BASIC CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR BEGINNER FILMMAKERS

Beginner’s guide to the

filmmaking process:
BASIC CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR BEGINNER FILMMAKERS

There are lot of things to think when you’re planning each shot. You
need to think about the individual shots, and how they’ll fit together.
How you set up, light and film your shot is called
cinematography.
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Shot size
What will be in the shot and
how big will it be?

Shot size means how much of the scene is included in the

picture, and whether it mainly shows the setting, people in the
setting, or details of faces and things.

It’s important to use different shot sizes in your movie. It’s a

way of spelling things out, to make sure that people see exactly
the things you want them to see. If you shoot everything in
long shot (head to foot) people will probably miss details and
expressions which would help them understand the story.

Most filmmakers use standard names for shot sizes.

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Showing the setting

Extreme Long Shot (ELS) or Extreme Wide Shot (EWS) mainly show the setting: if they include people, they’ll be very
small. You can use these kinds of shot as establishing shots at the beginning of a film or a sequence to show where the scene
is set.

Showing people in an extreme long shot can make them look lost, lonely or insignificant. (Some people use the term very long
shot to refer to a wide shot where you can see people).
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Introducing people
To show people in the setting, you need to get closer.
These kinds of shots are easier to use than closeups, particularly for moving subjects, but they don’t have as much impact.

Long Shot (LS) or Wide Shot (WS) show people from head to toe. These are good for showing people together, and
for showing action.
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Medium Long Shot (MLS) or Medium Wide Shot (MWS) are closer. They’re sometimes called three-quarter shots
because that’s how much of the body they include.
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Medium Shot (MS) show people from their hips to head.

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Using closeups
Don’t make the mistake of shooting the whole film with just mid or long shots: take the time and trouble to use closeups as well.
This will give it more impact and help your viewers to understand the story.

Closeups let us see expressions and emotions. There are several kinds of closeup, and as you move closer they get more intense.

A Medium Close Up (MCU) shows the head and shoulders. It’s fairly loose, so the subject can move a bit. This is a
good shot for presentations to camera.
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A standard Close Up (CU) shows the head and maybe a bit of the shoulders.
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You can use a big closeup – which just shows the main features of somebody’s face – to show a strong emotion like sadness, or
to make somebody look scary.
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You can use a Extreme Close Up (ECU) – which just shows the main features of somebody’s face – to show a strong emotion
like sadness, or to make somebody look scary.
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For an emotional scene, try starting with fairly loose framing (maybe mid shots) and then use bigger and bigger closeups to build
up the intensity.
You can also use closeups of things, to show patterns and details.

An insert is a kind of closeup that shows something important that viewers might miss. So if you show a mid shot of somebody
holding an object or reading a note, you would follow it with a closeup insert that shows what they’re holding or reading.
When you film closeups, you need to be very careful about how you frame your shots, and you usually need to keep the camera as
still as possible.
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Stepping between shot sizes

A lot of films start with an extreme long shot to show the
setting, then they cut to long shots and mid shots of people in
the setting, then they show closeups. This is a good way to set
the scene and bring the audience with you so they know exactly
where the people fit into the bigger picture.

But you don’t have to work this way. You could keep viewers
guessing by starting with a closeup or an extreme closeup, and
not revealing the setting until later.

Change position as well as

shot size
When you change shot size, you should usually move the
camera to a different position around the subject to make the
edit less obvious. So if one shot is from directly in front, the
second should be at an angle or from the side. If you don’t do
this, you may get a jump cut where the camera seems to
‘jump’ forwards or backwards.
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Framing Your Shots

How will you arrange things in
the shot?

The way you arrange things in a shot can make it seem

natural, formal or strange.

For a natural look, put important things a bit off centre

(around a third of the way across the screen). To be more
formal or stylish, put things dead centre or use symmetry.

For a creepy or unsettling feel, you could put the camera on a

slant or make the composition really unbalanced.
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Composition For Filmmakers: Framing Your Shots

• Composition means how you arrange things in the shot.
• Your film will look a lot better if you compose the shots carefully.
• Pay attention to where things are in the shot, what’s happening at the edges of the frame, and what’s going on in the
background.
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Keeping it natural
If you want people to concentrate on the story – not the filmmaking – you should frame your shot to look natural. But you still
need to arrange it carefully.

It’s a good idea to put things clearly off-centre if you want your film to look natural. Some people talk about the rule of
thirds: putting important things or edges about a third of the way across, up or down the screen. In fact, many cameras
let you overlay a rule of thirds grid on your scene to help with this. But it’s more important to judge whether the
image looks right to you, rather than following a rigid rule.
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Getting it right
When you film a closeup of somebody, try to put the eyes about a third of the way down the picture.
If they are too low or too high it’ll look wrong.
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Put more space in the direction people are looking or moving. This is called looking space or nose room.
 
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When you join shots of people looking at each other, the direction they are looking should line up: this is called eyeline match.