that, unlike a reflector, it’s not directly dependent on the sun. You can place it anywhere you want, at any angle you want, for the best lighting effect and for maximum comfort of your subject. The fill light is especially useful in completely backlit situations where a reflector may shine a glare right into your subject’s eyes.

A fill light is the best way to brighten up the shadows cast by the noontime overhead sun. And on overcast days, a light shining directly on your subject can stand in for an absent sun and give your pictures needed brightness and contrast.

INTERIOR LIGHTING

Three basic types of lights, using tungsten quartz halogen bulbs, are traditionally used in interior lighting: focusing quartz, broads, and softlights.

(More modern versions of these same lights using LEDs, flourescent bulbs, or HMI bulbs are more energy-efficient and operate more coolly. In terms of lighting technique, however, they all work the same—except that LEDs and flourescents generally put out less light than quartz bulbs and HMIs put out more light.)

The focusing quartz light is the movie and TV version of the theatrical spot light. It’s the most common, versatile light in use. By moving a lever, you control the intensity and pattern of light it puts out. The range is from “spot” to “flood.” At “spot,” you get a small, concentrated area of light. At “flood,” you get a spread-out, less intense area.

One caution on using focusing quartz lights: don’t count on getting a smooth, even pattern of light at every setting. Even at full flood you may find a hot spot or two. Before doing any really critical lighting, your best bet is to shine each light on the wall or the floor and run it through the whole range from spot to flood, noticing the light pattern at each setting.

Quartz lights, even on flood, put out a hard, direct light. This produces sharp-edged dark shadows, which are not always desirable, especially in people shots. To diffuse the light—to spread it out and produce softer, more flattering shadows—we can do one of two things: either put diffusing material, like spun glass, in front of the light; or bounce the light off a reflector-type surface, like a white wall or ceiling, or a silver-coated space blanket taped to the ceiling. Both methods work well, but they also reduce the amount of light reaching the subject.

Broads are non-focusing lights designed to put out a broad even light over a large area. They have no fine-tuning controls. All you do is turn them on and point them. The hard, direct light from a broad, like that from a focusing quartz, can be softened with diffusion material or by bouncing.

A softlight is a permanent, portable bounce light. It consists of a curved scoop, the inside of which is white or silver-colored. A broad-type lamp is mounted facing the scoop, so that its light bounces off the curved surface and out towards the subject.

The advantages of a softlight over a bounced light are convenience—you can use it anywhere, with no need for a wall or ceiling to bounce off—and control—it’s easier to direct the light exactly where you want it. However, it does take up more space.

Most lights, be they focusing, broads, or softlights, come with barn doors. These are little black flaps which are used to block off light from areas where you don’t want it, to shape the pattern of light you put out. They are very useful.

BASIC LIGHTING SETUP

The classic basic lighting setup is as follows:

First you place your key light (some call it the “main” light) to one side of the camera and at about a 45 degree angle above your subject. This is your main light, the basis for the rest of your lighting setup.

Unless you have a good reason, no area in your frame should be brighter than the area lit by the key light. Your viewers’ eyes are always attracted first to the brightest area of the frame. If that turns out to be the background, then your lighting isn’t working the way it should; or it’s working in a special way, which you should be aware of.

Set up your fill light on the opposite side of the subject from the key light. The fill should be bright enough to partially fill in the shadows from the key, leaving just enough shadows on the subject’s face to give a feeling of depth. (Completely shadowless lighting is called flat lighting and gives less sense of depth.)

Next, place your backlight. This falls on your subject’s head and shoulders from behind, creating a rim of light which visually separates him from the background. The backlight is especially useful when the subject’s hair or clothes are similar in color to the background.

Last but not least, place your background light. This brings the background up into the same range of illumination as the rest of the scene and gives an added sense of depth. As a general rule, it’s a good idea to have your background a little darker than your key area.

Well, you say, so now I know how to light one person. But how do I light two or three or more? And what happens if they start moving around? Well, you multiply the basic setup. You place a key light for every important area, then start building. It gets complicated, but if you just take it one step at a time you’ll do all right.

Often you’ll find you can cover more than one subject with the same key light. Or that the fall-off from one subject’s key light can serve as fill light on another subject. A single broad can provide backlight for several people.

To avoid multiple, unnatural-looking shadows on walls, keep your lights high and your subjects away from the walls. Keep in mind that shadows are less noticeable on dark-colored walls than on light-colored ones; so, sometimes a change of scenery can solve a lighting problem. Also, film shows more shadow detail than video; so for TV, you’ll have to throw more light into your shadow areas.

In the last few years, a lot of camerapersons—myself included—have begun lighting entire scenes with bounce light. It’s not dramatic lighting; but it is quick and efficient, and it looks natural in a lot of situations.

Really good lighting for TV and film is an art in itself. Please don’t take the basic lighting setup as gospel. Like the rule of thirds in composition, it’s a place to start—no more, no less.

The best advice I can give you for your first few lighting jobs is to be methodical. Go slow. Put up one light at a time and watch what it does. If you do get confused at some point, turn off all your lights. Then turn them on again one at a time, so you can see what each is doing and regain control.

8

SOUND

VIBRATING BODIES CREATE SPHERICAL SOUND WAVES

The sounds we speak are created by air from our lungs, passing over and vibrating the vocal cords in our necks. Every sound, whether it be a human voice or a tree falling in the forest, is caused by something vibrating. When an object vibrates, it moves back and forth in the surrounding air, creating waves which move outward, very similar to waves rippling away from fingers wiggling in a pond. The main difference is that while water waves primarily travel outward horizontally on the pond surface, sound waves travel outward in all directions, spherically.

The human eardrum is a thin membrane which vibrates when sound waves reach it. These vibrations are converted to nerve impulses and sent to the brain, where they are translated into sounds we “hear.”

Microphones are imitations of our ears. Every microphone has an “eardrum,” called a diaphragm, which vibrates when hit by sound waves. The vibrations are then converted to an electrical signal which can be broadcast or recorded. Loudspeakers are microphones working in reverse: electric signals vibrate a diaphragm to create sound waves.

The ear, and the microphone, can tell one sound from another by how close together the sound waves occur, and how big they are. The closeness of the waves is called the sound frequency; the size is called amplitude, which we perceive as loudness.

Sound frequency is measured in the number of complete waves, or cycles, that occur each second. Since the words “cycles per second” are not the same in all languages, it was decided to express frequency in Hertz, abbreviated Hz. (Hertz was a German physicist who discovered electromagnetic waves.) 60 Hz means 60 cycles or sound waves per second.

The higher the frequency—the number of waves or cycles per second—the shriller the sound. The lower the sound frequency, the lower or deeper the sound. Most human speech vibrates at frequencies between 80 Hz and 10,000 Hz, with most of the significant sounds occurring between 200 Hz and 2700 Hz. The average person can hear sounds from around 20 Hz to approximately 20,000 Hz.

The size of a sound wave—its amplitude—is determined by the intensity of the energy which creates it. As with pond waves, if you hit the water hard, you make a bigger wave; so if you shout you make a bigger sound wave than if you whisper. Our ears perceive the amplitude of a sound wave as loudness.

Sound intensity or loudness is measured in decibels, abbreviated dB. Most audio equipment uses VU (Volume Unit) meters to indicate the strength of a sound signal, as measured in dB. Zero dB on a VU meter is set at a scientifically determined sound level—close to where the average human can just not hear a 1000 Hz tone. Each increase of 3 dB indicates a doubling of the sound intensity. So 6 dB is twice as loud as 3 dB and 9 dB is four times as loud as 3 dB.

MICROPHONES

Film and video productions commonly use two basic types of microphones: dynamic, and electret condenser. Both have diaphragms or membranes that vibrate when hit by sound waves. Both then convert the vibrations into electrical signals.

In a dynamic microphone, the vibrating diaphragm moves a coil of wire inside a permanent magnet, creating an electric current. The current varies according to the strength and frequency of the sound waves moving the diaphragm. Dynamic microphones are very rugged and can produce excellent sound. They’re sometimes called moving coil microphones.

The diaphragm of an electret condenser microphone is actually one plate of a condenser, or capacitor. The diaphragm/plate and another plate hold an electric charge between them. As the diaphragm vibrates to sound waves, changing the distance between the two plates, a tiny electric current is created, varying according to the sound waves. A battery supplies power to amplify the signal to a usable level.

