Lessons

Lesson Info

Framing the Scene and Eye Line

Going to talk about lead room head room cutting off the chin josh you can get up for a sec let's bring men and right there is good let's move this guy couldn't frame up sort of same scenarios if josh was still sitting here ah okay so that area to the right of the frame that's called lead so if he's talking to someone over here we got plenty of room in this direction that's where he's looking we have this empty space to kind of follow his line of sight give me on the other side of camera let's not move it and a little more little more natural move your body a little bit because if you're facing right now give me a shimmy aah! Just adjust your adjust your shoulders to face any more there you go so he's up against a wall now we have no lead room we're all on the other side he's looking to the other direction it feels a bit unnatural but you can use this and have uses and I've seen this used sometimes for great effect where you can use it thematically maybe he is up against the wall and yo...

u're visually putting him up against one so this is something that you can use but on average over here this is what you usually going to do you're going to give them lead room it just feels more comfortable let's punch into a close up chiseled from the marble yeah that actually killing zoom out this has nothing to do with anything but I want to do it anyway and I let's just do a zoom in on stark stark said look I'm gonna roll on it this is gonna be offered for free within the downloadable assets wait one more we got stuff to do start come on be professional hold it you lost your dog cut beautiful so let's go over it close up here all right and here's what I'll see often I get it I get sent a lot of shorts to check out online and this is what I'll often see right here look look over here that's just weird I don't know what where's the rest of his head so we're chopping off the head and oftentimes when your handheld just park over here stark wants to see to your getting your getting a lot of that happening so I'm not saying I mean the opposite is not good either when you're in a close up head room not so good maybe when you're punched back a lot you know in here you don't want to get a head room balanced the frame a little bit but as you get tighter go ahead keep framing it up as they get tighter so say wide shot you're going to get a little bit of headroom happening let's get like three inches above a sad sort of somewhere around there is usually where I'm gonna go when you get sort of to a medium shot, you're doing a little bit less that's starting to get to the top of his head when you get to a medium close up it's almost cutting off his head a little bit to balance it. And then once you get to a close up it's cutting off the top of his hair a lot, I usually say, give him a haircut uh, so the opposite is here. That's just awful. Where this guy right here and now you know what, let's punch in a little bit more let's. Let's actually move the camera so we can he's got a serious face on now. Hey, does you guys let's go a little bit more? You guys have a hard time being professional. I know you guys have a lot of fun, but you're able to reel it in when you need to. When you have tio, I mean, like we're doing right now, you know, there's, a moment of serious acting. Everybody on set needs no sense of etiquette and it's. Time to be quiet and be respectful to the actors. It's really difficult to get to that place, I mean, cry on cue that's not easy. They usually have to bring it up from somewhere so they have to recall something often times or just get themselves into that mode and laughed or something like that breaks that moved in they have to start all over again it could be very frustrating for them so when it's something serious, we really need something from the actor it's time to be quiet settle down be respectful to the actor beyond that usually stuff like this keeping it fun I mean film making this difficult and it's a really long process so if you don't keep it fun, you know everybody's going to get real tight a bit real crook quick, maybe not come back the next day yeah, I was going to say with you guys phone riots probably once a year you're serious maybe if that if that it's kind of like why life is serious enough all right, let's get a little loose on this, all right? So for extreme close up like this, I'm usually going somewhere where I'm favoring the mouth, right? So I'm leaning toward that sounded really weird way you know, I was sticking with it I favor the mouth uh so we're going somewhere in that area it's good start where we're getting closer to the eyebrows and we're getting closer to the chin the opposite of that let's let's favor the eyebrows it just looks really weird I feel like they're there must be something happening what's on his head what are they trying to show me s o with that were usually going to favour the you know his mouth that's where if you speaking from so the eyes in this area this is what matters most when you most when you start getting into you know extreme close up anything pass that and you're getting to an extreme close up and you're purposefully pointing out something which is going to be his eyes mouth whatever and then you just focusing straight in on that stark why don't you stand up can you get the shoulder piece for this guy and let's get sam want to dim this just a touch for me just like let's say twenty percent frame it up so I can see what that looks like what's up there you just moved back in touch chicken state and that's fine. Um walter you want to help them out here and done remind walter josh is taking your job man way got everything locked out let's look down the pen. All right, walter, I do have a job for you. You want to be his spotter here and I need a cable wrangler who wants to do that josh you want stand up from the start that you just just just just and just when you first pull focus on that just pull back a little bit sorry that's looking it right take a step to your right josh it's tilt up just a touch a little less sex stand still for me for just a sec all right, josh one more step to your right there you go. So it's gonna look at the difference between shooting over the shoulder and not and how extreme it is and how it looks again, this is a good, you