What’s the Most Important Element in Film or Video?
Sometimes the simplest questions are the hardest to answer. In this case, the object of our enquiry is a subject we are all very familiar with. When something is so close to us, when it is something we live with every day, it can be hard to see the “wood for the trees”.
I was recently thinking about this question because I needed to find a starting point for an introduction to filmmaking. I put this question to a class and the answers were things like, “Story”, “Lighting”, “Camera”, “Subject” which are all great answers. But I was wondering what made film and video different to other visual mediums.
What is your answer?
My answer is “Movement”.
Video is a moving image format. This might seem obvious, but I think it’s good to take stock and remind ourselves what we are dealing in.
There’s all kinds of cold headed technical stuff to deal with when making a film: exposure, focus, lighting, colour and so on. But as filmmakers, our overriding concern should be movement.
Movement also has a double meaning: 1) the physical movement of the camera or objects within the frame and 2) moving our audience emotionally.
But let’s think about the physical movement first:
Movement within the frame
If your camera is fixed (on a tripod for example) and there’s no movement within the frame – then why are you shooting video? You may as well shoot a still image and save on memory.
So the first thing to think about as a filmmaker or a DoP when composing a moving image is the movement within the frame.
How objects – especially people – move within the frame is a major part of how a moving image story is told. A simple example would be a person walking from left to right across the image or instead walking directly towards the camera. Depending on what you decide to go for, you will obviously be giving the audience a different experience.
How will your audience feel watching a person walk left to right? Probably more detached, like someone observing from the opposite side of the street.
How will your audience feel watching a person walk towards the camera? Probably more involved, more personal, perhaps even a little intimidated (depending on how close the person gets and how they are acting).
This is a basic action, but still – just moving the camera 90° makes a dramatic difference to how the audience perceive the action within the frame.
How will the audience feel if the person walks away from camera?
Avoid the static, unemotional, unengaging
If you are filming a screenplay (or creating a storyboard to film from) your focus should be on how things within the frame are moving. Often, storyboard artists use arrows to show the movement of objects, people or the camera.
When a filmmaker is thinking more about achieving correct technical aspects – like the correct exposure, white balance and so on – and less about movement, it can result in a flat, static image. As if the filmmaker simply placed the camera in the most neutral place and had the cast move around the frame like actors on a theatre stage.
So, while the filmmaker believes they are working in a professional way (technical aspects perfectly correct) the resulting image looks crude, unengaging and unemotional.
Tip: When working out your shots, think first about the movement within the frame.
Camera movement
Whatever is going on within the frame can be changed dramatically by moving the camera. The moving camera decides what we are looking at. The moving camera decides when and how we will arrive at each things to be looked at.
Some basic camera movements are:
- Pan – the camera moves smoothly left or right. Like turning your head.
- Tilt – the camera move up or down. Like looking up or down as a person.
- In – the camera moves in on a subject. Starting wide then slowly focusing in on something.
- Out – the camera pulls away from a subject. Starting close the camera pulls out to reveal more.
- Dolly or tracking – the camera tracks a moving object, following it (from in front or behind).
These basic movements add extra storytelling ideas to your film. A pan is like a sweeping view of the scene – you want to reveal everything to audience, for example.
How do you think each of these basic shots makes the audience feel? Of course, it depends on the content of the frame. If it’s a beautiful garden you are panning across, you would expect the audience to feel good. If it is the carnage of a battlefield you are sweeping across, the audience might feel disturbed or traumatized.
But still – the pan shot is a way of showing the audience what you think they need to see next. “Look at all this… (paradise/carnage)”.
By contrast, if the camera moves slowly in on a single rose or a dying soldier – what are you telling the audience then? Instead of “look at all this…” you are saying “you need to focus on this single… (flower/victim)”. Presumably, this particular flower or soldier is either key to the story, or reveals something key to the story in some way.
I’m imagining this as I write the article, and already I’m coming up with a whole host of thoughts and questions. Perhaps I’ve even conjured stories or images into your mind. So you see how important this is – and how complex.
No wonder filmmakers don’t have time to consider this stuff when they are busy getting the white balance right.
Which is why filmmakers use storyboards – so they can focus on the technical stuff on the day and refer to the storyboard for the framing and movement.
Moving images
And all this is driving in one direction – to move the audience. Panning across a beautiful garden with some light, romantic music, will hopefully rouse the audience to feeling romantic themselves. Moving in on the wounded dying soldier as he gasps his last breath while the violins bow something sympathetic will hopefully move your audience to remember the fallen.
This is your job as a filmmaker (above all other jobs). Because without this filmmaking is simply a technical exercise which will leave your audience cold.
So next time you are shooting a movie ask yourself: are your images moving?
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