Because, unlike dynamic mikes, they don’t contain heavy permanent magnets, condenser mikes can be made very small and lightweight. They can produce excellent sound. However, they do require batteries, which wear out and die. So carry backups.

Microphone Pickup Patterns

A microphone’s pickup pattern is the area in which it is most sensitive to incoming sound waves. There are two basic types of pickup patterns, omnidirectional and directional.

An omnidirectional mike picks up sound equally well from every direction. This is the most common pickup pattern; it looks like a sphere with the microphone at the center.

The two most common types of directional pickup patterns are the cardioid and the supercardioid, or shotgun.

“Cardioid” comes from the Greek word meaning “heart-shaped.” A cardioid pickup pattern looks like a heart, with the pointed end indicating the area of greatest sensitivity, directly in front of the microphone.

The supercardioid mike is also called a shotgun mike; this is because the area of sensitivity is so narrow that, to pick up the correct sound, you have to aim the microphone like a shotgun directly at the source.

To eliminate or reduce unwanted sound hitting a directional microphone, angle the mike so the dead zone—the area of no sensitivity—is pointing at the unwanted sound. For example, tilting a supercardioid slightly upward, as pictured above, points the dead zone toward the floor, eliminating reflected sound from that direction.

Types of Microphones

Film and video productions use three common types of microphones. From smallest to largest, they are the lavalier, the hand mike, and the shotgun.

The lavalier is a small, electret condenser mike, normally designed with an omnidirectional pickup pattern. (Some lavaliers have cardioid pickup patterns.) Lavalier mikes are designed to be worn on the chest of the speaker, either hung by a cord, or attached with a clip. Placed so close to the sound source—the speaker’s mouth—they provide a very strong signal.

Sometimes you’ll want to hide a lavalier mike under a tie or shirt. This presents two problems. First, any movement of clothing across or near the mike will be picked up; so use tape to hold the mike firmly in place, and don’t hide it behind noisy materials, like silk. Secondly, anything you cover the mike with is going to block some of the incoming sound waves; so use porous, loose-knit material, like wool or cotton, that lets most of the sound through.

If you use a lavalier loose, off the chest, be aware that it will boost the higher frequencies, making voices sound shriller than normal. When a lavalier is worn on the chest, as it is designed to be, the boost compensates for the lack of high frequency voice tones under the chin.

The all-purpose hand mike is the most versatile and widely used in the industry. It can be either dynamic or condenser, with either an omnidirectional or a cardioid pickup pattern.

With a stand, it can also be used as a desk or platform microphone.

The supercardioid or shotgun mike takes its name from its pickup pattern, discussed above. It’s a great mike to use for distant sounds or in uncontrolled situations, like television news coverage. It’s also very useful on a boom or fishpole in controlled situations, such as dramatic productions.

The great advantage of the shotgun mike—its super-directionality—is also its greatest disadvantage. While it accepts sounds only within its narrow cone pickup pattern, it accepts all the sounds within that cone, in front of and behind your subject. A shotgun mike will pick up the voice of a man standing on the sidewalk across the street; unfortunately, it will also pick up the sound of cars passing in the foreground and the voices of people walking behind him.

In responding to lower frequencies, below 250 or 300 Hz, the shotgun mike’s pickup pattern is essentially cardioid. This means it picks up a lot of traffic noise, machine rumbles, and similar sounds. Most shotguns have a bass cutoff switch to filter out these frequencies.

Shotgun mikes are sensitive to sound echoes—reverberation. If you use one in a “live” room—one with lots of echoes—they’ll only worsen the problem.

Microphone Selection

Remember your viewers. Use the microphone that, under the circumstances, will best capture the sound you want your viewers to hear.

The surest way to get good, clean sound from one person talking is to use a lavalier mike. Complications arise when you want to hide the mike: rustling clothes, muted sound. Multiple miking—putting lavs on several people at the same time—also complicates the procedure. When using several microphones, try to have only one microphone “open” or on at a time.

For a spur-of-the-moment walking street interview with a politician, an omnidirectional hand mike is best—not because it gives the best sound, but because it gives the best sound under the circumstances. It’s almost impossible to not record something usable with an omnidirectional hand mike.

For uncontrolled documentary shooting, a shotgun is the microphone of choice. With it, you can record understandable, usable sound at any distance, from an inch to infinity. The sound may not always be perfect, but you’ll have something to work with.

The shotgun, used on a boom—an extendable arm-like microphone holder—can provide excellent sound for rehearsed, dramatic programs, or any other circumstance where a number of people are talking from known positions. The shotgun’s pickup pattern is so narrow that exact aiming is absolutely essential.

If I could have only one mike for all situations, I’d choose a dynamic hand mike with a cardioid pickup pattern. Dynamic for durability. Cardioid for the pickup pattern—selective but not too selective; you can be a little off in aiming and still cover the sound source. This mike works well as a hand mike, as a desk mike, and as a boom or fishpole mike.

Smart Phone and Tablet Microphones

The built-in mikes on smart phones and tablets are usually electret microphones with omnidirectional pickup patterns. They are designed primarily to record human voices at close distances, which they do very well. For better and more controlled sound recording, use an external mike.

SOUND WAVES BOUNCE

From the source, spherical sound waves travel straight out in all directions. When they hit a hard, non-porous surface, they bounce—like waves hitting the edge of a swimming pool.

Since sound waves bounce, you can bounce or reflect unwanted sounds away from your microphone. The most typical example is to position a subject’s body between the unwanted sound and the microphone. Other objects, like sun reflectors, work just as well.

A surface composed of many smaller surfaces facing different directions is said to be porous. When sound waves hit a porous surface, they bounce back and forth, getting smaller and smaller, in the same way pond waves disperse when they flow into a patch of reeds. Foam rubber, like that used in microphone windscreens, and thick felt are good examples of porous surfaces. Extremely porous surfaces, which completely eliminate sound waves, are said to be sound absorbent.

Sounds in any enclosed space, like a room, are reflected back and forth many times, getting progressively smaller and quieter as they die away, or decay. The total effect of the reflected sound waves is called reverberation. If a room is dead, with no reverberation, sounds die quickly, with no decay; they seem muffled and dull. In a well-designed sound studio, with good reverberation, sounds decay smoothly and quickly. A room with too much reverberation produces echoes—repetitions of the original sound.

A dead room can be livened up by adding hard reflective surfaces—tables, plastic screens, pieces of glass—and removing porous items, like upholstered furniture. If you can’t remove off-camera porous items, cover them with slick plastic sheets.

Excessive reverberation, or echo, can be muted by filling the room with many different surfaces—furniture, boxes, people—at different angles to each other. Cover hard surfaces with porous materials. Put carpet on the floor.

RECORD CLEAN SOUND

As a general rule, you’ll record cleaner, richer sound if you use a separate sound recorder. Record your sound as closely and as cleanly as possible, with the broadest possible frequency range.

Resist the temptation to filter or modify the frequency response of the sound as it is recorded. You can always cut frequencies later, but you can’t add them when you never recorded them in the first place. One exception: bass cut-off filters on shotgun mikes to eliminate traffic noise and other low-frequency noise.

If at all possible, use the same microphone or the same type of microphone to record all of an individual’s lines, no matter when or where you record them. The difference in sound quality from one type of mike to another can be noticeable and distracting.

Just as a good monitor is important for judging your images, so a good pair of sound-isolating headphones with a broad frequency response is important to judge your sound. Sound-isolating headphones completely surround the ears and let you hear only what you are recording.

When deciding how to frame a shot, consider not only the visual elements, but also sound. Sometimes a slight change of camera angle can greatly reduce a wind or noise problem. Moving a prop or piece of furniture can make it possible to get a mike closer to an actor. Modifying the route an actor walks through the set can make it easier to follow him with a boom mike.

WILD EFFECTS

Whenever there is a noticeable sound effect in a scene, such as a car starting, a door slamming, a machine running in the background, take a few extra seconds to record the same sound closeup, without picture. These effects are called wild effects, different from sync effects, which are recorded at the same time as the picture. Wild effects can substitute for sync effects that are low or muddled. They also add depth and continuity to your picture; unrelated shots of workers come alive and tie together when you add appropriate sound effects and background noise.

Closeup wild effects stand out; they add texture to your program. And, since they are clean and isolated, you can control them completely in the mix. As with pictures, you’ll do yourself and your editor a big favor if you slate all your wild effects, either by voice or—on video—visually.

