Camera and Staging: The Art of Storytelling

Camera and staging are one of the most essential tools in narrating a story. Good compositioning and staging allows the viewers to understand the meaning of the shot and subject better. Since our entire short film is going to be a cinematic still-life modeling reel, it is absolutely important that we must put in the right camera angles, movement and compositions at the right time. If we overlook this, regardless of how good the visuals may be, the story isn't told.

We're operating in a world where one good video can lead to a massive social following ~Mike Henry

With past experience using cameras and working on some film related projects, I find it easier to understand the compositing of shots better. It's far more natural to me now. You tend to get the right eye for things and you can manipulate your subject into looking or feeling like something its not. And that's what I love about photography.

Similarly, for our short film, I took most of the camera control over the shots since I could understand the story in my head clearer. Yes, I needed a bit more guidance into the technical aspects of compositing a shot such as through the rule of thirds and the motion path in the curve editor to alter the curve and speed of the motion. During our first presentation, we received feedback on researching more about the rule of 180 which is a cinematic rule used to describe the relationship between the position of two characters in a scene. I did my research well on that, until we had to scrap out our second character.

I also researched on the various types of shots and what each are termed specifically. Below is a video describing these shots and angles really well.

Lastly, in order to incorporate these shots into our still life reel, we needed to understand the different types of camera movements and what they are termed as well. This would help us to use the right camera tools for the right camera movement in 3Ds max. The major movements we used are:

• zoom

• pan

• tilt

• dolly

It will be evident is our final short film, but these have also been recorded through the storyboards.

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Sometimes we might've gone overboard with using way too many camera movements. It is nicer to break the rhythm of unnecessary movement by adding some still shots. In order to create that right balance, we needed to establish what the subject in scene would be and what would be in motion/stationary. These would then help us identify whether the camera motion is necessary or not. For example, in the scene where the sushi moves on the conveyor belt, since the belt moves its safe to put the camera at a stationary position. It adds to the diversity in the shots.

We also learnt about a specific tool in 3Ds max that allows the scene to have a good depth of field. It is called Zdepth and is used mainly to set limits to where objects would be in focus and from where they should be blurred. We also learnt about the different camera lenses in 3Ds max and which ones are ideal for what type of shots. This is helpful knowledge for the future, when trying to composition shots for different purposes such as portrait shots. A 35mm lens is usually ideal for a portrait shot, but the others are described below in this diagram study.

Therefore, with all this extra knowledge acquired from research , we have implemented them into our shots. The final will reveal this application.

References:

Autodesk (2019) Motion Path [help journal]. Retrieved from https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/learn-

Cox, S. (2018). What is the Rule of Thirds? A Guide for Beginners [article]. Retrieved from https://photographylife.com/the-rule-of-thirds

Ferrari, A. (2018). 180 Degree Rule – Understand the “Line” or DIE! [article]. Retrieved from https://indiefilmhustle.com/180-degree-rule/

Wolfcrow (2018). 15 Essential Camera Shots, Angles and Movements in Filmmaking [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y0ouVBcogU

Bibliography:

Storyblocks (2019, May 18) 7 Basic camera Movements [blog article]. Retrieved from https://blog.storyblocks.com/video-tutorials/7-basic-camera-movements/