Composition Techniques

Composition techniques are one of the most important aspects of a film. Creating a film is like painting a masterpiece. You have to focus on the important elements of the painting, just like a film. There is the subject, position, or point of view, background, colors, etc. Composition techniques add interest and depth to your imagery. Anybody would get bored watching a film when everything is the same angle. These techniques pull your viewers in and make them want to watch more. Hook, line, and sinker.

There are four main composition techniques. Rule of thirds, framing, unusual angles, and leading lines. Rule of thirds is when you split your screen into thirds horizontally and vertically. Where the lines intersect is where you want to position your subject. Most camera shots involve this technique. Try to never position your subject in the center of your screen. Framing is when you use objects closer to the camera than the subject, to create a frame surrounding it.  Unusual angles kind of explains itself. This technique showcases angles that are, well, unusual. A different point of view gives the viewers something to gaze at and wonder, "Wow, that's a cool camera angle." And last, but not least, is leading lines. Leading lines uses the natural lines in your background to make your audience's eyes follow them to the subject.

Three Shot Sequences

This is a video that my team and I made a while back. Our assignment was to create a video that showed a three-shot sequence. Sequences are very important to a film, production, or project. If a video or film is stuck with one boring angle throughout the entirety of the its length, then the audience will get bored and loose interest. Before we made this video, I never really paid attention to the importance of different shot types and angles. A viewer doesn't realize how important these aspects are until they are the ones producing the footage.

A three-shot sequence usually starts with a wide shot; This shows the full subject. Next, is a medium shot; Shows part of the subject, commonly cut off at the waist. Finally, there is the last shot. A close-up or extreme close-up. You have the option to choose whether a close-up or and extreme close-up is better depending on what kind of effect you are trying to create. A close-up is kind of self explanatory. You simply place the camera close to a subject. An extreme close-up is when you position the camera or zoom in on, well, extremely close to the subject. This shot is useful when trying to express the detail of a small subject.

Practice Story Reflection

In my GT class, we were assigned to create a practice video to exercise the skill of producing an interview video to prepare for our upcoming project. We were asked to choose a topic to interview a member of our team about. We chose the topic "Paige likes music". We made a complete interview, with interview and B-roll footage to add interest. W thought up a list of questions to ask our subject, and filmed their responses.

At the completion of the project, I feel that we accomplished a solid video. I feel that we could have produced a better quality of video. However, we were down a team member during editing process. Paige Wesoloski was our subject and Karlie O'Rourke asked our subject questions. During our video, the focus was not as clear as we had thought it was during filming. Also, our video is shorter than most at being only 40 seconds long.

Overall, I think that we did pretty well for it only being a practice video. Now we know what we need to do to make our official project video great. We know what we need to improve upon to kick our video up a notch. We will now be more considerate about our actions during filming and editing. Also, it was a great learning experience.