You can do lots of things outside the camera frame to improve the quality of your sound. Put carpet on the floor. Hang blankets to reduce reflected sound. Use extra people as human windbreaks. If background and screen direction match, you can move an actor to a different, quieter area for the closeups.

When recording sound around professional movie and television lights, don’t let your mike cords run parallel and close to electrical cables—this will put a hum on your sound track. If you must lay a mike cord across an electrical cable, lay it at right angles; better still, raise it up on a bridge made from a box, a stool, or a chair.

RECORDING VOICES AND PRESENCE

Syncsound is sound recorded in synchronization with the camera, such as a person talking on camera. Voice-over is a narrative voice heard over the picture but not seen. When the same person is heard in syncsound and voice-over, try to record all the lines with the same mike and in the same place, so the quality of the voice will be consistent in the final program. If the syncsound is recorded in a noisy location, record the voice-over at the same time but in a place nearby that’s quieter.

If you record voice-over after the shoot, try to record the voice-over at the same time of day as you recorded the syncsound. People’s voices change noticeably over the course of a day; the same voice recorded in morning and afternoon can sound like two different people.

Presence, or ambience, is the sound of a location without any single sound predominating. For example, factory presence would be the muddle of different sounds you’d hear while standing in the middle of an assembly line. Lonely beach presence would be wind, waves, and bird noises.

If you’re recording dialogue, presence is the sound between the words. Whenever you finish recording your last dialogue scene at a particular location, leave the recorder set at the same level, tell everybody to hold still, and record thirty seconds of presence, preceded by an audio slate. This serves several purposes in the mix.

First, presence serves as an audio bridge to ease the transition when you cut from one location to another, or from syncsound to voice-over. Fade in extra presence before a cut, then fade it out afterward. This will smooth out sudden changes or cutoffs of background presence.

Presence can be used to fill the holes when you space out narration. You may think a studio recording is perfectly quiet, but if you lengthen a narrator’s pause by a few seconds and leave the pause completely noiseless, you’ll notice it. You need the recording booth’s presence to fill the space. Location presence is even noisier and more needed to fill in these open spaces in the voice track.

A presence recording helps in the cleaning up of sound tracks. For example, voice tracks recorded with air conditioner hum in the background are a common problem. Playing a continuous loop of the A/C presence, you can equalize (raise or lower selected frequencies) the sound track until you find the air conditioner frequencies and lower or eliminate them. You can then process the voice track through the same equalizer settings, filtering out the air conditioner noise. (Sometimes the A/C and the voice share frequencies, so you have to put frequencies back in to make the voice sound natural.)

VOICE-SLATE AND KEEP A SOUND LOG

If you record double-system sound, with a separate audio recorder, voice-slate everything you record. A voice-slate is a recorded description; without it, you have to guess what’s on the audio. For syncsound, the traditional clapstick slate provides both a voice-slate (“Scene one, Take one!”) and a common audio-visual sync point when the clapstick closes (CLAAAK!).

Keep a sound log, listing everything you’ve recorded, in the order you recorded it. This will help you quickly locate recorded material later, for use in editing. When shooting single-system video, you can either combine your sound log with your camera log, or keep a separate sound log, depending on the needs of the production.

As with the camera log, the sound log includes as little or as much information as you want to put in it. I recommend noting at least the scene and take number, the mike and recorder used, the location, time code if applicable, and a description of the sound recorded. Circle or otherwise mark the numbers of the good takes.

REMEMBER YOUR VIEWERS

The purpose of your program should be to get your viewers to react in a certain way. Keep this in mind when deciding what sounds to record and how. If you want to communicate a positive feeling about an industry you’re filming, record people talking in quiet areas; if you want to make your viewers uncomfortable, record workers shouting to be heard over a clamorous assembly line. If you need to present the assembly line in a positive way, show it with the sound mixed low under an off-camera narrator’s voice; or consider dubbing the assembly line workers’ voices. In the same way, you can make an office seem more chaotic by adding extra background telephones, file drawer sounds, and voices in the mix.

THE BEST SOUND RECORDING ADVICE I CAN GIVE YOU

Record your voices, sound effects, and presence separately and cleanly. This will give you maximum flexibility in your mix.

9

DOING IT

PLANNING AND SHOOTING A SEQUENCE

When planning a shoot, the first thing is to decide what you want to end up with. What sort of story do you want to tell? Who will be your audience? How do you want them to react? What things should you emphasize? What should you downplay? Keep all this in mind as you look over the location and talk with the people you’ll be working with.

Next, make a shooting plan, even if it’s only in your head. Decide where your camera and subjects will be for each shot. For relatively short sequences, your best bet is to shoot the whole thing all the way through in a wide shot, then repeat it in a medium shot, and again in a close-up. Then shoot your cutaways. This method takes up additional time on the set and can use up a lot of film, tape, or other media, but you can be sure you’ll have material for editing. It’s probably the best way to shoot your first few projects.

Later, after you have a better understanding of what you’re doing, you can try shooting all the way through in a wide shot, and then just repeating certain sections for medium shots, close-ups and cutaways. At this stage of the game, you’ll have to start thinking about slates.

A slate is simply a piece of identification, whether on a fancy clapboard or a scrap of paper. When you have many different shots to piece together in the editing, you need some way to quickly tell one from the other. That’s what slates are for. You write a scene number or a description on the slate, hold it in front of the camera, and run off a second or two of it before you shoot the scene.

Slates are wonderful things. They never forget, even if you do. Any time you have the slightest doubt that the editor might not know what a scene is or where it goes, use a slate to provide the necessary information. You should do this even if you’re going to edit everything yourself. In the first place, it’s good discipline. It forces you to think about how the pieces are going to fit together. Secondly, who wants to spend half an editing session wondering where this scene goes or where that one goes, when a simple slate would tell you in a second? Also, if you number various takes of the same scene, you can go immediately to the one marked best on your location notes, and not waste time reviewing bad takes. For more complicated shoots, seriously consider keeping a camera log with detailed scene and take descriptions.

SHOOTING SCRIPTS AND STORYBOARDS

Often it helps to make up a shooting script. This is simply a list of what you’re going to shoot and how you’re going to shoot it. For example:

VIDEO

AUDIO

1. WIDE SHOT. Salesman by car.

SALESMAN: Hiya folks. Let me tell you about the new Zootmobile!

2. MEDIUM SHOT. Salesman. PAN as he moves to sticker on window.

This car is the greatest! And cheap? I’ll tell you it’s cheap! Look at this sticker!

3. CLOSE-UP. Sticker.

25,000 drachmas! And that’s including tax, tag, and dealer prep!

4. WIDE SHOT. Salesman by car.

So come on down and buy one today. Okay? Okay!

Sometimes you can visualize better what you’re going to shoot if you make up a storyboard. A storyboard is a series of simple drawings—you can do them with stick figures—representing the shots you plan to make. Drawing a storyboard is like a free practice shoot—and it doesn’t use up any film or tape! For example:

SHOOTING OUT OF SEQUENCE

For some sequences, especially those involving a lot of lighting changes, there are advantages to shooting the scenes out of sequence—out of order.

Say, for example, that only the first thirty seconds and the last fifteen seconds of your sequence need to be shown in a wide shot. What you do is, set up for your wide shot, shoot the first thirty seconds, cut, then jump ahead and shoot the last fifteen seconds right then, without moving the camera. This way you’re finished once and for all with that camera position. Now you can move your lights, microphones and everything else around for your other shots. And you don’t have to worry about putting everything back again for the end wide shot—because you’ve already shot it!

Take another example. Say you have a sequence consisting of four scenes. You decide that Scenes 1 and 3 will be shot from Camera Position A. Scenes 2 and 4 will look best from Position B. If you have control of the situation, it makes a lot more sense to shoot Scene 1 from Position A, stay there and shoot Scene 3; and then move to Position B for Scenes 2 and 4. That way you move the camera one time. If you shoot the scenes in their natural order, you’ll move the camera three times: From A for Scene 1 to B for Scene 2 to A for Scene 3 to B for Scene 4.

When circumstances allow, you can save a lot of time and energy by shooting out of sequence. Just remember to plan well, and don’t forget your slates and camera log!

COMMUNICATING

Everybody has his or her own philosophy of working. I’d like to make a small pitch for mine.

