Getting Shots with Relationships

Instead of shooting a series of interesting shots with your camcorder, think of every shot as having some kind of relationship to at least one other shot. If you shoot someone from far off, your next shot should be the same person from closer. If you shoot someone from the front, think about also shooting them from the back. If you show someone reading a book, show the audience what they are reading. Whatever you do, get a minimum of two shots that relate; you will use these when you go to edit.

Having relationships between shots highlights one of the most significant differences between video projects and still-image projects. With a still camera, you pick it up and shoot once in a while. You might shoot bits and pieces throughout an event. With video, you want to pick up the camcorder and shoot one scene, getting proper coverage from multiple angles, and then be done with it. You're not going to try to shoot many bits of lots of different scenes, but lots of shots of one scene.

Have a look at the video for this lesson, Start_QuickVideo_Project8 > L8 Quick Video, in the Lesson08 folder. This is an iMovie project that Christopher is working on. He shot a couple of minutes of the girls trying to find the ceramics they wanted to paint.

If he were using a still camera, this moment might have been condensed to a single shot, probably not even an interesting shot. But in video, he can expand the moment and begin to show their interactions, moods, and dynamics. For the audience, he can also make it compelling by creating bits of interest, maybe even suspense. Video makes this possible.

Notice there are three shots in iMovie, three distinct vantage points of the same event. More than anything else, this is the key to making videos.