Watch the video:
How do you find the best camera angles?
Start by believing the camera can be used like a paint brush. You can make it say the things you want to say, and you can hide things you want to hide. Camera angles are just one way to do this, albeit a very powerful way.
By changing the camera angle or actor’s position, you can greatly influence the emotional response in the audience. Seriously, if you don’t believe that you’ll always be afraid of the camera.
I’m going to be referencing a couple of short films I’ve made. Feel free to watch and reference them:
It doesn’t matter what gear you have. Fight Night was made with cheap gear, and Man May Love was made with a proper film crew and gear. The ideas are the same. If I can do it, you can too.
Ready?
Tip #1: Whose point of view is the story from?
The single most important question you can ask and you should ask is, whose point of view is the story from? Who are we identifying with during the scene? That person gets the most shots.
Why? When two people are talking in a dialogue scene you think they’re equal, but not necessarily. The scene or situation might dictate one character is more important than the other. When that happens you might want to show the reaction shot of the more important character more often. When you do this the audience identifies with their feelings more.
If you want to keep it equal both characters can have the same number of shots. When you have a back and forth banter between two actors, and they’re on equal footing in the scene, there’s no reason to give one actor more shots than the other.
Tip #2. How many people should be in a shot?
In a dialogue scene do you want to show just the person speaking or the person he or she is talking to? The presence of the second person in the shot makes a huge difference.
By showing them the audience is consciously or subconsciously looking for their reaction to what is being said. You want to feel what they feel about what is being said. This is most powerfully used in the over the shoulder shot. Even the presence of the shoulder makes a difference. This is why over the shoulder shots are used as confrontational devices, instead of two solo shots.
The dialog becomes confrontational when even a bit of the other person is in the frame, even if that shoulder is not moving. It’s mere presence is enough.
Tip #3. What is the right shot size?
How big should a person be in the frame? I don’t think there’s a better answer than Alfred Hitchcock’s advice:
The most important thing should be the biggest.
That’s why close ups are so powerful. If you only want to see the emotional response of the actor on screen, then there’s no better shot than a close up. However, if you want the body language of the actor to be visible then obviously you need a medium or long shot.
Traditional filmmakers avoided closeups a lot, and only used them as punctuation for the really important moments. In today’s age, as screens are smaller, there are a lot more close ups, because you can’t see the emotions correctly in long shots on a mobile phone.
Tip #4. How high or low is the camera?
The vertical angle of the camera makes a person look more important or less important. This has been shown countless times in movies. A low angle is used to make somebody look more menacing or larger. A higher angle makes them look weaker or smaller.
Sometimes it’s overused to the point of parody. Then the effect becomes tacky and distracting.
What if you want to break this rule? You can. Study Orson Welles and Citizen Kane, where he used extreme low angles to make the larger than life characters look weaker and sympathetic.
The intent is everything.
Tip #5. Follow the eye, or the point of focus.
This is one powerful technique to get the audience to keep watching your film. Let’s say in one shot the focus point is in one spot. Then in the next shot you maintain the same focus point. The audience will not have to move their eyes from one shot to the next. There’s a continuous flow to the action.
However, you can also break the rule and force the audience to jump around on screen, creating tension and confusion.
Imagine a barrage of shots in an action scene. Are they forcing your eye to stay consistent so it becomes easier to follow the action; or are the shots all over the place, and it takes longer for your eye to travel from one point to the next?
If the shot lengths are the same, the second will perceptively appear faster and more incoherent, and the first will appear smooth. Both methods can be used, as long as you know what effect you’re going for.
Tip #6. Feel something.
This will probably be the most important tip, and it comes from director Emir Kusturica:
Every time you look through the viewfinder of the camera at the shot, your heart should race faster.
You should get excited and you should feel something. If you don’t, then there’s something missing and you should take a small break to figure out what it is. If you can’t figure out what it is, or you’re afraid of boring your audience, then you’ll love this seventh tip to help you get over the block.
Tip #7. Every shot should provide new information to advance the story.
As long as you do this ruthlessly, the audience will stay glued to the film. When you compare boring movies with good movies, you’ll find this is the most important distinction.
I’d even go so far as to say it doesn’t matter what you show, as long as it is new information, and there’s a thread from one shot to the next, the audience will follow it. Sometimes, the thread isn’t there, or the audience is expected to provide the thread themselves through intellectual discourse, as in the dialectic theory of Eisenstein.
Tip # 8. Follow the 180-degree rule.
I’ve made two videos on the 180-degree rule:
Using the 180-degree rule or breaking it is a powerful way to tell a story, and we’re literally talking camera angles here.
You can either maintain the rule for a smoother flow, or purposely break it to create tension and excitement. But don’t be too stressed out about following it religiously. If the performances are good, the audience won’t care even if you make a mistake. In Man May Love I’ve purposely broken the 180-degree rule in almost every scene. How many noticed? None, as far as I know.
Tip #9. What is the physical relationship between the characters?
Wide-angle lenses make things look bigger and more menacing. Telephoto lenses compress space and make everything closer together with equal magnitude. The former is used a lot in, say, Jurassic Park, to make the dinosaurs more menacing and larger, while the actors look smaller, even if they are just a few feet away.
If you want the characters to be closer, get them closer. If they are emotionally far apart, get them further away using lenses and positioning. You’ll find tons of camera angle analysis videos on wolfcrow.com if you want examples of how this is done.
Tip #10. Where should the actor look?
The person who looks closer to the camera is more powerful. That’s because we feel they are looking more towards us.
The character that looks away seems distant and out of reach. If you want your actor to hit the sweet spot, make them look as close to the lens as possible, but just off it. However, this technique should be used with care. If everyone looks just off camera, then no one will have an advantage over the other, and the effect will not be as powerful.
This is the problem with following rules for no reason, and no understanding. When you have everyone looking normally, and then this one guy gives one great speech looking just off camera, the impact is stunning. That’s how you get it done.
I hope you found my ten tips useful. Let me know in the comments below.
I really like every thing (allmost) that wolfcow posts, thank you so much and I feel bad about not being a subscriber. I would love to donate in some way. I have no creditcard or paypall acount, I live in the Netherland from a small pension allowance but this is why I didn’t contribute anything yet, sorry.
Agreed.
Exactly the Same as me sir …