I believe in communicating. I try to let everybody, from my assistants to the people who will appear on camera, know what we’re going to do. Before we start, I discuss the shooting plan, ask for suggestions, and let everybody look through the camera. I try to get across the idea that we’re all on the same team and we’re going to have fun. Most of the time, we do.

Of course, I also make it understood that, for the shoot to go smoothly, somebody has to be in charge—and that somebody is me. But since by this point everybody knows what we’re doing and why, mine can usually be a benevolent dictatorship.

WORKING IN UNCONTROLLED SITUATIONS

Sooner or later you’ll find yourself working in a totally uncontrolled situation. If you’re a television news cameraperson, you’ll be doing it every day. But you can still use what you’ve learned in this book.

You can always try for a decent composition. You can construct basic sequences by regularly changing your camera angle and image size, and by grabbing cutaways wherever you can—even if it’s the old standby of a closeup of another cameraperson. You can maintain your screen direction—and cover yourself with neutral shots when you cross the line. You can let your subject enter and exit the frame cleanly. You can still shoot great sequences—you just have to hustle more to get them.

Shooting in uncontrolled situations can be exciting and fun, especially when it’s all over and you know that in spite of everything you’ve got footage that works.

10

AFTER THE SHOOT—EDITING

THE HUMAN EYE AS EDITOR

The eye “edits” automatically by focusing on what interests it. Let’s go for an imaginary drive in your car. First you see a medium wide shot ahead of the road. Then you “cut” to a close-up of the speedometer and gauges. A quick medium shot to the right as you glance at your passenger. A zoom-in to a warning sign coming up. Get the idea? We see in terms of basic sequences.

Our angle of view is about 25 degrees:

The basic shot our eyes give us has an angle of view approximately 25 degrees wide. This is equivalent to what you see through the standard 50mm lens on a traditional 35mm still camera or a full frame digital camera. Through sideways peripheral vision, we can sense movement outside the 25 degree area but not visualize clearly what’s there.

Here’s an experiment to demonstrate the principles of editing. Find a room that has lots of visual interest—lots of things in it. Ask a friend to stand as far from you as possible while reading the next section aloud. Face your friend and follow the instructions exactly.

BEGIN EXPERIMENT—YOUR FRIEND SHOULD READ THE FOLLOWING ALOUD

“Look straight ahead and try to see as much of me and the room as you can. This is your establishing shot. Notice that as you change your area of interest, without moving your head, you can shift first to a medium shot of me from the waist up, then to a close-up of my face.

“As I slowly walk to my right, zoom back to a wider shot. Now, without moving your head, shift your eyes right for a cutaway of something else in the room. You can do all this comfortably.

“When I say ‘GO,’ move your whole head quickly to the left and look at what’s there. GO! When I say ‘GO,’ move your head quickly to the right and notice what’s there. GO!

“Each time you move your head quickly, you should feel a moment of softness, of perceptive hesitation, as your brain rushes to drink in the new visual information and absorb it. The fast image change makes your brain play catch-up.

“Now, when I say ‘GO,’ move your head slowly to the left and look at what’s there. GO!

“When I say ‘GO,’ move your head slowly to the right and look at what’s there. GO!

“When you move your head slowly, the new visual information is introduced gradually. Your brain has time to absorb it as it is introduced. When you finally get turned sideways, the image is complete in your mind.

“When I say ‘GO,’ cover your ears with your hands, count to three slowly; then remove your hands. GO!

“Now close your eyes. Without opening your eyes, move your head to your right. Look down. Now, open and close your eyes as fast as you can. What did you see? Now open your eyes and leave them open. Do you see anything now that you missed before?

“One last experiment. Look at your watch on your wrist. Now, without moving your head, move your wrist up and down rapidly and try to read the watch label. Now hold the watch still and read the time.”

END OF EXPERIMENT

This is the essence of editing. In the experiment your friend controlled what you saw and heard. She «edited» your reality. As a film or video editor, you edit the reality of your viewers—you control the window through which they see and hear the world of your program. Your choices of pictures and sounds determine how well your message gets across, and how the viewers react to it. The principles demonstrated in our experiment are the basic principles of editing.

To communicate clearly and tension-free, don’t surprise your viewers. Use an establishing shot to show them where everything is. Keep the camera still unless there’s a reason to move it. Remember how easy it was to focus on wide shots, medium shots and closeups of your friend without moving your head?

Give your viewers new images and sounds slowly enough for their brains to absorb them. If possible, lead into camera moves by following a known object moving within the frame, such as your friend walking across the room in our experiment. Use camera moves that ease in and ease out—remember the difference between moving your head fast and moving it slow?

If you present totally new information, give your viewers a little extra time to absorb it and feel comfortable with it. Remember opening your eyes for just a fraction of a second, then holding them open longer? You needed that extra time to absorb the new information.

In some circumstances, particularly in dramatic programs, you want to send a muddled message or create tension. You want to make the editing style itself part of your message. To do this, you deliberately surprise your viewers. You push unfamiliar images and sounds on them faster than their brains can absorb them. You cut to new scenes without clear establishing shots. You cut quickly from one shot to another. You make fast, jerky camera moves. You use unsteady camera frames, blurred images, indistinct or distorted sound. These are all valid techniques, as long as they are intentional, and not simply bad work on your part.

READ THE SCRIPT. DIVORCE THE DIRECTOR.

Beginning editors want to jump right into cutting. This is a mistake. First, read your script and make sure you understand perfectly how your viewers are supposed to react to the program. Base all your editing decisions on the question, “Is this the best way to make my viewers react the way I want them to?” As you work, visualize your viewers watching each cut.

Start the editing process by divorcing yourself from the person who directed the program, even if that person is you. Think of him or her as some stranger whose ideas and shots you will judge strictly on their own merit. Look at the script and the pictures and sounds as if for the first time. If you were the director or cameraperson, it helps if you can schedule the end of shooting and the beginning of editing a few weeks apart.

I’ve seen many programs weakened in the editing because a director was personally attached to a concept, a shot, or a sequence that simply didn’t work on the screen. This usually happens when the director can’t separate the idea or the shot from the attached memories.

Remember all those ideas you, as director, had about how certain scenes would be edited together? Remember how you stayed up late working out concepts in your head, then overslept and missed breakfast? Forget everything except the ideas. Consider them fresh, as if someone else had thought of them. Then, if they don’t work, throw them out. So you lost some sleep and missed breakfast; what has that got to do with getting your viewers to react in a certain way? Nothing. It’s excess baggage; throw it out.

Remember how much trouble you had getting that one incredibly beautiful shot? Look at it now as simply a shot that either works or doesn’t work toward your program’s goals. Your viewers don’t care how much trouble you had getting the camera into position and waiting for just the right light; they don’t care that it took you two months to get permission to film at that location. That’s all off-screen; all that matters is what the viewers see on the screen, in the window that you control. If a shot doesn’t work there—if it doesn’t move your viewers the way it’s supposed to—toss it.

GOOD LOG = GOOD EDIT

Log all material with as much detail as possible, either in the field with a logger program or later before you start editing. In your descriptions, use consistent key words, like identifying every scene as “Scene #_.” Use the same abbreviations, like “MS,” “LS,” etc. Try to use the same descriptive terms, like “good” to describe usable takes and “NG” for no good takes. If you have a script, use key words from the script in your log descriptions.

I suggest you spend as much time as possible viewing and reviewing before you start cutting. The better you know your pictures and sounds, the more effectively you’ll be able to edit them together.

When you start to edit, use your video editing program’s search function to find only usable takes. For example, search for “Scene #23, Joe, MS, good,” and you’ll call up only clips whose log entries contain those words. Don’t waste time on bad takes.

PAPER EDITS

Unscripted sequences and programs are the most fun to edit, because they’re actually written in the editing. As you view the material, make a detailed log (or add your own notes to a copy of the camera/sound log). Look for your most powerful pictures and sounds—save them for the beginning and end of your program and to liven up the middle. Look for connections between scenes—similar colors, moves, sounds, dialogue. Then do a paper edit.

A paper edit is a script constructed from cut-up sections of an editing log. You arrange and rearrange your material on a big table or the floor until it works as a script. (You can use a computer word processor or spreadsheet to do a virtual paper edit on screen, but you won’t have the same big work space as you would working with actual paper slips.)

Think of yourself as a scriptwriter who is reconstructing a wonderful script that somehow got cut into pieces and mixed up. Use all the techniques of style and shape and texture that a scriptwriter would use. Design a program that makes your viewers react the way you want them to. Then tape together all the sections in their new order and proceed to edit, using the paper edit as you would a formal script.

