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A few tips enabling you to add
interest
and life to
your
movies
Framing
•
Pay
great
attention to clarity: a picture
must be easily
taken
in
by the
spectator
and,
for
this, have
only
one centre
of
inter-
est,
be free
of all
superfluous
detail.
You
will
have to
learn to select only what
really
interests
you
and
matters
in a
scene;
try to
focus
attention on
the
main subject and
choose
your
frame
without trying
to include
too
much,
•
Remember
that
close-ups
and
extreme
close-ups are
very
expressive and spec-
tacular.
•
As a
general
rule.
avoid
excessive
sym-
metry:
for
instance, the
horizon
must
never
divide
the
picture into two
equal halves,
and
the
main subject must not
be
kept
right
in
the
middle
of
the picture
from
one
end
of a sequence to
another.
• Learn
to
use close-ups to obtain
con-
trasting
effects,
which
will
add
relief
to your
sequences.
In order not to
bore
your audience
•
Do
not forget
that a spectator's
attention
begins to
flag
as
soon
as he has
grasped
the
significance
of
a
shot; avoid
too long
sequences
therefore, otherwise
your
film
will
become
boring.
On
the
other
hand,
do
not make
your
scenes too
short
either;
if
you
do,
your film
will
be
chopped up and
incomprehensible.
Five
to ten
seconds
per
scene represents a
good
average
length.
•
Do not
be
afraid to
keep
changing
the
angle
of
your
shots.
Film your subject from
the front,
from
the
back,
three-quarters
view, in
profile. Use
high-angle
shots
20
(shooting
down,
from
top
to bottom)
and
low-angle shots
(upwards,
from bottom to
top).
In
a high-angle
shot,
the
subject
is
dominated,
dwarfed, threatened,
giving
an
impression of
weakness.
In
a low-angle
shot
the
subject
dominates,
dwarfs,
threat-
ens,
giving
an
impression of
strength.
•
Do not overdo the moving of your camera
while
filming: remember that it
is the
sub-
ject that ought
to move
and not your
came-
ra.
Do not
overdo
panning
either,
or
zoom
effects;
they
soon
become boring:
keep
them strictly for
scenes
where
they are
really
justified.
•
Images
that
"dance"
and
"jerk"
on
the
screen are extremely
unpleasant and
sometimes downright
annoying for
the
spectator. The
slightest
jerkiness of the
camera
when
filming is amplified consider-
ably
in
projection:
it
is
important
therefore
to
film
under
the
best
possible
conditions
of
steadiness,
especially if
you
are
using
the
zoom.
Although
your
camera
has
been
designed for
ease
of
holding,
if
circum-
stances
require
or permit
do
not
hesitate
to
use a
tripod or
a monopod.
• Add
titles to your
film
and
liven
it up
with unexpected
transitions
between
the
various
sequences.
•
A film
is always
more or
less a
story in
pictures:
do
not
pad out your
story
un-
necessarily with
details
of
no
great
impor-
tance.
Your
film does not
have
to
reconsti-
tute
an
action
in
its entirety.
You cannot,
for
example,
film your
whole
trip
to
the
Cote
d'Azur in full
detail:
a suitcase being
packed,
car
doors being
shut,
one
or two
sequences
showing picturesque
scenes
on
the way
down
and
you can move
directly
on
to
shots
of
the beach.
You have
only to
show
a
few
characteristic
sequences
which
flow
smoothly
into each other for
the
spec-
tator
to follow
the
thread
of your
story
per-
fectly
and to
use his
imagination
to
fill
in
any
gaps between the various
sequences.
Do the
same
to describe
an action
taking
place
in
a
much smaller
lapse
of time:
since
movies manipulate
time
as
they
please
and
offer you
the possibility
of
condensing,
learn
to be
brief in
your
way of telling a
story
on
film, mercilessly cut
out
any shots
that
are
of no real importance:
do
it first
of
all
while actually
filming,
and
editing
will
be
much easier or
even quite unnecessary.
Light
and
shade
• Learn how
to use the vataries of the
sun
and weather:
the
play of
light
and
shade
offers
great
scope.
A brilliantly
lit
scene
with clear-cut
shadows
creates
a stark
at-
mosphere
full
of
passion: when the
light
is
diffused,
the contours of the
shadows
blur-
red and
cotton-wooly,
the atmosphere
be-
comes soft, dreamlike
and
even mysterious
and
unreal.
•
Shadow
represents
the
contrast
with
real-
ity; although
being merely a more or less
dark,
more
or
less
clear-cut
shape,
it
pos-
sesses,
through
its
immateriality,
consider-
able power
of
expression.
A shadow may
be short or exaggeratedly
long,
narrow
or
exaggeratedly
wide: filming
the shadow
cast
by
an object
can
give
you
quite
amus-
ing
or
comic effects, but
sometimes
im-
pressive,
and even
hallucinating
ones. The
play
of
shadows
can
very
well
constitute
the main
interest
of a sequence.
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