Camera Angles
Lesson 2 from: FAST CLASS: The Art of Filmmaking and EditingJeff Medford, Ross Hockrow
Camera Angles
Lesson 2 from: FAST CLASS: The Art of Filmmaking and EditingJeff Medford, Ross Hockrow
Lessons
Lesson Info
Camera Angles
So let's get into what camera angles mean and how they work. These are the camera angles that we're gonna talk about, okay? They all have a psychological impact. And let's talk about the high angle shot. The camera's placed above the subject, pointing down on the subject to put them in a vulnerable position. So the loser of that chess match, if you go back and watch it, almost every shot of him is the camera is above his head, shooting down on him to make it feel vulnerable. And we're gonna see it again tomorrow, so you can look for that, okay? And here's what it looks like. [Speaker In Commercial] It's the work on both the emotional and unpleasant physical symptoms of depression. Visit depressionhurts.ca to learn more about these symptoms. So you see, camera's way above her. Notice the framing of the shot. Look at all that negative space behind her. And I put her at the bottom right of the frame. I didn't put her up and fill the frame with her. I put all the space above her head a...
nd behind her. So there's two psychological things going with the framing. I leave all that negative space, show empty chairs, and show that she's isolated and alone. And then I put the camera down on her. And then, of course, she is watching the commercial that is from my film that we watched the intro for that you guys all, you saw her anyway. Low angle shot. This is to put, the camera goes down, and you shoot up on your character to put them in a position of power. Go back to the chess thing. We'll see it again tomorrow. But the winner, every shot of him was from an up angle. The shot through the railing was like this. There was almost a shot under him, shooting right up on his-- There was, yeah. Under the table, through the glass. All of those things put him in the position of power. You don't see it and recognize it when it's happening, but you feel it in real time. And it all goes back to what we, what Jeff made the point with the pictures, with the photographs. You're looking at a photograph, and you have time to reflect. In film, you just, all it is is reaction, reaction, reaction, reaction, reaction, reaction, and you have no time to sort of process. So that's why all of these tricks work. Paul, you're not gonna get away with this. One phone call to my uncle-- Listen Bryce, really carefully. Now your uncle, my boss, (clears throat) he presented us with a problem, a problem in which we solve will take us right to the top. And just because things are getting harder instead of easier, you just wanna throw in the white flag. That is unacceptable. Now you wanna find out what your uncle will say? Let's do it. Sam, get John on the line. So what happened there? He's having an intense conversation. There's conflict. The one character who's in the vulnerable position, the camera's slightly above him. Camera's shooting way up on our character in power. And then what happened halfway through the scene? It went from a wide shot into a medium shot or even now I'd call it a medium-- With still a lower camera angle. Yeah, still a lower camera angle. So you notice how as the intensity of the scene peaked, I went in to just basically, as I never met Monty, but I heard Jeff quote him a million times, remove the distractions. When it's time to focus in psychologically on what someone's saying, remove the distractions and go in close to him and really get that impact. Let's talk about an eye level shot. Zero psychological effect whatsoever but so important because if you don't get this right, all of your other shots are affected. It's just like the close up. If you use the close up so much, too much, which I was guilty of a few years ago. Close up happy I would call myself, and I'd look at that film now, and I'm like oh my god, what was I thinking? Right, because they're easier to make than wide shots. All your shots lose their impact, and then you don't have any control over-- No reference point. Yeah, you have no control over the psychological impact of each shot, so take a look at what a eye level shot looks like and it's really designed to let the person in front of the camera take over and do whatever it is that they have the ability to do. Are you serious, I mean, the honeymoon is there. It's the greatest show ever, at least in Econee they're hilarious. They're the moon howlers. (laughs) Oh I soil every time I went to that show, yeah. What do you like? Family Affair, oh that's funny. Like yeah, yeah, Mr. French, he's a riot. Who's your favorite stoot, Larry? You're not right, it's just not right, fondle about it, I gotta go I got a client. (telephone clicks back into cradle) Clyde, what a character he is. But you see, no psychological effect, we really didn't feel anything. We thought it was funny, great, if we didn't think it was funny, whatever, but the point is in that scene, it does come to a peak of psychology. There is a climax in that scene, there's a point, so it's very important that I intro-ed the scene correctly with eye-level shots so that when it's time to divvy out the positions of power, when it's time to make that impact, there's a difference in the way the shot looks, which will make you guys, the viewers, feel what I want you to feel. Point of view shot. I love first person view. That's like one of my favorite things and if Scott's watching he's probably laughing right now 'cause he knows exactly what I'm gonna say. But me and Scott came up together as filmmakers and he, there's two things he would yell at me all the time for. There's, "you do first person view way too much "and you do too much voiceover." Well, I'm guilty as charged, but I really do like it because first person view is designed to give you that, you see what your character sees, and this is done a lot when you're doing a first person narrative type of story. And we're not gonna get into the types of narratives. I'll tell you that's really deep into some psychology of filmmaking, but it is in my book. Let's take a look at what the point of view shot looks like and how you sort of establish that. (intense music) So you see. Show the character, show what they're seeing. And like I said, every sequence has a climax. Show him, he shakes the 8-Ball up, and he's looking at it, and you see his reaction to it and what's the first thing you think. What's the 8-ball say. And the moment you ask that question, I have you. You're done, because I can make that 8-Ball say. Ruthie reading the card, showing the card was first person view. Yes, first person view. So what does that mean? If the foreground of the back of his head was in the shot, that would not be first person. I have to sort of come in to the direct view of the character, and we probably will do this in the shoot tomorrow where I'll show first person views of what Kevin's seeing in the shoot, and I'll explain why I'm doing it in a certain spot, because you can't just overuse it, or Scott will yell at you. (laughs) I hope he's watching, that'll be so funny. Bird's eye view. We've seen this a lot and it's basically the camera goes where the bird would go, and you're just shooting above someone's head and you're seeing what they see. And here we're in the lab, he's making his antidepressants, and we have the camera up and we use this to establish a lot. We want to have the audience sort of look over the scene in an unexpected, almost non-human vanish point if that makes sense. You have to think about, the camera is the viewer. That's what the camera is, so every time you place it in a position, the height, the lens you put on it, the movement you're gonna add to it. You, the filmmaker, are telling the viewer, this is how I want you to view this shot, this is how I want you to view this scene. I can put the viewer anywhere in the room I want, and I'm putting it here, and always ask yourself why. Dutch camera angle. This is not something I do often, so I don't even have a clip to show you, but basically all it is just (smacks mouth) tilt the camera slightly, off-axis, and this is supposed to give a feeling of disorientation, so if you have a scene where you want a character or something to feel disoriented if you just have the camera and you turn it like this, it will feel disoriented and the best way to make this successful is to have a very descript background. So if you tip a camera in photography and there's just like a background, like a a plain background, you won't see the tip. It will just frame the shot the way you want, but if you do it and there's a building behind you, it'll look like the building's falling over, and that's like a no-no in photography. In filmmaking that's the whole idea, is to make it look like the world's tipping over, just slightly, don't shoot vertical. You can't shoot vertical video, but just turn it slightly like that, and you'll get that concept.