A good paper edit makes it possible for a documentary to move your viewers as well or better than the most tightly scripted dramatic program.

Please, please don’t make the mistake of editing a documentary or other unscripted program without a good log and a paper edit. You will waste a lot of time and probably find yourself at two o’clock in the morning with five minutes remaining in the program and no material left to fill it with. That’s the beauty of a paper edit; it lets you make the most of what you’ve got.

ESTABLISH YOUR PROGRAM’S WORLD, THEN RE-ESTABLISH IT

As an editor, your first priority is to establish the world of the program for your viewers, to introduce them to this new reality and make them comfortable in it. If they are wondering where they are, they’re not thinking about your message. Show them an establishing shot within the first few shots of a sequence.

Narration or dialogue can serve just as well as a visual to let your viewers know where they are: “As we look through a high-powered microscope, we can see the virus . . .”

Previous, related shots can help establish a new location: after several sequences about biological labs, your viewers will assume that a white-coated person shown in medium close-up is another lab person, even without another wide shot of a lab.

If your viewers are already familiar with the subject, they can figure out where they are based on less information from you. For example, a program for mechanics on engine rebuilding can begin with the engine already out of the car; you can assume your mechanic/viewers will know immediately what an engine is and where it came from.

After you establish, re-establish frequently. Editing is a sequential process, one scene after the other, always moving forward. Most people can’t remember the visuals of more than two or three scenes back. A series of closeups, with no visual reminders of screen geography, can disorient your viewers and suck them into a perceptual tunnel; they’ll spend more time trying to figure out where they are than paying attention to what you’re telling them. So cut back to a wider shot from time to time to remind your viewers where everything is. This will keep their feet on the ground and their attention on the contents of your program.

LOOK FOR BASIC SEQUENCES, THEN USE THEM

If the director shot basic sequences, use them. A basic sequence—cutting back and forth between related shots in the same location—mimics the way your viewers see life around them every day. It communicates information better than a series of unrelated scenes, each coming as a surprise to your viewers.

If no basic sequences were shot, look for pictures and sounds that can be edited together in the form of basic sequences. For example, a series of interviews with teachers at a school, all shot in similar locations with similar camera framings, and with no cutaways. Rather than cut from one head-and-shoulders shot to the next, find cutaways to put between them. Let’s say Teacher #1 talks about science classes, while Teacher #2 talks about student discipline. Finish Teacher #1’s comments off-camera over a shot of students working in a lab. Start Teacher #2’s comments over the same shot, then continue with Teacher #2 on camera. The shot of the students is a natural cutaway for both interviews, as well as a natural link. The final effect is of one continuous interview with a cutaway, rather than two separate talking heads.

THE GREAT UNDERLYING RULE OF EDITING: MAKE SURE EACH NEW SHOT IS DIFFERENT

Imagine yourself at a wedding reception, moving down a receiving line that’s so crowded you can just barely see the person in front of you. After being introduced to a man and shaking his hand, you move down one person—and meet the same man again! Well, actually it’s his identical twin. When you meet the second twin, you do a double take. Why? Because you were expecting each person in line to look different. In your momentary confusion, you have to ask the second twin to repeat his name. The same phenomenon applies to editing.

Each time you cut to a new shot, your viewers expect to see something different. If the new shot is very similar to the old shot, they are momentarily confused and their attention is jarred away from your program’s content. Therefore, as a general rule, each new shot should be clearly different—in content, framing, or both from the previous shot. The elements of a basic sequence—wide shot, medium shot, closeup, and cutaway—while similar in content, must be clearly different in framing and camera angle or they won’t cut together smoothly.

PACING—HOW FAST THINGS CHANGE

Pacing is the rate at which you change your pictures and sounds. A good editor gently leads his or her viewers from shot to shot without distracting them from the program’s content. If the content of your program is totally interesting to the viewers, do nothing; no one got bored looking at that single camera shot of the first men on the moon.

There are only two reasons to change your pictures and sounds: to better communicate your program’s message, or to keep the viewers’ interest. Never cut just to be cutting. The general rule is to stay with a shot as long as it’s effective in getting your message across or keeping your viewers interested, then cut to something new. To know when to cut, you have to know your viewers and how you want them to react.

A good editor anticipates his or her viewers. Before the viewers can begin to drift away, the editor shows them a new reason for staying. The editor does a dance with the viewers’ attention, giving a gentle tug from time to time to keep them in step with the program.

To give something importance, show it longer. This is the visual equivalent of drawing out a phrase in conversation. For example, “a hundred dollars” said quickly is peanuts; but “A HUHHHHHHNDRED DAWWWWWWWWWLARS” is a lot of money. A sequence about dental hygiene will have more impact if you linger a beat or two on a closeup of a decayed tooth, rather than skip quickly past.

To give something importance, show it more often. Repetition works. How well would you know your multiplication tables if you hadn’t repeated them umpteen times? Show a safety technique one time, and your viewers might remember it. Show it a second or third time, in slightly different ways, and they will remember it better.

If you’re presenting new or complicated information, cut slower; give your viewers more time to absorb your message. If you cut to a new scene before your viewers totally understand what’s on the screen at the moment, you’ll frustrate them. For example, an introductory film on any subject should be more slowly paced than an intermediate film on the same subject; the intermediate information will already be somewhat familiar to your viewers.

USE AN APPROPRIATE EDITING STYLE

The goal of any video program should be to make your viewers react to the program’s content or message the way you want them to. Style is the way you deliver that content or message to your viewers.

Your editing style is determined by the pictures and sounds you select, the order in which you present them to your viewers, and how fast you change from one picture or sound to the next—pacing.

Your editing style should complement the style already established by your script, the director, and the cameraperson. If your program is well-written, well-directed, and well-shot, follow the editing rules I’ve discussed: establish and re-establish, use basic sequences, make every new shot different, and match your pacing to your viewers’ interest. If you do this, your editing style will be invisible and your viewers will get your program’s message loud and clear.

If the material you’re given to edit is less than perfect, you can make it work better by breaking the rules and increasing tension—giving your viewers a nudge from time to time to keep them alert and interested. This is a delicate operation.

To increase tension, cut faster than expected, use unusually framed shots, cut to unexpected shots, use jump cuts. A jump cut is when you cut, for example, from a wide shot of a man with his arm up to a closeup of the same man with his arm down; on the scene change, the arm “jumps” down. This is also called bad continuity.

Try to synchronize the amount of tension you inject with the rising and falling of your viewers’ interest. You might precede a sequence of unavoidably dull instruction with a sequence cut progressively quicker, to subtly stimulate your viewers. Or you could raise the background music level at the beginning of the dull sequence to make your viewers strain slightly to understand the narrator, thus involuntarily paying more attention.

Most viewers are accustomed to seeing a dissolve or a fullscreen visual effect used to indicate a change in time, place, or subject matter. However, if you use these visual effects for any other purpose, or if you use them excessively, they call attention away from your program’s message. The exception is when these and other visual effects are used in montages, commercials, music videos, and television news and sports. In these instances visual effects are meant to call attention to themselves; they’re part of the message. Used for that purpose, they’re very effective.

There is a limit to what the editor can do to make a program work. If the writing, directing, and camerawork are bad, no amount of editing tricks can save it. You can’t make a gourmet meal from garbage, nor can you edit a good program from poor material.

Summary: With the exception of montages, the best editing style is usually transparent and not noticed. If you want your editing style to be noticed—if it’s supposed to intentionally form part of your message—then go ahead and break the rules. But be sure, first, that you know your viewers and, second, that they are going to react the way you want them to.

SOUND IN EDITING

Sound is an excellent connecting device across cuts. L-cuts are particularly useful in dialogue scenes and for linking documentary elements together. They are the basic technique for interweaving pictures and sounds to add texture.

If Person A is talking to Person B, cut to the picture of B listening to the last of A’s dialogue, then B begins to talk. Just before B finishes, cut to picture of A listening, then A begins to talk. These are L-Cuts.

L-Cuts give your program texture and forward movement. First, they tease your viewers with a picture that doesn’t match the sound they’re hearing; then they immediately satisfy their curiosity, drawing them into the next scene.

When B interrupts A, use a Reverse-L cut. Cut to B’s sound while still seeing A’s picture, then cut to B’s picture.

