Cinematic Compositions & Visual Storytelling in Film & Photography

1. Introduction: You're a filmmaker, you've got your next big theme idea already in the script is done. But now, how do you achieve those wonderful symmetric compositions full of visual storytelling like you see on the big screen. You've come to the right place. Hello, I'm Alex. Them, a filmmaker with over six years of experience in this domain. I've done a bunch of fields commercial. And from my experience I learned that tomato graphene video storytelling to make the difference between beginners. And I learned this case with a combination of a bunch of tutorials and a lot of practice. I wish I had this class vector. So we are going to first discuss what the competition is. Then going to teach you the fundamental rules of compositing, like the rule of thirds, the golden ratio of leading lines and minima. We're going to take a look at colors creating depths and camera angles and move them. In the end, we're going to see a bunch of examples of how to create asymmetric composition and also tell a story through them. So join me in the most complete and beginner friendly cinematography class. 2. What are compositions and visual storytelling?: Before creating asymmetric shot like in a film, we must understand what the composition is. You want to capture something, a subject, an object, or a landscape. There are hundreds of ways to fill that. Composition is the way you align the elements inside your shots using different rules. The rule of thirds, golden ratio, 180 degree of rules, leading lines and many more. It also refers to how the shot is being captured, e.g. the camera angle, focal length, and other camera settings about all of them we're going to talk in the next lesson. Visual storytelling is also a huge part of cinematography. The film is the visual art to tell a story. The story in film is not only told by the actors in the script, but also visually visual storytelling. The way you combine the composition with the motions the story should tell. 3. Rule of Thirds: A fundamental rule of film-making, one that everyone probably knows is the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is a grid line built by two horizontal lines and two vertical, which helps you align elements in subjects in your composition. You can overlay it in most cameras and even smartphones can do that. An example for its use is with the horizon in a landscape. If you have more important elements in the Skype, place the horizon, the bottom line. For instance, if you have some interesting clouds. Otherwise if the action happens on the ground, the horizon should be aligned with the top line. If there is a prominent object like a tree or a mountain, You must balance out your composition by aligning it to one of the vertical lines. Another example for its use is aligning the subject. It's I should be on the top horizontal line. This will institute creating more symmetric and professional shot just because it leaves the perfect room for the head, called Headspace, but also for the body, and creates an overall neutral shot. If the subjects should sit in the middle of the frame, you should place it between the two lines. But when looking to the side, the subjects should be placed on one of the vertical lines opposite to the direction they're looking at. Another way of using this rule is when having two subjects, you can place one on all the vertical lines while the other one is between lines. This will draw all the attention to the first-person, while the other one is not so prominent. If two objects must be in the center of attention, both can be placed on the two vertical lines. This will create a balanced composition. And if the objects are similar or even the same, they will create a symmetric composition. Coming back to the center composition, you can see that the entire attention of the viewer is being directed to the subject, leaving no other room for anything else. This is good for presentation like this. But to tell a story, multiple elements must be involved. But for this to work, you must guide the viewer's side with the golden ratio or leading lines. 4. Golden Ratio: The golden ratio is the mathematical equation that device the screening two parts 11.6 times bigger than the other for infinity forming an infant inspired, defined by the Fibonacci numbers. You might ask yourself, why do we need met? Even in filmmaking, this God, the number 1.618 appears everywhere in the world. The lower part of the forearm, arm is 1.6 times bigger than the hand needs in our DNA and many more. The golden ratio is the natural way how our eyes are guided through the shot. You need to add guiding objects through the ratio to have a guide for the eyes. And at its ends, there should be the main subject. The golden ratio can be everywhere in the frame, unlike the rule of thirds, aligning to the rule of thirds can be easy and after some practice, you will be able to memorize it. The golden ratio, on the other hand, is a more symmetric way of compositing. In this shot, the starting point of the ratio is the place where the subject stays in the end, his destination. 5. Leading lines: As I said in the lesson with the rule of thirds estimate the composition must guide the eyes of the viewer through the shot to the subject. We can use the golden ratio for this, but there is one more thing that can help us, leading lines. These lines are formed by objects. You feel, for instance, a road, the horizon, a fence, or anything that forms our sort of line. Leading lines are often using long establishing shot to guide the eyes of the viewer to a certain point. I cinematic shot is beard. When combining the previous rules with the leading lines in this shot, we have the subject on the rule of thirds, but there are some lines in the beggar formed by the forest margins that guide the eyes to the subject. The same happens in this shot. The margins of the road guide the path of the subject and also the end of the path is on the vertical line of the rule of thirds. With these techniques, you've made your sudden much more interesting and it can stay longer on screen without getting boring. 6. Depth of field: Another important aspect of cinematography is creating depth. You hear this word depth in every cinematography tutorial. What is that actually we refer to as the third dimension? No, we're not creating a 3D movie, but now to the shot, we need to make the viewer see the 3D environment we filmed. This means that we need to create three layers, foreground subject and bigger. The subject is the main focus point, while the other two layers are both autofocus, these separate the subject from the other layers, bringing first of all, the interpretation to him, but also creating depth, making the overall shot much more symmetric to fully separate the subject and other lists from each other. You could also add camera move on about that. We're going to talk later in this class. In this shot, we can clearly see the three layers. The subject is in focus, bringing all the tension to him, while the background and foreground are both out of focus, with the camera moving sideways. Is Chris, the parallax effect. When the subjects tastier in the other layers slightly move. This creation of depth allowed me in the edit to live longer and skinnier. 