know, practice to do just go home and mess around with these things, test these things and see how they make you feel once you get acquainted with that emotionally, what is this doing to me? What is this saying to me? You could start using that again to manipulate your audience. So this feels a little more open to me and even if your audience is going to think it, you know, I mean, I really doubt most people when I watch films, I'm not going wait that was over the shoulder. What were they trying to tell me? But suddenly subliminally subliminable bitch hit me with the words it's saying something to you emotionally that's guiding you one way or the other even though you don't know it all these little things of film language that we keep talking about doing something, so getting a handle on all these different things it's really gonna help you dial in some moments for me again this is open were connected with him and him alone there's no one else in the scene we're just fully in on this one person which you could use for just a litany of different things. But as josh moves in it's a little bit more about the two of them and their conversation less about just him but there's someone else involved let's take a side step just like three inches. Josh no, the other direction we go more right there let's frame him about there and it's already taking on kind of a different tone for mae, but then josh, now take a step to your right let's go camera right as it gets tighter and tighter. It's getting a little more intense, right? So something that maybe you could do, which I have done, which I'm talking about too many things that I've done now, everything that you watch in mind you could be like, I know nothing uh, just slowly start to move camera, right, josh? Maybe as the conversations going on and it's getting more and more intense, we're just slowly let's just move this way slowly taking out, you know, his space and we're getting mohr and mohr obstructed by our other character, right? We stop here and this feels a lot more intense, right? He's blocked he doesn't have many places to go it's a little more claustrophobic so that's something that you could play around with a cz well and then I lines and angles so actually let's talk about island's second in a second let's try to get a little bit lower so this would be high level which we're going to talk about this a little bit more a little bit lower their ego and then go and look at josh and you can already see how much different that feels and then just stand right back up that makes a huge difference right and he's only moving up and down like, what four inches five inches so it's crazy those different small, small things that you could do for your peace are going to make a really, really big difference. All right, let's, get that off your shoulder for a second we fly in the tripod, please. So starting to think in those terms you guys can relax for a second starting think in those terms uh these little little little things that seem very, very obvious, like once you really start diving into them and dissecting them and thinking of how they can work for your film just four inches lower just four inches higher, a little bit more over the shoulder a little bit less all these things are going to do a lot and say a lot for your audience and your peace let's talk about shooting for wide screen uh hey, josh breaks over man you guys uh yes way dio have not used this monitor yet we have framed guides on the c one hundred so we should be good to go there most pretty much oh, professional monitors for the most part are goingto have framed guide so if you are shooting wide screen like two three five to four I usually go to for oh, I just like that little bit extra I really like the composition of getting just a little bit more once I go once I went toe two, three, four, two, four o once I went back to two, three, five and just felt so not widescreen too may remember where this is come to me aspect marker way go down, ryan down let's go. Okay, so you could follow these guys. Uh, josh, would you step back up again for you to three five bars, but if you don't have them like the large usually don't have them. I think magic lantern might have do they have guides they dio so magic lantern has guides built in, but if you're not doing magic land and if you're not on cannon uh you can always use gaff tape just figure out where those markers are maybe shooting your tv with that aspect ratio on it and then just using that teo you some gaff tape or something to set those markets for you if you don't have that you're on you know you're running and gunning and you know you want to put you know some widescreen bars on that later I usually just shoot a little bit wider so I can correct it later let's go over here would you step over there just a touch could we kick this one on on this let's get rid of this one way plugged in there I think we might have swapped stingers start can you swap stingers here were flying in one right now way not have one okay where's our other one walter you wantto help set this guy up oh, you know what you're close enough buildings just plug right into the wall okay? The ballots can live by the wall would be that's fine but let's set up here let's get to right here I want to help here let's go to write right here. You're gonna help him raise this up oh, no right here, josh uh you know what let's flop, you're right let's go here let's go take it up to about there let's go tungsten let's bring it right tio next to camera allyson that's the other thing when you're talking to your talent or your crew gets really confusing to say left or right because his right is his left so you're just gonna say camera left camera rights that means wherever the camera is looking camera right is always going to be this way so it's his left camera left is always going to be this way so started speaking in those terms we use a frame left frame light camera left camera right that way everybody knows exactly what it is because we all know where the camera's looking that's good let's uh frame him right yeah it's so meta filming the guy filming us and let's look that way good steak the explosion down just a touch let's just do it shudder okay now let's go loose with that maybe punch in just a bit right there all right let's just roll on it just stay