welcome back everyone it's Robert Macfarlane here and today we're going to be going through
key things every single director should know about cameras
cameras are this interesting thing now a lot of directors they know a good amount about cameras
some directors know nothing about cameras at all they are more interested in the storytelling but I
think there are some key things that no matter who you are no matter what type of director you are to
understand certain elements of cameras makes you a better storyteller because ultimately the tool you
are using to record what you are putting in front of it has the ability to change how we feel about
what's in front of the camera before I started making videos I started out as a photographer I I
took pictures of pretty much everything and it taught me how to use a camera but what it didn't
do it didn't tell me how to tell a story with a camera and quite often I would do what I think
is probably one of the worst sins in film which is I would choose images and angles based on how
cool the image looked and not necessarily how those settings and those choices were actually
affecting the way the audience felt about my story about the characters they were seeing on screen
it wasn't until later in my career that I started to understand how incredibly powerful each aspect
of the camera was in manipulating the way the audience received your story how
they felt about your characters it wasn't just about writing a sad story it was about so much
more than that and the camera itself has a huge amount of power to add to your storytelling
so first things first depth of field most of you have probably heard of it and most of you
have used it and most of you probably think that the shallower the depth of field the more
cinematic it will look you are right in a way the more shallow your depth of field
the more you will separate your subject or whatever you're focused on from its background
and foreground this helps the audience focus on what you want them to focus on however depth of
field can be used in a multitude of ways not just by making it as shallow as possible but it can be
used to tell story let's say for instance we have a character who's very emotional at a particular
point in your film they're on the verge of crying because of the trauma that's occurred to them
so we as the director as the filmmaker decide we're going to do a close-up right on their eyes
so we can see into their soul I've got three options here I can use either an incredibly
shallow depth of field a medium depth of field or a very deep depth of field do you see how each
of the images makes you feel a different way about the character by making the background and
foreground more out of focus we focus more on the character but we also make the character feel like
they are more separated from their surroundings maybe they are far more internal they're thinking
they're feeling they're not really present in the room whereas the shallowest depth of field might
make us think about what the character might be thinking of the medium depth of field makes us
more think about what they're feeling at this point the large depth of field this is where
we bring in the majority of the space around them into focus we now understand that this
character is more aware of the environment around them this is especially useful for action films
this the same shot choice but given the context of your story you can choose to not just create a
cool looking image but you can choose to utilize depth of field to aid you to help you tell your
story for me probably one of the most difficult areas to understand in terms of its power to tell
story has always been focal length and by this I mean is the shot wide or is it really close how
does that affect the look of my subject and then how does that affect the look of my background and
my foreground what I understood very early on in my photographic career is that the longer the lens
the less of the background that I saw in my image the wider the lens generally the
more of the background I mean just like this you are getting to see a lot of the background
in the studio whereas in previous episodes to this YouTube channel I've actually used a much
longer lens and spoken to the camera when it's further away now you see even though
I'm roughly the same size in the frame you are seeing a lot more of what is around me this can
be used in a multitude of ways but let's just say you've got a character running through a
park now we've got our three options we've got a long lens a medium lens and a very wide lens
so even though it's the same action in the same space with the same acting we get three different
feelings from the different focal lengths so with a wide shot we feel like the character is
more a part of the space that they are running through maybe we get a sense of how alone
and separate they are from the rest of the world because there is no one else in the frame on the
medium shot we get a slightly more personal view with a little bit less background in
and foreground it gives us more sense of the body and the physicality of the running this
is far more effective when we're trying to show how the character is moving and why they're moving
through a space especially really useful in chase sequences and fight sequences because we want to
see the body language how are they using their body the wide shot we couldn't necessarily see
that quite so easily and then finally we've got the long shot the long shot makes us feel like
the camera is much further away from the character this also separates us from the
character and makes us feel like we're almost looking in on them like someone is watching them
this can be incredibly useful in spy movies or if someone is being watched from a distance there's
more to the focal length than that what if we try to keep the size of the subject the same in
the frame no matter the focal length and by doing this what we do is we end up we take the camera
further away the longer the lens gets and from this you'll be able to see just how much the
surroundings change when we look at our character all right for those of you who have used cameras a
little bit you already know about shutter angle I believe better than shutter speed is what is
known as shutter angle they still both deal with how long the shutter is open for or on digital
cameras how much time the sensor takes light in for during a single frame most of you probably
already use the rule that whatever your frame rate you choose twice the shutter speed such as
if you've got 24 frames per second the cinematic standard you would choose a shutter speed of 1/48
of a second now most cameras these days actually come with the option of changing the readout to
show a shutter angle rather than a shutter speed but shutter angle is slightly different you get
0 to 360 degrees but how does this change how we read and think about the shutter speed of
our camera back when film cameras were the main cinematic powerhouse they would use shutter angle
the reason for this is that we would have a disc that would sit in front of the film and as the
new film was put in front of the lens the disc would be spinning and it would be open for one
side and closed for the other so as it span it would be in front of the film until it came out
of the way of the film what this meant was that camera operators and cinematographers would choose
to use different discs with different amounts of the disc blocked and open and that would create
what was known as the shutter angle if half of the disc was closed and half of the disc was
open well that's 180 degrees so they would have a 180 degree shutter angle this became the cinematic
standard and is still used today however most of you probably don't venture away from this rule but
there's some creative flexibility here for those of you who've come from photography you probably
already know that the higher your shutter speed the less motion blur you get now that's all fair
and well for photography but how does that affect our image tony scott made a brilliant movie which
I thoroughly enjoyed the taking of pelham one two three at the beginning of the movie we are treated
to a montage of shots of trains railways and cityscapes what he's done is he's done something
slightly different instead of just your standard shots he's done what is termed as undercranking
and then left the shutter speed very low to let light in over a long period of time
what this does is it creates a blurry almost dreamlike image
it's saying I want you to get the soul of this space but I don't want you to have to think about
all the details in this space this is more about conveying the feeling rather than information
look at your film and start to think about the style the choices the characters the journeys the
emotional state of the audience and the characters in your film and this should enable you to choose
how to set up your camera from your depth of field your focal length your shutter angle
your shutter speed and your aspect ratio for your film smash the like button because I know
you want to and check out some links below to help you up your game on your next film