Applying Advanced Shot Composition

Advanced shot compositions typically involve different types of shots and shot combinations. You've seen them hundreds of times on TV; they're easy to implement and look very polished. Here's how to use some in your own movies.

Medium shot, point-of-view shot, reaction shot

Figure 11.12 starts with a medium shot of my wife and daughter, obviously staring at something. What is it? you find yourself asking. Then I cut to a point-of-view shot, which shows the action in the eyes of my daughter: her point of view. Then, as the horse draws nearer to her, she smiles in delight; that's the reaction shot.

As with all of the shots we're discussing, it's important to recognize that these shots were filmed out of order. I shot about 2 minutes of video before a horse carriage ride and pieced together these 15 or 20 seconds before we got on the carriage to show how Whatley was enjoying the day.

I used the background audio from the first and third shots for the entire sequence to preserve audio continuity. Then I pasted a shot of the horse, taken later, into the middle to show Whatley's point of view. It looks like I have two cameras to most untrained eyes, which was the effect I was seeking, but I had only my trusty Sony DCR-PC1.

Think, for a moment, about the unlimited potential for these types of shots. You're at a softball game and your daughter gets a hit. You catch the line drive on video and then want to switch to the crowd cheering and your spouse smiling like a fool.

But you can't physically move the camera fast enough to catch all this action. Thinking in advance, while other kids were at bat, you took several shots of the crowd cheering and your spouse smiling. You also took several shots of your spouse pensively watching the action, just to use when piecing together this video.

During editing, you start with the pensive shots of the spouse, then the line drive, and then the crowd and proud spouse shots. If you use the audio from the actual line drive for the whole sequence, it will look like you had multiple cameras working the entire game. It's not hard, it's not time consuming; you just need to plan ahead.

Figure 1.12. What's Whatley staring at? A horse? How delightful.

Over-the-shoulder shot, point-of-view shot

An over-the-shoulder shot is what you see on the left in Figure 1.13, a shot that includes the back of one of the subjects and the focus of the subject's attention. It's also an establishing shot, because it shows the elephant's environment at Zoo Atlanta.

Figure 1.13. Using the over-the-shoulder shot as an establishing shot; then cutting to a point-of-view shot of the elephant.

Then you switch to a point-of-view shot that shows in detail what your subject is looking at. This is a great combination for involving your primary subject in your sequence while following the rules of continuity discussed earlier.

Cutaways

A cutaway is a shot that relates to the primary subject of the video, but isn't the primary subject. For example, when ESPN interviews the winning coach after a football game, the coach might attribute the win to a goal-line stand late in the fourth quarter. During the interview, while the coach is still talking, ESPN switches to a view of the play and then cuts back to the coach once the play is done.

Or maybe it's the weatherperson describing the wonderful spring-like weather that just descended in mid-December. The shot starts with the weatherperson, and then cutaways show joggers running in shorts, couples sunning on the grass, and babies crawling on blankets. Then back to the weatherperson for tomorrow's forecast.

Here's what I like about cutaways. Number one, they allow you to show the flavor of the entire event. Rather than simply keeping the camera on little Sally during the softball game, you shoot the coaches cajoling, the parents praising, the shortstop shuffling, an uproar from the umpire all the shots that make softball such a compelling game.

Second, cutaways can serve as patches for badly shot video that you can't cut from your sequence, as may occur when you're capturing an entire song, speech, or sermon to use as the background track for your audio as described earlier.

For example, Figure 1.14 shows six images of a shot from the Fiddler's Convention. Much of the fun action occurs away from the stage, and this dynamic duo had generated an amazing amount of dancing, shuffling, and stomping. The main subjects of the video sequence were the two performers; all other shots not directly of them were cutaways.

Figure 1.14. Using cutaways. The primary subject here is the two-person band; the cutaways are the folks dancing.

Following the audio continuity system described previously, I filmed one entire song, moving from one side of the scene to the other while recording, and catching some of the dancing action as I went. Then I hung around for two other songs, shooting different, additional dance sequences.

Because I was moving around while filming the one background song, there was an awful lot of unusable footage, violent camera motion, and bad framing. Wherever necessary, however, I just pasted in a dance sequence to hide the bad footage, allowing me to produce one fairly cohesive 4-minute song.

Similarly, for a wedding video, you might want pictures of the proud parents watching the ceremonial first dance. So you shoot the entire ceremonial dance and later shoot the proud parents beaming at something else; you can then use these shots of the parents as cutaways to patch into the dance sequence.

My rule for cutaways is that you can never get enough of them. If your goal is advanced shot composition, spend a lot of time shooting subjects other than your primary ones.

Taxonomy of Shots

Here's a list of shots and some suggestions for when to use them.

• Establishing shot: Any shot that provides the viewer with a visual overview of the environment of the shot.

• Long shot: Any shot that doesn't cut out any body part of the primary subject. For example, Figure 1.15 is a long shot that shows a lovely straight left arm but a disturbing hint of a reverse pivot. This is about the shortest long shot you'll see; shots from farther away are also called medium or extreme long shots. Long shots are good for showing action and as establishing shots and are also called wide shots.

  Figure 1.15. Here's a long shot that adheres to the rule of thirds. For those who care about such things, I parred this short par-three hole (that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

  

  
  

• Medium shot: Any shot that cuts away a portion of the primary subject, up to a close-up, which shows only the upper shoulders and face. These shots are also called mid-shots. Medium shots are good for introducing the viewer to the character and should be used before a close-up.

• Close-up shot: Any shot that shows only the shoulders and head, or closer in. These shots are good primarily for reaction shots. Use close-ups sparingly, for effect only; during most shoots, a medium shot is a much better choice to show people talking.

• Over-the-shoulder shot: Shows the upper shoulder of a subject and the primary subject of the video.

• Point-of-view shot: Shows the point of view of the immediately preceding subject on the screen.

• Reaction shot: Shows a subject's reaction to the immediately preceding shot.