loose with it move around a bit and let's always framing whoops okay good all right josh won't you back up and I walked in here and just keep him in frame roll and action okay good now let's just go handheld do you want to fly us out other side? I feel like I've been abusing josh for two days now all right let's frame same same style let's get in the right and go ahead and try to pull that focus josko heading back up again let's do the same with roll and action josh so close let's try one more time just have your end mark right here all right and look let's cut this let's start a new clip role and action josh okay but one more shot for focus on a roll and action josh yeah much better great cut okay let's fly the tripod back in got it all right you guys can take a seat there josh you want to start capturing this for me actually all this jump over and do it I'm too start capturing this why we do you want to take some questions on what's going on so far absolutely all right you guys have any questions all right I will ask him from online so the question came in about and people always ask about glasses ryan so the best way to light talent with glasses without having the light show up in the glasses especially what this cross lighting suggestions for that yeah sure I mean that could be very tough of course I find that the best way to do it is just tow angle the light around to try to move it out of the way of what the glass I refer collecting if they're sunglasses there's actually a certain spray which name is escaping me on this spray you put on any reflective surface and it's sort of mutes how reflectivity is to help you get around that a little bit but usually what I'm doing is I'm just angling the light moving the light around to account for you know what's going on with those glasses often times it's a matter of raising the light but it gets pretty difficult when the actors moving their head around like crazy so it's kind of a given take at least for me another question from defective does the color of the ambient light in the room affect how the shot looks on your monitor is that we're shading the cameras monitor on set yeah absolutely especially your outside a lend shade is an absolute must our monitor hood is an absolute must inside it's not as for proximity I just used a towel or a t shirt and draped it over my head with it and went into my little tent of filmmaking uh yeah but that that's a definite I have to when you're outside inside not as much unless you're getting a lot of glare with a certain shot and there's not much getting around it sometimes just a flag on a c stand set up behind you will fix the problem but yeah that's ah that's a great question okay cool you want to take a couple more? Are you ok? Eso question came in basically is there while the questions this is kind of a d I y question is there a way to light my talent with only my household lighting yeah absolutely I mean that's what we were talking about yesterday it's a matter of you know, switching bulbs between the pictures that you have I did that until when we went down that hallway like we showed yesterday when you just switch out the bulbs and those those top fixtures you create you know that much more intense look and you can kind of space that out and create those little shafts of light for your actors even walking to create mark so they're walking into like backlight or a kick like and the cannes lights again preaching the can lights until this class is over uh you guys got any questions so far thank you go ahead I'm noticed during the last couple days that you use a lot of terminology that you would find on actual movie set and I know a lot of the people at least on my level that I worked with that air just shooting kind of their own stuff they're thought is why do I need to learn that terminology if I'm never going to be on a film set if I'm always going to be the one kind of guiding the ship so speak what's your thought on that I think always be ready for you know what you hope for so if you're not using the terminology right now you're setting yourself up toe on lee use it in that stark has something after I'm done here apparently you know you get used to using your own terminology I mean east coast and west coast have so many different ways of saying things on you would like wait what is that way that's we called stingers what you talking about so you know, every even studio has sort of different phrases certain things but some stuff like hollywood ing that like like we've been talking about that's pretty standard fly that in that's pretty standard it's a good idea to start knowing these terms just use them because you know what if you release something someone loves it bam you're on a set that's why I say even if you're writing for yourself it's just good practice to write how you should, you know would write if you were writing for someone else it's just getting into that mindset so if you know you would strike lightning and you hit it which that's what you should be if you want to be a filmmaker that's how you should be thinking that you know you're always working towards that and goal hopefully you'll be good to go then, but we have our own terminology and our sets as well yes, uh stark you had a thing to it that is if you're working with people it's good to have a good standard because you might be with like your group of people when you have your own freezes but then you might like even if you're not on a film set, you might. Okay, we need this guy and he's, like, I have no idea what you're talking about. So it's good to have, like, a common middle ground. So everybody knows, like this's, this up is down. Our up is up. So it's, not the other way around. All right, cool. So here's a shot? Uh, we just did. We have that up there. All right. Cool it's. Kind of tiny on my screen, but let's, make it let's, make it happen. So here's a shot. We just did. We want to throw bars on it. And if you just throw the bars on it, which, right here, I just have these bars that we made, and we're also going to make these available as well in the downloadable assets for the course. They're just, you know, the bars on png, but they're mathematically correct. So once you toss them on its, you know, fully correct to this. And this is two for which I was talking about. He toss him on, you hit