The Reverse-L is also called a telegraph cut, because it gives your viewers an early hint of what’s to come. It smooths an edit by cutting first to the incoming scene’s sound, then later to the new picture. I use Reverse-L’s to bring in the background sound or music of a new scene early. By first cutting in new sound, then new picture, the transition is less noticeable than cutting straight to both new sound and new picture at the same time.

I’ve already mentioned the use of narration or dialogue to help establish a sequence. Other types of sound—presence and sound effects—can also help establish. For example, if assembly line noise continues over several very different shots, your viewers can assume they’re still in the same area. If the noise continues, but at a lower level, over a shot of a man working at a desk, your viewers can assume the man is somewhere nearby in the same factory.

BACKGROUND MUSIC

Most music used in editing is in the background. Like other aspects of editing, background music is most effective when it is neither noticed nor remembered by your viewers. Nonetheless, it plays a very important role.

Background music can help to convey a mood or to reinforce your program’s message. Your viewers will associate their feelings about the music with what they’re seeing on the screen. For example, when demonstrating safe work procedures, use upbeat and positive music. When demonstrating bad work habits, use strident, even discordant music, to reinforce your negative narrative and visual message.

Background music can give forward momentum to your program. Dull pictures and narration can come alive when coupled with an optimistic, peppy piece of music.

Background music can give cohesion and order to your program. When the same piece of music covers a series of unrelated shots, your viewers know instinctively that they have something in common and adjust their frame of mind accordingly.

SELECTING AND CUTTING LIBRARY MUSIC

Background music is like plumbing: its function is more important than its beauty. To function properly, background music must be consistent in theme and volume, and it must stay in the background. Most commercial music has too many variations—too many noticeable peaks and valleys—to serve as background music. Your best bet is library music—music specially composed for use in film and television programs.

There are thousands of pieces of excellent library music available. Most editing houses have at least one collection on hand. The license fee you pay is usually less than the cost of commercial music rights, and much less than original music.

When searching library music, keep your mind open; often a selection you listen to for one purpose will actually work better somewhere else in the program. The most important thing is to find music that conveys the mood of your program and that doesn’t clash with your voice track. Try to find pieces of music that all have similar instrumentation and style, especially when one selection is going to pick up immediately after another ends. If the selections will be separated in the final program, this isn’t as important.

Many pieces of library music begin and end with musically neutral percussion sections; this makes transitions easier. Also, a strong sound effect or piece of dialogue can blanket a musical change and make it less noticeable. Or you can do a musical dissolve in the mix, fading the old music out while fading the new music in. This is called a segue, pronounced SEG-way.

There are three basic ways to edit a piece of library music into your program sound tracks. You can head-sync it, starting the music where the picture section starts, then fade the music out at the end of the section. You can tail-sync the music, lining it up so it ends when the picture section ends, then fade it in at the beginning of the section. Or—what I usually do—you can cut the music selection in the middle, head-sync the front half on one track, tail-sync the back half on another track, and do a segue or a cut where they cross and sound similar. If you do the segue or cut under a piece of dialogue or a sound effect, it won’t even be noticed.

If you have the budget for original music, plan for it the same way you would plan to select library music; write out all your requirements as clearly as possible, and show the composer the edited program. Sometimes it helps the composer if you show him some library or commercial music that is similar to what you want. Most importantly, don’t let the composer get carried away and create background music that pushes out and calls attention to itself when it shouldn’t.

SOUND MIXING—SEPARATE YOUR TRACKS

A sound mix has two basic objectives: 1) to improve the quality and effectiveness of your original sound recordings; and 2) to mix all your sound elements—voice, music and sound effects—together in such a way that they help get your message across to the viewers. Both objectives are best served by separating your sound elements off onto as many separate audio tracks as possible.

By having a sound element on its own separate track, you have maximum control over it. If, in the recording of a conversation, Person A talks very loud and Person B talks very softly, you will be continually adjusting the volume up and down during the mix to maintain a consistent sound level. However, if Person A’s voice is put on one track and Person B’s on another, then you can set a separate volume level for each track and leave it there. You can also equalize—modify different frequencies—Person A’s voice without affecting Person B.

YOUR LAST STEP: DIVORCE THE EDITOR

Just as the director going into editing must divorce himself from everything except what works in the editing, so you as the editor must divorce yourself from your edited work in order to judge it properly.

The ideal is to put the edited program on the shelf, walk away, and come back a month later to look at it. You usually can’t do that. The alternative is to try to blank your mind and look at the program as if you never saw it before. Judge everything by one standard—does it deliver my message to my viewers? Will they react to this the way I want them to? Throw out or change anything that doesn’t meet the standard.

If possible, show the program to viewers similar to your target viewers. Listen to their opinions. Don’t be quick to discard any suggestion; even the stupidest remark can tell you something about how your program is working.

SOME FINAL WORDS

Making moving pictures is a subjective art. There are no absolute rights and wrongs. But there are some things that usually work—like the things I’ve explained to you in this book.

If you want to stray from the basics, fine. Just be sure you understand what you’re doing and why; otherwise you lose control of your work and confuse your viewers. Until you’re really sure of yourself, shoot a basic sequence for protection before going all out artsy-craftsy. You’ll be glad you did.

Learn to welcome criticism of your work. And learn to criticize yourself. It’s the only way to progress. Every criticism, no matter how ridiculous it may seem, can tell you something about your work.

Don’t bask in your successes—analyze them and find out why they worked, so you can repeat them. Use the same process to evaluate and learn from your failures. Professionalism is based on the ability to repeat your successes, and avoid repeating your failures.

I hope my book has helped you, and I wish you happy filmmaking!

EXERCISES

By Chuck Delaney

The Bare Bones Camera Course covers all the composition techniques, types of shots and sequences, camera moves, and lighting strategies that a student of film and video needs to know to create compelling work. However, before you embark on making your masterpiece (or even your first production), a wise first step is to practice what you’ve learned so you start to feel comfortable putting your new knowledge to use.

If you’re reading this book as part of a course you’re taking, you may have homework and assignments that have been prepared by your teacher. But if you don’t, or if you’re reading this book as a self-study project, you can use these exercises to improve your skills before you undertake your first full-fledged production.

To complete these exercises, you can use any device that records video. If you have other equipment such as a tripod or lights, please use what you have. Because recording good sound usually requires use of a microphone, there are no exercises that require recording sound, but feel free to do so if you have the equipment.

To build a basic sequence, you’ll need to use some kind of editing program so that you can splice your shots together and view them in a sequence. If you’re using a smart phone or tablet to record your video, you can find an application that will allow you to do this either for free or for a few dollars. If you’re using a digital camera, you’ll need to acquire basic editing software that is compatible with your equipment and your computer.

For some of the exercises, you’ll need one or two “actors” to work with you. Ask family, friends, or acquaintances to help you out. There’s no need to involve yourself with wardrobe, hair, and makeup, but if you feel like making the effort to get involved with those elements, you’ll find the experience that much more valuable. It may also help your actors relax and put on a better performance in front of the camera.

Like any kind of exercise, the more you put into these, the more you’ll get out of them.

After you complete the exercises, you can evaluate them in two ways—by watching them yourself and analyzing what you could do to improve on them, or by showing them to interested family or friends, explaining what you did and why, and asking for their comments.

EXERCISE 1: COMPOSITION

Record a short (3 to 7 seconds) clip of an outdoor scene with one principal subject. First, place the subject in the exact center of the frame. Then, reframe the scene by moving your camera or changing your position to use the rule of thirds (Chapter 2) to place the principal subject in one of the key positions shown. Record a short clip.

Find a second subject that’s either closer to the camera or further away than the first subject. Record two clips, one with the subject centered and the other using a different one of the four placement points of the rule of thirds.

EXERCISE 2: BALANCE

Review the section on balance (Chapter 2) and then record two short clips of two different subjects.

First, pick a subject that doesn’t move and record a clip with the subject centered in the frame and then adjust the frame to provide proper balance. This can be a person looking out of the frame or an object that requires balance.

Second, select a moving subject, such as a car, that will require you to pan (Chapter 5) to keep the subject in the same portion of the frame. Record the first clip with the moving subject in the center of the frame and the second clip placing the subject in the frame in a way that will give balance to the shot. Because panning with a moving subject takes some practice, you may want to do this several times. Remember to move from an uncomfortable position to a comfortable position.

