Basic Training: Composition 102: Part 2 (page 2)

Now that you have some techniques under your belt, let's take a look at how to put them all together. Many videographers and directors of photography will look at a scene and quickly position the camera, seemingly without thinking about it. If you asked them about that position, it might take them a minute to stammer out a response.

Because the vocabulary is ingrained, good cinematographers and videographers think in composed shots. They subconsciously frame things properly, seek out good light and know upon walking into a room where the camera must be placed to avoid distracting background items and still get two actors' faces in the frame. The more techniques you learn, and the more you learn to identify them, the more they will become part of your creative subconscious process.

To quote Ansel Adams, "There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs" -- meaning, of course, that adherence to the rules does not guarantee results. The best example of breaking all the rules recently is the 1999 smash hit The Blair Witch Project, which was ostensibly directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, who weren't even on the set most of the time, let alone peering through the camera setting up shots. Possibly the film with the worst compositional techniques ever to grace the big screen, the Blair Witch's first person hand-held POV shots, lit by flashlights and much shaking, succeeded because it made the audience believe the video footage was "real" instead of Hollywood fabrication.

One frequent mistake that even seasoned videographers and cinematographers make is forgetting that a particular shot that you are acquiring must match the ones before and after it in the finished production. This means that you must pay attention to background; for example, a wall that is brick in a wide shot can't mysteriously become stucco in a closeup. Keeping track of continuity is what makes a scene flow from shot to shot appear seamless. For example, if your scene of a criminal running to his car for a quick getaway has him reaching for the car door with his right hand in a wide shot, then the closeup cutaway shot is of his left hand grabbing the door handle, you've broken continuity and jarred the attention of the viewer from the story.

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