play and it's not really working and people will leave it just like that all the time and I don't understand why, because it is the most simple thing in the world and this is, you know, don't feel bad this is usually what I get when I shoot my stuff too. I put it in there and I'm like, well, dang it, all you gotta do is come up to position find where you want it to start, I'm on the wrong clip find where you wanted to start, which lets go right there and we move forward, change your framing up once more and then just gets bored I don't want to do it anymore, I usually how our chutes go and now we have again, just the most simple solutions, which is the things I really, really want to drive home in this class is none of this. I don't think I mean, you could tell me if I'm wrong, but nothing that we've talked about so far is that difficult, but they're things that people don't do which take their project that could have been here down to here, and it was just the most simple take five more minutes and do that, and you're here, you know, simple stuff like having the clip looked like it did and leaving it like that immediately tells me new you know, I mean this guy's been doing it long kind of turned off to it and what was that all about pulled out of it? Uh even you know, static shots like this one it's good and then I was his cameraman fell asleep for a second. So simple just go into motion or whatever your editor is just smooth it out problem solved cool let's jump back into the keynote anymore. Questions why we jump back into the keynote. The question came in from linda rick who wanted to know what would you do differently when using a two camera? This is more back to shooting. I don't know if you want. Is that okay? Yeah, when using a two camera set up for over the shoulder scenes. How do you feel about cross shooting? I so I think it was john material who said his producer told him, you know, with a multi cam shoot uh okay, that's great. You have three cameras going, but which one are you looking at? Meaning as the director which one are you focusing in? On which, you know, that's your job you're supposed to sit there. You're supposed to watch the performance she's supposed to shape everything that's what you do, so if there's two to three cameras going at one time it's a little bit difficult that's kind of how I see it obviously there's certain times where you're doing effects something can't do more than once comedy if you're riffing the best thing that you could possibly have is two cameras going at the same time so your your actors are free to you know go nuts do whatever they want and it's going to be solid but I like to consolidate toe one camera shoot a cz much as possible with a project that we have coming up it is a two camera shoot but it's because we only have a very certain amount of time so we constantly have to be ruling to make sure we get the coverage s so that's always a part of the tubes you know deadline dictates that but in a perfect world, if I could choose I'm a single camp shoot until it's like a special effect of some kind that we can't do twice okay cool you want to take one more? Yup doing right this from f user do you recommend always to draw diagrams for your blocking and for your lighting for every scene and every shot I found it very time consuming did you do that in your short films or just where you're setting or you just were setting lights as you shoot so we're talking about top down diagrams as faras like lighting and camera goes like camera plots? I think so uh no I no I pretty much never do those unless it's a big you know sequence like we've talked like we already talked about I don't do those although I think it is great practice if you're starting out with something like shot designer pro where you could just get in there and design out your shots justice practice it's only twenty bucks and it's acting you're giving yourself a little media education actually a great thing to dio is look at your favorite like scene find a favorite scene watching over over over again analyze it to death figure out all right well where with the lights light was motivated from this one ok so they had that but clearly there's a bounce happening here figured that out figure out what the cameras doing figure out what the blocking is doing and then recreate that something like shot designer block it all out and really hone in on technically what they were doing to accomplish that idea that that's a really great thing that you could do all right I line that should be a no brainer just I think you want to come up hey, josh uh bill can you kick that kino back on moving up about three feet you probably stay right about there let's just get over the shoulder on stark right on this side uh the height that you're that should be fine or met again filming us filming you okay it's coming here all right start look right at josh stark look right here it doesn't look like it's looking at him any more look at him don't maybe head just with your eyes like right here no, not the head just the eyes doesn't look like he's looking at him any more right now josh move off look right at josh over here doesn't look like he's looking at him anymore. This is something again this whole segment is about these little mistakes that I see constantly and I have done this so many times and film riot because I'm killing myself in the adam jar because it just doesn't look like they're looking at him we know josh's haif we've seen his height and the this the sequence so far we had amount master shock we know the geography of the room we know where he's standing when we cut back even if it's the smallest amount stark look appear it no longer looks like he's looking at him it all looks like you know there's something behind josh that he's worried about or something of that nature and we do it a lot especially when you're doing the effects and you need to keep that eye line something that they often do his films is a tennis ball on a stick that's something great so thinking about eye line is really big one because that one just like the framing something that's so stupid, simple that people don't think about, and I see it more often than not. That really takes me out of a piece. But it's, just just five inches left. Just look five inches left, and you would have been totally fine.