- Hey guys, welcome to another episode
of Quick Little Pro Tip, and this time
we're going to be talking about camera angles.
Literally, what angle are you filming?
Are you filming up?
Are you filming straight?
Are you filming down?
I don't think people quite understand
how much of a difference it makes,
just changing the camera angle a little bit.
But once you do understand the massive possibilities
there are with just changing the angle,
you have this whole different set of tools
that you can use in your filmmaking process.
And yes, this is the Fujifilm XT3.
Review coming up on this guy real soon.
And also, just a little side note before we get into this,
I'm going to be trying to live-stream on Twitch
for the next couple of live-streams.
I haven't been doing it so much,
and there's a few different reasons for that.
But I really want to test out Twitch,
so I'll link it down below.
Follow me on Twitch and wait for some live-streams, I guess.
All right, so when we're talking about
the angle of your filming, there's really two things
that I think you need to think about.
One is, the story, and then the other is aesthetic,
or the look that you're going for.
First, let's talk about story.
There's a ton of stories that you can tell
just by changing the angle of your camera.
Without your actor saying a single word,
you can convey certain emotions or certain feelings
that the character might be feeling,
just with the camera angle.
For example, if you want them to look more powerful,
larger than life, like an authority figure,
you're going to want to shoot upwards.
This, right away, gives this strength,
authority look to the image.
The character is just in a strong position,
just because you're shooting upwards.
It makes them look larger than life.
And actually, I like using this kind of look a lot of times,
even for something like doc shooting.
I just like making my characters look larger than life.
And just pointing the camera up a little bit
does a lot in just telling that story.
Without that character saying a single thing,
you're already conveying all these things to the audience.
So it's really powerful.
And the further you point the camera up,
the more exaggerated this looks gets.
So you can go with a little bit of power, authority,
or it can go with a lot of power, authority.
So there's a lot to play around with.
And then if you want more of a neutral look,
you want to film straight at your character.
With this angle there isn't as much
being conveyed to the audience,
it's kind of leaving it to the audience
to think what you want of this image
or what the character is thinking.
And you can use that to your advantage,
if you want the audience to be unsure,
or just make their own conclusions
about how the character is feeling,
or even not think about it that much.
Then maybe you want to go more straight on.
I also find that it can be a little bit
more mysterious, you don't really know.
Are they feeling weak, are they feeling strong?
What's going on with this character right now?
So you can kind of use it for that mysterious factor, also.
And then if we want our character to feel small,
insignificant, like they're really weak,
you just film down at them.
Right away, you get this idea in your head that, oh,
this person's suffering, or they're feeling insignificant,
or it just feels like the world is closing in on them.
They feel small.
Right away, without any words from the actual character,
right away the audience gets this feeling.
So it's really powerful.
But on top of story, which I think gets talked about a lot
when we're talking about angles, there's also the aesthetic.
The look changes drastically whether you're filming up,
straight, or down at your character or in general.
So the question is, which look should you be going for?
And really, there's no right answer to this question,
it really just depends on what you like
and what look you're going for.
But typically I tend to, again, shoot up more,
and there's a few reasons for this.
First off, I just find that the ground
is a lot more cluttered, usually.
It's not as clean, it doesn't look as good,
whereas when you point up, there's the sky,
or there's the ceiling, it's a little bit more clean.
I just find it to be a lot less cluttered.
And great example here, you shoot up,
you get this really cool ceiling and it looks great.
I've isolated the character.
But then when I shoot down or straight,
you see that there's a bunch of people around
and it doesn't look so good, if, for my story,
I don't want other characters in there, it's kind of random.
So just for practical reasons,
a lot of times it looks better to shoot up
because it's less cluttered, it's a little bit more clean.
But then the second reason, again, here is a great example.
You get these really cool leading lines.
I find a lot of times when you point up,
there's all these really cool leading lines in the ceilings.
So it's not only cleaner, but then you have all these great
leading lines just leading straight to your character
that you can use to your advantage.
And really bring their attention to
your character or your subject.
But in the end, it's totally up to you.
You get to make these decisions.
As long as you know what these different decisions do,
what kind of message it conveys to the audience,
you can go wild and you can shoot in whatever way you want.
You don't have to shoot like I do.
I'd say it's super simple, super easy,
but I don't think that people really understand
the power of this, and I use this
to my advantage all the time.
Even right now, I'm filming a little bit up,
because I want you guys to think that I know something
about cameras and filmmaking,
and I'm kind of an authority figure.
If I was filming down at myself,
then you guys would probably be like,
"Who's this guy talking about cameras?
He doesn't know anything."
It right away signals to the audience certain things,
so be really strategic about your camera angle,
and don't just choose whatever camera angle
is convenient at the time, or the easiest to get.
Think about the story and the aesthetic,
and what's actually going on in your image,
what are you conveying to your audience.
All right, that's it for this
little episode of Quick Little Pro Tip.
Go and follow me on Twitch, and I hope you guys
join me for some live-streams.
And if you enjoyed this video, hit that like button,
subscribe to the channel,
and I guess I'll see you guys in the next one.
See you guys.
(rhythmic synthesizer music)