EXERCISE 3: BALANCE – COLORS

Review the section on balancing colors (Chapter 2). Use one of your actors as the subject and place your subject against backgrounds of different colors, both neutral (white, gray, and black) and bright colors. Record short clips of the different combinations and then review to see which ones provide a sense of balance that places emphasis on your subject rather than the background.

Balance is to some degree a subjective thing. The more combinations you try, the more you’ll learn. Since you’re going to enlist the help of one of your volunteer actors, this exercise will work much better if you spend a few days looking for locations and making notes on the locations and backgrounds you want to use so that you can take your actor directly to them rather than wandering around looking for backgrounds with your actor in tow.

Hint: Color balance will also be affected by the color of the clothing your actor is wearing. If you want to learn the most about this type of balance, have your actor bring two different shirts or sweaters, one a neutral color such as gray, and the other a bright loud color such as yellow, red, or blue.

Finally, these concepts of balance can also be broken. For example, a background that calls attention to itself can be used as a way to camouflage your subject for a few seconds in a shot until sound or movement calls attention to your subject. Feel free to experiment with breaking the rules.

EXERCISE 4: ANGLES

As you read in Chapter 2, film and video images have just two dimensions. The third dimension—depth—can only be implied. One of the most important ways to accomplish this is to select an angle that gives the illusion of depth to your subject.

First, record two clips of two different objects. In the first clip, use a camera position that views the subject directly and doesn’t give a sense of depth. In the second clip, use a camera position that adds a sense of depth to your subject.

Second, you should record one or more clips using one of your actors. The first should be made while holding the camera at eye level. Then, record clips of the same subject from an extremely low (worm’s eye view) angle, and a very high (bird’s eye view).

EXERCISE 5: FRAMES

Framing is a very useful way to guide the viewer’s eye into the scene and to give emphasis to your subject. Either using an actor or looking for other subjects, spend thirty to sixty minutes walking around your neighborhood finding existing framing elements. After you identify a usable frame, record two clips of your subject, one without the frame as part of the scene, and a second placing the frame in the scene.

Try to locate three different framing opportunities within the allotted time. This isn’t easy so you’ll have to look closely to see possibilities. You can only use a conspirator to hold a prop frame (see illustration on page 39) for one of the three examples that you record.

As with Exercise 3, if you use an actor, it may be considerate on your part to scout locations before you involve the actor. Many filmmakers keep a camera or smartphone with them at all times to make still photographs of possible locations for reference and possible future use.

EXERCISE 6: LEADING LINES

These can be hard to spot when you first start looking for them. Review the examples in Chapter 2. For this exercise, record three medium or wide shots that use leading lines to steer the viewer’s eye to your intended subject. Remember that this will often require careful selection of your camera position and angle, or possibly moving things within the frame. You do not need to bother recording examples of the situations shown in the chapter that are “not very good.” Concentrate on seeing the possibilities. Railroad tracks and fences are always a good place to start in your search for leading lines.

EXERCISE 7: BACKGROUNDS—BOTH INTERESTING AND DISTRACTING

Backgrounds can provide different functions in the images you record.

The first skill to master is learning to select backgrounds that don’t distract your viewer from the principal subject in the frame.

First, review the examples in Chapter 2 and then record short clips in medium and wide shots that capture your subject against bland backgrounds.

Second, find ways to keep the viewer’s attention on your subject using techniques to separate your subject from a busy background. If your camera permits, try using shallow depth of field to throw the background out of focus. You can also experiment with using different angles to separate your subject from the background.

Third, framing a medium shot, find ways to record your subject while moving your subject or changing your camera angle to hide a distracting background element behind your subject. For this exercise, record your subject first with the distracting element in the frame, and then apply the correction to remove the distracting element.

Finally, let’s do a little research to see how effectively these rules can be broken. One of the best examples can be seen in the portraits painted by Vincent Van Gogh. Use the Internet or a take a trip to the library to look at Van Gogh’s self-portraits as well as the portraits of La Berceuse and Postman Joseph Roulin. Van Gogh painted each of these subjects many times. Many of the portraits intentionally place the subject in front of very busy backgrounds. In the self-portraits these backgrounds convey a sense of the agitated state of mind that sometimes overtook the painter.

Using one of your actors, find an extremely busy background and see what kind of medium-shot portraits you can create that breaks the rules but works.

EXERCISE 8: BASIC SHOTS

Select an outdoor location with a subject that interests you. Review the description of the basic shots in Chapter 3. The subject could be an object, or one or both of your actors. Record a series of the basic shots of your subject in the same location.

•   Wide (Establishing)

•   Medium

•   Close-up

Try several different versions for each. Keep an eye out for the best backgrounds that work with your subjects and don’t distract from the appearance of the scene.

EXERCISE 9: BASIC SEQUENCE

This is where you are going to start to put everything together. Review the illustrations and explanations in Chapter 3. Then, using your two actors, record the different shots to create a basic sequence. In addition to the basic shots that you made in Exercise 8, you can make some new ones as well. Also, make sure to record a few cutaways. At this point, you should work with static shots. Camera moves can be introduced later after you have mastered creating a basic sequence using static shots. Even though the sound recording options available to you may be primitive, have the subjects engage in a bit of conversation. If you’re working outdoors, try to avoid a windy day, which can garble the sound.

Remember to vary the shots by changing both image size and camera angle. Pay particular attention to the 45 degree angle positions as illustrated on page 52.

Editing: Once you’ve recorded several takes of each of your basic sequence shots, as well as some cutaways, it’s time to edit them together to create the actual sequence. Don’t be surprised if this is a bit rough at first and some of the edits make the sequence look a bit awkward. If editing were that easy, everyone would be an editor. After your first attempt to assemble a sequence, you may want to make retakes of some of your shots. If that’s the case, review the information in Chapter 3 regarding cutting on the action and clean entrance—clean exit to make sure the clips you record give you the best options in the editing process.

If you’re using a location to record your basic sequence that you also used for earlier exercises, you may have some cutaway options from those earlier clips.

In addition, while there isn’t a specific exercise related to the problems that are created for the viewer if the camera position crosses the line, you should make the effort to record several medium shots that could be placed in the basic sequence that do cross the line so you can see for yourself how that situation does confuse the viewer. Cut a basic sequence with a shot that crosses the line so you can get a sense of how it works with moving images.

Since you’re now looking at the shots you’ve recorded through the eye of an editor, apply the lessons learned in the editing process to the retakes. Re-read Chapter 10 as you go.

Chances are that you’ll encounter a jump cut or two, but that’s all part of the learning process. While your first efforts editing together a basic sequence may be a bit rough, don’t let this bother you. Instead, look at how far you’ve already come.

Reviewing this exercise with family, friends, or your actors is especially important so you can explain to them what you were trying to do. You’ll find that other pairs of eyes often offer helpful suggestions.

EXERCISE 10: CAMERA MOVES

Review Chapter 5. It’s time to unleash your camera. While the various different camera moves (and combinations of moves) can add a great deal to your production, pay heed to the cautionary note in that chapter that too much movement can get in the way of telling your story and become a distraction.

Remember that camera moves have several purposes. One is to add motion to the scene in a way that enhances the viewer’s interest. Another is to reveal portions of the scene after a shot has begun. Another is to take the viewer from one location to another within a single shot. All of these can be accomplished by using either zooming in or out, panning from left to right or vice versa, and tilting the camera to raise or lower the view in the frame.

As discussed in Chapter 5, two different types of moves can be used in the same shot, although this takes a lot of practice and can create challenges in the editing process.

For this exercise, you should use your experience that you’ve gained in all the previous exercises. First, record some basic moves. If your camera has a zoom function, you can practice zooming in on a subject. Find another subject and zoom out to reveal more of the scene. Try using different pan and tilt moves to control what the viewer sees.

If your actors are available, try re-shooting parts of your basic sequence with a move included. For example, you could start with a medium shot and then zoom out to a wide angle shot to establish the scene rather than starting at wide angle.

EXERCISE 11: MAKE A MONTAGE

You can create very effective montages that can help tell a story within your production. For this exercise, you can set out to create a new montage by making very short (one or two second) clips of different subjects. Try to establish a theme that makes sense within the production. If, for example, the story involves a character visiting Las Vegas (or your hometown) a montage of signs that identify the location will be very effective.

Another montage could establish a particular place—a park, a zoo, or a waterfall. You may be able to create a montage from short bits of the various clips you created for earlier exercises.

