This document discusses elements of good composition in photography and video. It identifies compositional techniques like the rule of thirds, center of focus, avoiding mergers, and proper use of depth of field. Examples are given from films that demonstrate these techniques. The document also contrasts shooting photos versus video, with advice to treat them similarly in terms of composition but noting video is dynamic. Demonstrations are described for static composition elements, dynamic camera movements, handheld techniques, capturing b-roll, and basic editing. Students are assigned an exercise to apply these skills in a short composition scavenger hunt video project.

1. Achieving Good Composition

2. What are some things that
make up Good Composition?
 Demonstrate by searching Flickr
 Obeying the “rule of thirds”
 Single Point of Focus / Selective Focus
 Avoiding Tonal Mergers, Dimensional
Mergers, and Border Mergers
 Proper Amount of Nose Room
 Shot Composition in a Minute:
 http://vimeo.com/1461280

3. Composition Evaluation
 The Beach: http://vimeo.com/10363683
 Formal Composition: The Beginning of
The Royal Tenenbaums
 Stanley Kubrick: One-Point Perspective
 5 Dollar Cover Seattle: The Beast
 What concepts from good composition
do you see examples of in this video?

4. Photography vs. Video
 What are the differences in the ways that we
should approach shooting video vs. shooting a
photograph?
 In many ways we should treat them the same in
terms of a center of focus
 Video is a dynamic composition
 Choose a center of interest for a shot and hold on it
– this is especially important when you are shooting
handheld footage
 Nathaniel & Angie

5. Composing Your Shot
 Drew Keller on Composing Shots

6. Movie Clips / YouTube
Search
 Search YouTube / MovieClips for a shot
that you think has some kind of
interesting composition
 Share the shot with the person next to
you and discuss the elements that make
it have good composition

7. Balance and Depth in Comp
 Shallow Depth vs. Deep Focus
 Shallow Depth of Field
 Controlled by a Variety of Factors
 Allows us to draw attention to a detail
 Beginning part of Citizen Kane
 Innovative use of Deep Focus made possible by
faster lenses
 Use of characters and objects to balance
composition

8. Demonstration of Elements of a
static composition
 We are now going to demonstrate the different things that
we should strive for in achieving good composition
 Shot demonstration – We want to demonstrate the
following:
 Focal Length
 Distance between camera and subject
 Center of Interest
 “Rule” of Thirds
 Nose Room and Head Room
 Avoiding Mergers
 High and Low angles
 Balance

9. Camera Shots
 From Millerson and Owen “Video
Production Handbook”
 ELS (Extreme Long Shot) – shows
significant space above and/or below the
subject
 LS or WS (Long Shot or Wide Shot) –
features the entire person in the frame
 MS (Medium Shot) – cuts the body just
below or above the waist
 CU (Close-up) – Just above the head to
the upper chest
 ECU (Extreme Close Up) – Detail shot for
part of the body

10. Dynamic Composition
 Often times you will want to make your scene more
dynamic and therefore you will move the camera around
 Demonstration of dynamic movements
 Pan
 Tilt
 Zoom
 Track
 Dolly
 Holding beginnings and ending
 Rack Focus
 Leading the subject

11. Handheld Techniques
 Occasionally, you may choose to use
handheld techniques to bring realism
and movement to your project.
 You want to make sure that you have a good
stabilization system before you shoot the
video
 Try to put your body into position so that you
can steadily hold the camera

12. Handheld Examples
 Beginning of Children of Men
 Movi

13. Capturing B-Roll
 The purpose of B-Roll
 What B-Roll you Grab
 Videomaker: Capturing B-Roll

14. Demonstration of Basic Editing
 How to do basic edits in Adobe Premiere

15. Exercise
 Composition Scavenger Hunt
 Shoot, Edit, and Turn in today.
 Projects will be screened at the
beginning of class next week