(upbeat music)
- All right I just finished filming a bunch of examples.
I don't think I've ever filmed so many examples
for one video and it's because I love this topic.
Also do you guys like my little dad sunglass things?
Anyways, most of us know how to kind of place our subjects,
get our settings right, make sure
the lighting looks pretty decent,
but a lot of people forget about the background.
Now this isn't a how to make your background look good video
but we're gonna talk about leading lines.
But as you get better as a filmmaker,
you start looking at more than just the thing
that you're filming, you start looking at the whole image
and what's going on in the background
and how can you manipulate that background,
that environment better to kind of draw
the viewer's attention and just make it look cool.
And I know I've talked about this one before
but I just think it's such a cool thing that you can do
and it's so easy, doesn't cost you any money,
anybody can do it pretty much at any time.
Not only does it make your shots look super cinematic
and really cool but it plays a really vital role
in leading the audience's attention
to where you want them to be looking.
So quick little recap, leading lines
are a compositional technique where you're using lines
in the background to direct the viewer's attention
to your subject hopefully.
How do we find them?
They're literally everywhere, like everywhere,
buildings, wood, brick, ceilings, roads, curbs, benches,
paint on the ground, anything can be a leading line,
even right now, I have some leading lines going on here.
Leading lines are literally everywhere
and it's really just a question of
are you gonna use them or not?
Even something like a pathway can be used as a leading line.
They don't have to be perfect straight lines
so really, there's just so many options for this technique.
But the big question is how the heck
do you actually use them?
It's actually fairly easy to find them
but it's a lot harder, I think, to use them
and to use them well.
But there's two things that you can keep in mind
when you're looking at leading lines and how to use them
and the first one is depth and the second one
is pointing to your subject.
And first let's look at depth.
So instead of just having a flat background,
let's say it's a wall, instead of having
just that wall being flat in the background,
which still has kind of lines like this
in the background right now, there's lines,
all you have to do is kind of go off to the side
a little bit and all of a sudden, there's all these lines
that you can use to really build that depth in the image.
You could use the lines just kind of flat
but with this way, when you go off to the side a little bit,
you get this really perspective, this foreground
and background and just this sense of depth,
like the image just keeps on going forever.
I just love how sharp the subject looks
and then the background kind of just blurs off
into the distance, it's a really cool look,
and just looks cinematic in my opinion.
And notice here, when you're looking at the wall flat,
you basically have no depth and as you start moving around
to the side, you're starting to get a lot of depth
but then when you go too far,
you kind of lose that depth again,
you can't see the lines anymore
and you're losing some of that depth.
So you need to find kind of that sweet spot
and usually I find it somewhere around 45 degrees
or a little bit less when you're pointing
at those lines kind of a little bit from the side,
that's when you really get these nice lines
that you can then use to build that depth
in your image and it just looks incredible.
And pro tip here, lens choice can really intensify
or weaken these lines so if you use something
like a 16 mil, the lines are gonna be really dramatic,
almost overly dramatic and then a 35 mil has this
a little bit more subtle look.
I think it looks a little bit better in these cases.
And then if you use something like a zoom lens,
you would actually kind of completely lose that depth
with those lines, they would just kind of look
like lines but you wouldn't see that depth
with a really zoomed in lens.
So I prefer at around 24-35 mil,
I think that's when the lines really shine
and just look really cool.
They're not overly dramatic and they're not too weak
that you can't even see them anymore.
So use those leading lines to get
some really nice depth in your shots.
And then number two, pointing to your subject
and this is probably the most important thing
with leading lines.
Now this doesn't mean that the lines have to stop
and end at your subject, you can use lines
in so many different ways to lead the viewer's attention.
They can point, they can intersect your subject
or just kind of generally guide the viewer's attention
to a certain direction where your subject is placed.
And I guess the question is what part of your subject
do you point at?
Do you point at the eyes or the face or at their body
and I don't think there's really a right
or wrong answer here, you can pretty much do whatever
you feel is right but there are times when the line
is a little bit too prominent, a little bit too strong
and placing it somewhere like at the eye level,
it can kind of look like there's a spike
going through their eye and that kind of looks weird
so you need to watch out for that but literally,
you can experiment and just try
and see what works best for you.
It's really gonna depend on your location,
your environment and also how you're placing your subject.
But remember that leading lines do not have
to point exactly at your subject.
They can just kind of guide the direction of where
the viewer should be looking.
And a lot of times it's literally the difference
between just a few steps or angling it
a little bit different, going higher or lower,
that can change dramatically the look
of the lines and where they're pointing
or how they're pointing at your subject
or if they're pointing at your subject at all.
As I was doing these examples,
I was just finding lines everywhere
and then if I spent a little bit more time in a little spot,
I was finding all these really cool ways to find lines
and how to use them so sometimes you just need
to spend an extra minute and actually look around,
find out what other cool shots you can do in that spot
and that's really where some of the magic comes out
and yeah, some of my favorite shots were just,
you know, I was kind of like I don't know what else
to shoot in this spot but I'm gonna keep looking
for some different angles and I found some really cool ones
like this one of Matt on the stairs.
I don't know I just really like this shot
even though it's just him sitting on these stairs.
There's just something so satisfying about leading lines.
I don't know, maybe I'm OCD or something like that
but I just love how clean and nice they look
and not only do they make your footage look more cinematic,
it creates that depth and it just points at your subject
which is the key thing in the end
when you're doing your composition.
So next time you're out filming,
I really think you should look around,
find those lines and figure out how you can use them
to build that depth and point at your subject.
Yeah, I think it's gonna pay off.
All right, I think we're on the same page
with leading lines, I love them,
you hopefully love them too, yeah,
I hope you enjoyed this video.
Hit that like button, subscribe to the channel
and I'll see you guys in the next one.
Bye.
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That wasn't so bad, right?
Pretty easy.