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Planning Your Shots

Lesson 20 from: From Photo to Film

Andrew Scrivani

Planning Your Shots

Lesson 20 from: From Photo to Film

Andrew Scrivani

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Lesson Info

20. Planning Your Shots

Location and other factors will limit the type of shots that you can capture, like when the room doesn't have enough space to position both the cameras and the actors. In this lesson, learn how to plan and troubleshoot your shots.

Lesson Info

Planning Your Shots

we went through all of this, and I just want to talk about some of the some of the base coverage basics in terms off. When you thinking about the things that you wanna set up before you actually go into the into picking your shots, right? Ah, you want to choose your lens size and your focal distance? You want to know what's capable in this space that you're available in, you know? So I was thinking about this last night that if you were shooting a scene where somebody sitting at a desk like Drew and we were having a conversation back and forth, and we're in a room this big, we were really wouldn't have a problem having that back and forth because we can position cameras behind me in a position, a camera behind him and we can get that over the shoulder. Look, even at this distance. But if you moved him back into that corner, there would be no way to get the over the shoulder shot of his conversation with May so that you would realize that in a room that's really small, if you don't have...

the flexibility to move or at least have enough space to position your camera That is going to impact the kind of scenes you can shoot on. It's going to impact the kind of flexibility you're gonna have and it's gonna influence lens choice. It's gonna influence your rig size. All of those things. I've been in that situation where I'm like, I want to do this and I'm like, but we don't have room to do that. We just don't have room to move the camera that way. We just don't have room to position the equipment we need That way. There's not enough room to put the lighting the way we want it. So you have to consider all of those things when you're crafting and picking both your lenses, the focal distance, the set up, all of the environment you're in. All those things were really critical to understanding because once you get in, you've committed to all of those other things and then you realize I can't execute it. That's a big problem. Um, you wanna We talked about this yesterday. Whenever you're shooting from a particular angle, you always want to do the entire scene from that perspective so that you have all of the coverage that you need to cut. Um, you want to make sure you shoot the master shot and we talked about why that was yesterday, right? We talked about if you if everything else falls apart after you've gotten the master, at least you still have the scene. And you could Still, even though it's unconventional or on, you know, unfortunate You would only have that particular angle to shoot from, But you have it so you can consider you can continue your narrative. So that's why you do each piece of coverage after you shot your master, Um, you shoot one side to complete than the other side complete. So every angle, every shot, you do everything before you move the camera, and that's again for timing purposes and for continuity purposes. And then you have to start thinking about those transitional elements to get in and out of the scene like we have a scene in somebody's bedroom and they're having a conversation. And the very next scene they're in a park. Well, how did they get there? You know, and you have the opportunity at that point to put something transitional in between showing people how they're getting to and from a place or or some other element to get you in and out of a scene. And this is a concept that becomes very, very apparent. Even with the most well planned, executed shoots, everything planned out properly, blah, blah, blah. And then you make one little tweak in editing and you're like, Oh, no, I can't get in or out of the scene. What am I going to do? And that's when you have when you have plenty of inserts, plenty of establishing work, lots of montage stuff because montages or another great way to transition from scene to scene or from feeling to feeling. So you put together a montage of different types of shots that are helping tell the story without dialogue, maybe with a little bit of dialogue. But those are the transitional elements that help you get in and out and transition out of one idea and one thought into another. And if you are not thinking about those things ahead of time and how you're gonna build out a package of coverage that will help you transition in and out of scenes, you're gonna run into roadblocks and it's gonna be much harder. And then your film is going to feel very choppy. Okay, and then yesterday I just want to reiterate we went over the rules of the 180 degree line, but I encourage you. The concept of the 108 degree rule is, and the concept of the line is very complex. It's not something that you will just absorb on Day one and be able to completely understand all of the rules and the things that you do to break the rules. I gave you one particular example yesterday, but there is so much to learn about that that that's one of those kind of you should take a deeper dive on it, just so you understand it and you don't run afoul of it. And then once you start to understand, then use the techniques. Then, if you decide there's something cinematic that you want to do that breaks the rule, by all means experiment part of everything we do

Ratings and Reviews

Nev Steer
 

A very well explained class on starting in film production from the viewpoint of a person with a successful photography background. Thanks Andrew.

Nutmeg
 

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