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Lesson Info
Establishing Shots
we're going to talk about for lack of a better phrase filmmaking concepts that we can apply to instagram videos and DS Lars. Okay. And these are things that I want you to think about on a daily basis. Hence the title of video a day. Because if you start thinking in these concepts, it will become a part of the way you look at the world, and it will become a part of the way you create videos. All right, so establishing shots. So the way I like to explain establishing shots its's your introductory paragraph to a news article. Okay, Back when we were in elementary school, we learned that the introductory paragraph was something that told us the five W's the who what, When, Where, Why and sometimes how right? If you're establishing shot can give you the five W's. That's a good shot. Okay, um, it sets the scene, tells you the time and place gives you an indication of the mood. Sometimes it dark. Is it stormy? Is it bright? Is it sonny? Okay, so here we have an establishing shot. I've got two...
droids, presumably in an airplane hangar, having a conversation time of day Sometime during the day. Okay, so the thing is, you're establishing shot sets up something we call one hundred eighty degree role. One hundred eighty degree rule exists when two subjects were on screen. Okay, so I've got are to hear, right? I'll call this guy are four, right? For easy sake. So I got R two and R four on there on the left and right side of the screen. It sets up a standard for me. It sets up a framework which I now have to believe and operate in as a filmmaker. So you think about it. Let's get the toy droids off the screen. Think about a bride and groom. Brides always on one side, grooms always on the other. You shoot from the back of the church. You've just established a scene which means for the remainder of the film, brides gotta be on one side. Grooms gotta be on one side. So one hundred eighty degree rule. That's all it does is it dictates. And it keeps the people who should be on the right stand the right people should be in the left. Stand left. Okay, So when it comes to the hundred eighty degree rule. It really just helps us from confusing our viewers. And it helps us to know where to place the subjects in frame. Can you follow me here now? I don't like rules, but this is one I like to follow because this is one that will help you as you're making films and involved two people. Or as you're doing certain jobs that involve two people on screen at the same time, it will. It will prevent you from making mistakes and your edit or mistake's in your camera position. Okay, Because now that we have in this scene two people on screen and we know who speaks being left and who's supposed to be on the right there is on Lee a certain element. There's only one place I could put the camera a few places I could put the camera. Okay, so we're gonna watch a little video, but okay. Pretty simple, right? It felt kind of normal. People belong toe. The robots were on the left, and the right robot was on the right. It just it just felt right. Okay, we're looking another one. Okay, here's the next one. Oh, that should have felt weird to you That should have felt really weird because your brain saw this and said, Okay, are four is on the left. Now keep your eye on our four. Okay? I'm gonna mute the sound. I'm gonna keep your eye on r four. You then left. Okay? He's on left. Was in the left. That's in the right, on the right again. Now he's back and left. See when you can watch a video without sound. You take yourself out of this story of what's happening on screen and you look at the footage. It's confusing. You're looking at it, okay? And it's like, Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Why is he in the wrong place right now? That doesn't make sense to me. Okay, so this is the wrong way. Okay? We're gonna watch the right way without sound. Okay, So Okay, here we go. So he's on the left, on the left, on the left, on the left. He's on the right. He's on the right, his So it feels better. And the reason it feels better us because our brain works at a million miles a second, and it established in that first establishing shot where everything was in frame. That's what says Okay, now that that I know where everything's in frame, I can kind of put that to the background and enjoy the story. Oh, wait. If you switch places, you just freaked your brain out. It doesn't make sense. You've lost. You've just pulled yourself out of the story. Okay, so we were to look at this. And the reason this is called one hundred eighty degree rule is this Okay, so right now we've got our two on the right. I got our foreign left. Okay. My cameras here, isn't it Okay? When you establish the first shot here, you would create what I call one second you create what I call the invisible Wall of Doom. Okay, so in the invisible wall of doom, I can place my camera anywhere on this side Absolutely anywhere on this side of the wall. I can place it ground level. I can fly it high above the high, above the ground. So long as I stay on this side of the wall. Okay, So here's my camera. Here's another camera. There's another camera that's all legitimate. It's all legitimate. Okay, So if you take a look at the incorrect version again. Now, knowing what we know about where the rule and how it's set up, can you see why this isn't right? He's left. He's been left. He's in left. And then all of a sudden Oh, wait. Why is he on the right? Okay, if I've got a subject here, and I have another subject here, okay? And my camera position is here, I can move my camera at any point. I can isolate this subject. I can isolate this subject, but I still want to place them on the respective side of the frame that they belong on that even when they're isolated. Okay, Because if I show them and I captured here and I put them on the left side, that may I could still capture it. And it may still feel OK, but it might not look right. Okay. And they do this a lot. Lord of the Rings. When? When Gollum had that dialogue with himself, I think at the end of the second movie, Okay, what do they do? They put one version of Gollum on the right, and he was talking to himself and put the other version on the left. Why is that is because we have a conversation with a conversation with another person. And they're usually across from us. And we never, you know, like, always talk on the same side with people, right? So it just helps mimic real life on screen a little bit. Okay? So when you have your two subjects, it's here. Hi, lo Anywhere on this side of the wall, but never over it. So let's talk about that really quick before we move on. Um, I see this a lot in weddings. Okay, so I've got, you know, bride and groom, and the videographers always have a camera back, right? So they always have this establishing shot. And they usually have a guy up here and a guy up here, and they're all capturing three different angles, right? What do you see? Photographers do a lot. They creep up behind the efficient snap, snap, snap! And they run over here. Snap, snap, snap! But I rarely if ever see. Ah, videographer. Who knows what they're doing back there? Why is that? They'd be on the wrong side on the wrong side. Be on the wrong side. you're establishing shot from the camera at the back of the church establishes the bride and groom on one side on perspective. Respective sides. The minute you run around to the other side, you've just flip them. Not only if you flip them, you've given ah, completely new background and it doesn't make sense. And it doesn't work in the edit. You got your invisible wall of doom. Okay, get your cameras and you want to get to this side. So what do you do? You take this camera position and you move it and you show that movement from start to finish and you show it in the edit. Okay? Thing is the minute you show this movement and you show it in the edit, you've just reestablished your hundred eighty degree rule. When you re established hundred eighty degree rule, that means now are two is gonna be on the left, are four is gonna be on the right, and you continue capturing footage the same exact way. It is a fixed rule until you break it right correctly. Okay? And there are people who effectively break the rule hundreds of times in a film. But it's because They're really good at what they dio and it's because they leverage ah, lot of, like their film making history and and and and and technique and experience in doing it properly small. Let me oh, make more sense. So when you can do that, not only do you add Mawr element of production into a specific piece like this, now you're switching things up and spicing it up there on a curve ball a little bit. Okay, we see this a lot in CSE. We see this a lot in, like narrative, like a cop procedurals. Okay, because things are always moving and shaking, and they're always moving the camera back and forth. And you're always kind of switching people around because that's the way that they wanted to feel okay, watching that version versus watching the other version. It wasn't that one was better or worse. It was one felt different than the other, and it gave us a different perception of what was happening
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