EXERCISE 12: LIGHTING PRACTICE

Outdoor Lighting

First, select an outdoor location that you can visit at several different times of day without having to make a lengthy journey to get there.

Record wide and medium shots of the location you’ve selected under various lighting conditions. Mark the spot where you positioned yourself in some way so that when you return you can record the same two shots from the same position:

•   Early or late in the day on a sunny day that will show long shadows

•   Mid-day on a sunny day with the sun overhead

•   The same scene mid-day on a cloudy day

•   The same scene at twilight

•   The same scene in the rain or snow

Study how the appearance of that location changes in each of these different lighting conditions.

Second, using one of your actors as a subject and the second actor as an assistant, you’re going to work with a reflector. To start, you need to create a simple reflector using either cardboard covered with aluminum foil, or purchase a piece of white poster board from an office supply store. A reflector that’s about two feet by three feet is large enough for close-up and medium shots. A white reflector will cast a softer light and a board covered with aluminum foil will cast a brighter light.

Experiment with medium and close-up shots taken in sunshine using the reflector to fill in the shadows on your subject’s face. Record a clip without the reflector and one with the reflector. You will need to direct your assistant to position the reflector in a way that affects the shadows.

Using a reflector can be extremely helpful when the sun is behind your subject. Without a reflector to fill in the shadowed area that covers the entire face, the subject will appear too dark relative to the rest of the scene.

Indoor Lighting

If you have lighting equipment, try bounce lighting to provide a softer illumination. Also, when recording images indoors, it’s possible to make very effective use of window light. While this could include sunlight streaming in from a window with southern exposure, the soft light of a window that does not have direct sunlight streaming in is often more effective and provides good illumination for close-up and medium shots. You can use a reflector to fill in shadows on the portion of the subject that isn’t facing the window.

With these lighting exercises, the goal is for you to start to see the wide range of possibilities that exist in different kinds of lighting, both outdoors and indoors. As you progress in your storytelling endeavors, you may want to consider investing in some lighting equipment, although a great deal can be accomplished using sunlight outdoors and available light indoors.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tom Schroeppel worked in film and video for more than thirty years as a freelance writer, director, cameraman, and editor. He also trained news crews at television stations in Latin America and the Caribbean.

INDEX

A

Action, cutting on the, 55–56

Ambience, 107

Amplitude, 93, 94

Angles, camera, 36–38

Aperture, lens, 4, 5, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 21

ASA, 10

Axis, of action, 61, 69

B

Background light, 89

Background music, 135–136

Backgrounds, distracting, 41–44

Backlight, 9, 82, 88, 89

Balance

colors, 33–35

masses, 32–33

white, 8

Barn doors, 87

Bounce light, 85, 86, 90

Broad light, 85–86

C

Camera

movie, 2, 3

still, 2, 76, 120, 122

television, 3

Cardioid pickup pattern, 97

CCD, charge coupled device, 3, 4, 7, 14

Close-up, 49, 53, 57, 58, 70, 71, 72, 113, 158, 159

Color temperature, 6–8, 10–11

film, 7

television, 33

Colors, balance, 33–35

Composition, 25–45

Cutaway, 50

D

Decibels, 94

Depth of field, 19–23

Diaphragm, 92

Dichroic filter, 83

Direction, screen, 61–72

Directional pickup pattern, 96–97

Dynamic microphones, 94–96

E

Editing

demostrating principles of, 120–123

paper edits, 125–126

rule of, 129

sound, 133–135

Editor, human eye as, 119–120

El, Exposure Index, 10

Electret condenser microphone, 94–96

Entrance, clean, 56–60

Exit, clean, 56–60

Exposure, film, 4–6

Eye, human, 119–120

Eyepiece, focusing, 17–18

F

F/stops, 4, 5

Fill light, 82, 83, 84, 88, 89

Film, 9–10

Filters

color, 7

dichroic, 83

Focal length, 14, 18, 20

Focus, 17–18

Frames, within the frame, 38–39

Frequency, 93

H

Hand mike, 100

Hertz, 93

I

ISO, 9–10

K

Key light, 88, 89

L

L-Cuts, 133, 134

Lavalier, 98–99

Lens, camera

normal, 14, 20

telephoto, 14, 15, 20

wide angle, 14, 15, 16, 20

zoom, 18–19

Lens, human eye, 13–16

Library music, selecting and cutting, 136–137

Light meters, 11–13

Light, color of. See Color temperature

Lighting

background light, 89

backlight, 9, 82, 88, 89

basic setup, 87–90

bounce lighting, 85, 86, 90

broad light, 85–86

exterior lighting, 81–84

fill light, 83–84

focusing quartz, 84–86

interior lighting, 84–87

key light, 88–89

sidelight, 82

softlight, 84, 86, 87

Line

axis of action, 61, 69

crossing the line, 61

Lines, leading, 40–41

Looks, leading, 30–31

Loudspeakers, 92

M

Meters, light, 11–13

Microphones

dynamic, 94–96

electret condenser, 94–96

pickup patterns, 96–98

selection, 101–103

types of, 98–101

Montages, 79–80

Moves, camera, 73–77

Music

background, 135–136

library, 136–137

O

Omnidirectional pickup pattern, 96–97

P

Pacing, 130–131

Pans, 73, 74

Paper edits, 125–126

Pixels, 3, 19

Presence, 107–108

Q

Quartz, focusing, light, 84, 85, 86

R

Reflector, 82, 158, 159

Reverberation, 104

Reverse-L cut, 134

S

Script

reading, 123–124

shooting, 113

Segue, 137

Sequence, basic, 47–55, 128–129

planning/shooting, 111–114

shooting out of sequence, 114–115

Shot

establishing, 49, 120, 122, 126–128

medium, 49, 53, 55, 56, 113

neutral, 67

point-of-view, 67

wide, 49, 51, 53, 113

Shotgun mike, 100–101

Slates, 112

Smart phone, 103

Softlight, 84, 86

Sound

in editing, 133–135

editing style, 131–133

mixing, 138

Sound waves

bounce, 103–104

recording clean sound, 104–105

spherical, 91–94

wild effects, 105–106

Storyboard, 113

Sunlight, 81, 82

Supercardioid mike, 100

Supercardioid pickup pattern, 98

Sync effects, 106

Syncsound, 106

T

T/stops, 5

Tablet, 103

Telegraph cut, 134

Temperature, color, 6–8

film, 10–11

Thirds, rule of, 27–29

Tilts, 73, 74

Tripod, 26–27

V

Voice-over, 106–107

Voice-slate, 108–109

W

White balance, 8

Wild effects, 105–106

Z

Zoom, lens, 18–19

camera movement, 73–77

Books
from
Allworth
Press

Allworth Press is an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc. Selected titles are listed below.

The Art of Motion Picture Editing

By Vincent LoBrutto (6 x 9, 280 pages, paperback, $24.95)

Business and Legal Forms for Photographers

by Tad Crawford (8 ½ x 11, 208 pages, paperback, $29.95)

Career Solutions for Creative People

by Dr. Rhonda Ormont (6 x 9, 320 pages, paperback, $19.95)

Documentary Superstars

By Marsha McCreadie (6 x 9, 256 pages, paperback, $19.95)

The Directors: Take Four

By Robert J. Emery (6 x 9, 256 pages, paperback, $22.95)

Directing for Film and Television

By Christopher Lukas (6 x 9, 256 pages, paperback, $24.95)

The Film Appreciation Book

by Jim Piper (6 x 9, 288 pages, paperback, $19.95)

The Filmmaker’s Guide to Production Design

By Vincent LoBrutto (6 x 9, 240 pages, paperback, $19.95)

The Health and Safety Guide for Film, TV, and Theater, Second Edition

By Monona Rossol (6 x 9, 288 pages, paperback, $27.50)

Independent Film Producing: How to Produce a Low-Budget Feature Film

by Paul Battista (6 x 9, 312 pages, paperback, $19.95)

Photography Your Way: A Career Guide to Satisfaction and Success

by Chuck Delaney (6 x 9, 352 pages, paperback, $24.95)

Technical Film and TV for Nontechnical People

By Drew Campbell (6 x 9, 256 pages, paperback, $24.95)

Top Ten Photo Tips: From Ten Pro Photographers

by New York Institute of Photography and Chuck Delany

(5 ½ x 8 ½, 112 pages, paperback, $16.95)

To see our complete catalog or to order online, please visit www.allworth.com.