When creating images for a film, you try to balance your shots so that you draw the audience into the movie, while at the same time they forget that they are watching a movie. Usually, the last thing you want is to break the illusion and have the audience snap out of their reverie.
As you read this article, you may want to pause and rewatch some classic films, or films that had a powerful effect on you. Examining the new and different techniques, lighting, and compositions used to create impact, mood, and feeling will help you grow as a creative artist far more than just repeating the same shots and setups that you are already proficient at. Don’t be afraid to create your own images and explore the concepts in this article series.
Please note that these are just guidelines. As you progress in your visual storytelling journey, feel free to experiment with, challenge, and break the rules. Just understand the effect that may have and why you are doing it. After a few days or weeks have elapsed, to give yourself emotional distance, go back and evaluate what you did, and if you achieved the effect your wanted.
Concepts in Framing and Composition
There is a story about the making of Rosemary’s Baby, where a character is sitting on a bed making a phone call, and she is partially obscured by the doorway. This shot is from the point of view of Rosemary, and to increase the voyeuristic feeling of listening on someone else’s call the director insisted the cameraman frame the character so as to be partially obscured by the doorway. According to the cameraman, he didn’t understand why, until watching the dailies and he noticed everyone in the room craning their necks to see around the door frame—thus drawing the audience into the film, increasing their connection to the Mia Farrow character.
What this illustrates is that there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong way to frame, only that how you frame can affect your audience on both intellectual and emotional levels. When framing up there are always a few considerations, often dictated to you by location or set, the type of shot (establishing, close-up, medium, wide), and the number of characters in the shot. Perhaps you are flying by the seat of your pants, looking for a frame that “you like” or that “feels good” but are not quite sure why. The following elements of composition may be able to help you understand those feelings and even help you create more powerful and intentional shots.
The Golden Mean/Golden Section
You may have heard of it referred to as the rule of thirds. It can be said to follow the Fibonacci series, which is the mathematical expression of the way things look in nature. For example, the nautilus shell follows the Fibonacci series in its shape. So, we have been surrounded by this series our whole lives and when we see a frame that follows, it is very comfortable; when something does not follow, it becomes uncomfortable. If you look at the image above, you can see that the larger frame is subdivided into sections that are 1/3 and 2/3 of the frame, and this continues. It tends to be uncomfortable to have something dead center in your frame because that really isn’t how the world works. So putting a character exactly in the middle of the frame or framing a landscape so that it is perfectly balanced can provide an emotional impact, likewise, unbalancing your image will definitely impact your viewer. A good exercise to try is to take stills of the same subject, with the frame composed, balanced, and unbalanced.
The Line
One of the keys of filmmaking is to draw your audience into the film, avoiding jarring cuts, unless that is your plan. So, it is important to keep directional continuity, that is as you cut from shot to shot in a scene you really want to keep actors on the correct side of the frame. Imagine a bird’s eye view of a scene with an imaginary line between the two characters, and the camera always staying on one side of that line.
When you start shooting you will have characters on either side of frame; even if they are close together, one character will be more left of center and one character more right of center. As your scene progresses, it is important that this does not change, otherwise you can confuse the audience.
For example, in the above image. Shoot the master and A stays on the left and B stays on the right. If you suddenly cut to a shot with person A on the right and person B on the left, it would look as if the characters had suddenly flipped positions in space in no time—this can be quite jarring.
Likewise when going in for closer shots, your actors eyelines need to match, so if person A is on the left and they are looking at person B who is on the right, then in over the shoulder shots make sure that you are shooting over persons B’s left shoulder so they remain on the correct side of the frame. Even in close-ups, Person A must look to camera right to keep the frame geography.
Straight-on Shots or Angled
Simply put, straight-on shots are boring. Lines are parallel, there is no sense of movement, no sense of depth (unless you are looking at a road receding in the far distance)—might as well be looking at an unmoving painting. Add some angle, introduce something so that the content of the image is not so easily consumed, make your shot interesting.
Balance
Creating a balanced composition can be nice, but often it is the imbalance of a composition that can add that extra something to your images. One way that an unbalanced composition can accomplish this is to show power.
To put it bluntly, when the camera looks slightly up at a character, or one character is taller in frame than another (in a two shot or over the shoulder), that character visually has more power. It’s a psychological thing, probably based on our primal feelings about looking up at someone taller and usually physically stronger than we are. Conversely, “looking down” on someone in frame makes them seem weaker. The greater the effect the more power or lack of power someone will have. This can be accomplished with how the characters are staged within the frame—seated vs. standing, etc. Note that subtle is great, even obvious can work, though exaggerating the effect too much, like using an extreme fisheye lens on a tight close-up, can break your audience out of the reverie the film is putting them into.
Foreground Elements
Carrying on with the idea of drawing your audience into the film consider adding foreground elements to your shot. Fill the frame, don’t just add clutter. Foreground elements can add a sense of realism. You don’t have to shoot like a 1950s three camera sitcom, you have the advantage of a camera that can move virtually anywhere, so take advantage of it. A foreground element can be used to obscure your character, adding mystery, or provide your audience with a piece of information that the characters in the movie don’t have. It can also be used directly as a framing element.
Frame Within a Frame
You have a frame—use it. The edges of your frame can be part of the composition, and not just a space for action to happen in. Not only do you have a frame but you can create a frame within the frame. Create a frame using foreground elements to create a frame or use elements in the background to create an internal frame. This has the advantage of providing additional visual information, which can extend the length of time your shot can be on the screen before your audience becomes bored by it.
Before you head over and read part two featuring the art of lighting, take the concepts mentioned here, and go practice putting them to good use. Digital makes trial and error, at least on the media side, very affordable, so you can really practice and explore using these concepts.
