Week Four - Building a Visual Narrative

This week's assignment is to shoot a short visual narrative consisting of short b-roll clips spliced together to illustrate a scene or a central theme. Keep individual clips in the 3 to 4 second range. I'll be looking for a variety of shots, angles, and compositions. Use a tripod to ensure clean steady footage. Watch your exposures, white balance, and focus. Get to know your camera by using it on the manual settings. Shoot clips that are at least ten seconds long. Remember to shoot plenty of wide, medium and tight shots. Your video should be at least two minutes long, which means that at 3 to 4 seconds per clip you will need at least 30 - 40 edited clips. Monitor your audio as well. This is not as important as the visuals for this assignment but good clean ambient sound will help your video immensely. Here are a few tips and some sample videos.

Composition:
1. Remember the rule of thirds
2. Shoot a variety of angles
3. Avoid backlit subjects. The best light source is in front of your subject not behind.

Use a variety of shots:
1. Wide/establishing shot - does just that, it establishes the location, the scene.
2. Medium shots - moves you closer to the action and pulls you into the story.
3. Close ups and Extreme Close Ups - provide telling details and work great as transitions shots.

Hold steady:
1. Use a tripod whenever possible.
2. Record each clip for at least 10-15 seconds.
3. Avoid pans, zooms and camera movement - this is especially true for online video.

shinya kimura @ chabott engineering from Henrik Hansen on Vimeo.

Esquivel from David Hubert on Vimeo.