Composing a shot in a camera can be magical, and it can be downright frustrating. It’s magical because when all the elements for a great shot come together it all just seems to work; the sun is shining, the angels are singing, and Skittles rain from the heavens…ok, maybe I’m a bit over the top there. It IS an awesome feeling, though! However, when you just can’t seem to get the right framing to match what your eye sees, it can be very discouraging.
Composition is the key to helping you at least get close to what you see and this overview will help you see how to get consistently good framing from your operators (and from yourself) to take your production to the next level.
3 Video Composition Tips for Church Media
- Rule of Thirds You will need to imagine your screen, viewfinder, whatever you’re looking through on your camera, is split into thirds, both horizontally and vertically. This creates a basic tic-tac-toe grid. The first thing to do is make sure that your subjects eyes or head rest pretty close to the top third line horizontally; your shot size will determine if it’s the eyes or the head.
- Angles or Straight On You will need to identify if your subject is facing you straight on, or if they are facing away from you at an angle. For instance, if the subject’s nose is pointed to the right side of the frame, you will need to provide “lead room” by placing them on the left side of the frame, on that imaginary left vertical third line. This allows for your subject to not appear as if they are being “smashed” up against the right side of the frame. The opposite is the same; compensate for a subject who is facing left, place them on the imaginary right vertical third line.
- Pan Like A Champ If your subject is in motion, as in walking left to right or right to left, you will need to pan your camera to maintain your composition. With fast moving subjects, this becomes fairly difficult and only through practice will you be able to maintain and even anticipate the actions of your subject.
There you have it, a very simple and broad overview of composition. There is a lot of depth and theory in this subject, but if you stick to the basics, you will find it brings a new level of production quality to your service! How can you use these video composition tips for your ministry?
TC Johnson says
Panning is the chief challenge in the church environment, IMO. I see some streams out there that try so hard to keep their actively moving speaker in the center of the frame that the camera is always swaying back and forth. I prefer the strategy of letting them move back and forth with the frame stable then pan if they’re on the move and going to leave the shot.
It helps to know your speaker’s tendencies and body language.
Live Campus says
Totally agree! I’ve seen streams that panned so much I thought Scorsese was behind the camera 🙂