7. Colors: Cinematography also plays around with colors. One example I like to take is with our good old friend, the color wheel. To separate the subject from the background, you can choose different colors on opposite sides of the calories. For instance, blue with yellow, green with one gender, and so on. In this shot, the subject has some dark clothing and the light at the slight blue tint. In the meanwhile, the background is orange. Also, these ad creates color contrast. The subject is dress blue, and nature has a yellowish color. Color can also be used to draw attention to a certain subject or object. In this shot, the subject is in contrast with the scene while the other ones dressed in dark colors draw the tension being different from the environment. The same drugs called draws the attention to the subject again, in this shot. Colors can also tell a story. An example for this is creating a state for the characters in film through this dress code. In this scene, we have one character dressed in brighter colors and the second one in dark, without even knowing what the film is about or who the characters are. Immediately understand the dawn is a bad character and 18 Good. Another example from my film, the two phases of Furman spoiler alert. The main character interacts with him in the past. So there are two characters, the color, they're dressed and being Lytton show how their personalities, one character, the pastel, is dressed, why enlightened bright? This shows a good person, a good character. In the meanwhile, the present character is dressed in dark colors, elite and less, showing the exact opposite in changing character. 8. 180º Rule: There is one more rule when it comes to filmmaking, the 180 degree rule. This rule is used when filming with two subjects from different angles. You must imagine your environment as a bird's eye view, indirect an imaginary lines through the two subjects. If you have a point between the two subjects at equal distance, there is a 180 degree angle. Then you drag another line between the camera and that point. The camera can spin around, but you're never allowed to cross that 180 degree angle. This rule helps you not to confuse the viewer. A dialogue with the 180 degree rule clearly establish the position of the two subjects. But by crossing this line, you will not understand anymore where is subjects seats? 9. Camera movement & angles: You can have the perfect alignment of elements in your composition and still not have asymmetric shot. If you don't use the right camera angle and move the camera right. There are four important camera angles. The low angle, high level, high angle, and bird's-eye view. Besides those, there are also the POV over the shoulder shot in Dutch angle. The angle you're filming from should be decided depending on the story. A low angle gives us a subject confidence while a high angle makes him small and not so powerful, that shows the something is not alright, also the distance of the camera meters. You can have an extreme close-up, close-up, medium shot, wide or long shot, and also extremely long time. These were just some reminders about now, let's talk about the movement of the camera. First, we divide it into smooth and handheld movement. Both of them telling different stories. Smooth movements show there's nothing's wrong and gives the viewer a feeling what handheld shows the opposite. But the bus story thing we're going to dive deeper into later in this class. 10. Composition types: Before diving into visual storytelling, Let's talk about some different compositions applying the rules we just learned. First, let's take a look at the center composition. This type of composition utilizes the rule of thirds by placing the subject in the middle in the line with the horizontal line. When doing this, all the attention is directed to the subject. Another composition type is a symmetric composition. This is often used when showing something perfect. This shot starts with one subject and normal composition, but after painting, the second subject isn't a centered and symmetric composition. This shows that the second person is more worth it probably poor compositions are also formed by the angles in types of shots you're using. 11. Looking point of the viewer: Now it's time to dive into the world of visual storytelling. We talked a bit about the different scenarios of visual storytelling. But besides showing the motions of the character, we can control how the viewer is impacted by them. This is done by placing the viewer further away or closer to the action you filming on a wide lens and being closest object meets the viewer feels emotion. A slight movement if the caterer struggles with something can also be added. Doing the opposite by filming on a telephoto lens in a loan or extreme long shot places that we're far away from the excellent leaving the character alone. This can be done also using the foreground. The trick here to keep the viewer most thing is to bring him closer to the subject in a moment the character struggles. But before I really important moment we should give him are released by bringing the camera far away. If you hold the viewer always tied to the character or the figure will become boring. But by releasing him from time to time, you add more engagement. 12. Visual Storytelling: Now in the last lesson, let's go over some examples of visual storytelling. In this scene. At the beginning, we're not so close to the subject because we've just met him. But right at the end, the viewer is brought closer to him right before the character dies, making his dad much more impactful. In this shot, the camera pushes ignore the subject, making the viewer more interested in the case. Also, this is a common effect infamy indeed, I'd like to call the progress bar. This portion is just like a progress bar before the character needs to make a decision. Here's to do something in the same scene. The viewer stays steady and close the character. At the end, he struggles and to make the viewer feel his feelings, we move the camera together with the subject, even adding some Hinton movement. This dialogue scene also has some dig, deep visual storytelling. The state of the character can be easily shown through angles and movements. The first character is he feel handcuffed and from a high angle, the second character is feeling steady and also from a slight low angle, showing confidence and power over the other. Also the way they are placed their story. One stains in one seat, throwing, one being more comfortable in the other. Now, The same happens in these dialogues into the more confident character is again fin from a tripod, while the other one hand here, also the elements in their placement inside the shot can tell a story. We have here an unbalanced shot between a three, and they mean the main struggles and the tree is a symbol of protection, something that domain needs. Also because the shot is starting, it shows a big release. There are also the composition route present, the golden ratio that takes from the main to the tree and leading lines to a three. In this shot, one character has an emotional speech. This is enhanced by the low angles you think FIN from The Movement. For this example, I chose again a progress bar. This progress bar brings them closer to the subject. This time not because of the struggles, but towards the processing, approaching him as a good character and anticipating the end of the film. These are just some examples, but the way are going to implement visual storytelling in your film is the unique style that you're going to develop with a lot of practice. 13. Conclusion & Class Project: Congratulations on completing this class. Now you have everything you need to start creating your own fear. It's time for you to go out and shoot your own field, but be patient. Before mastering these techniques, you'll need a lot of practice at first, take out your notes and work with them. But after time, you're going to not need them anymore as much as you can in for the class project sending a short film, I'll be happy to give you feedback on it. I hope that you learn something new and as always, don't hesitate to contact me with any further questions. Have a great day.