Composition Techniques

In every good video or picture there are things called Composition Techniques. The main four composition techniques are, rule of thirds, framing, leading lines and unusual angles. Rule of thirds is a technique where the subject is not in the dead center. This adds more interest and creates a better shot. Framing is when you use things in the background or foreground of your shot to "frame" your subject. This draws the viewers eye to the subject and can create interest in the photo or video. Leading lines are lines or a line that lead to the subject of your photo. Like framing, this helps draw the viewers eyes to the subject of your image. Unusual angles is a technique where the photographer or person taking the video takes the shot in a way that you wouldn't usually see in everyday life. In order to get unusual angles you can get down on your knees, stand up on a stool, get extremely close to something etc. These are the four most important composition techniques. Now you can grab your camera and take some amazing photos!

Three Shot Sequences

In all great videos, there is a thing called three shot sequencing. Three shot sequencing is when you have three shots with different perspectives that show what is going on in an interesting way. Without sequencing people would either be completely lost with what was going on in the video or they'd be bored to death with one simple angle. The three shots in the sequencing consist of a wide angle that establishes the location and sets the scene, a medium shot that gets a bit more into detail such as what the focus looks like and what is happening in the scene, and a close up that makes you feel as if you were there by showing every little detail of the scene. If you want to make a great film, use sequencing.

Practice Story Reflection

In G.T., we recently started a project where we broke into teams and interviewed one teammate. In my team there were only two people counting myself. For our interview, my teammate (Kora Quintana) interviewed me about a project that we just finished in my art class. For the A roll portion of the video (the interview) we went to the library to film so that we wouldn't have any background noise interfering with our footage. My partner and I worked very well together and worked very quickly.

Instead of arguing and stressing over little details and things like that my partner and I discussed what we would do once we got to the library so when we got there it was easy to get started. I set up the tripod, she put the battery in the camera and attached the camera to the tripod and I put on the mic. After everything was set up, we found a chair and adjusted where I would sit until i was perfectly in the rule of thirds. Next, she started the camera and sat next to the camera to ask me the interview questions. the next day we filmed B roll which didn't go as smoothly...

To film B roll, we went to the art classroom and filmed people working on their projects, finishing up projects, the tools we used and the finished pieces. during the filming of the B roll we both wanted to film the B roll in completely different ways so... there was a bit of arguing. We also ran into troubles with how to adjust the tripod in a way that the footage would look it's best which only made us more stressed. At the end of our B roll filming our footage turned out great! The next day I went home sick before G.T. and Kora came to class to find that our B roll had somehow been deleted. So, Kora had to go back to the art room with only ten minutes to film and no tripod. The footage was shaky and not as nice as our original footage, but we got it done so it all worked out.