Shooting Guide

Christmas Project
How to shoot
• Build your storyboard
• Understand shot types
• Point of view
• Balance your shots using
the rule of thirds
• Other techniques to
control the viewer's eye
Storyboarding

• Sketching out how a video will unfold, shot by shot,

looks like a comic strip
• Each square represents a single shot. It shows who
or what is in the scene, what’s being said, and any
text or graphics that appear on the screen. As you
read through a storyboard, you should be able to
“see” the video playing in your head.
• Visualize the shots you’ll need
• Shots and cuts
• Stick figures are fine, you can indicate movement
with an arrow.
Shot sizes
• Close up CU & Extreme close up ECU – good for identifying character
traits, emotions and mood
• Mid Shot MS – typically from the waste up allows you to see both
expression and body language
• Long shot (or wide shot) LS or WS gives a bigger picture to add
context to the shot
• For more information and examples of shot sizes in cinema
Point of view

Tips

Try cropping in even tighter to

create a more intense mood

Consider height and angles to create

different impressions of the
characters

Refer back to your visual language

class for character positioning in the
frame
 Composition

Rule of thirds recap

Looking space
Walking space
Verticals and Horizontals
Looking and walking space
Focal points –
direct the viewers
eye
• Selective focus –
foreground or
background in focus
• Light source – illuminate
the main point of focus
to make it pop out

• Make the viewer see,

want you want them to
see…
Pick someone out of
the crowd with DoF
Moving the camera - Pan
• In a panning shot, or pan, the camera is locked
onto a tripod and the tripod is fixed in one spot.
• The tripod head, which the camera rests on, is
pivoted from left to right or right to left.
• The effect is much like standing in one place and
looking from side to side.
• Panning is often used to follow action such as a
character moving from one spot to another.
• Panning shots can also be used to establish
locations, slowly revealing information about a
place as we take it in.
Moving the camera -
Tilt

• A tilt is similar to a pan in that the camera

is also fixed to a tripod.
• However, instead of pivoting from left to
right, the camera is tilted up or down.
• Tilts can be used to follow action. If a
character on screen was climbing a ladder,
the director might use a low angled tilt to
follow them as they move upwards.
• Tilts can also be used to tell us a little bit
more about a location than a single, static
shot might.
 Get Creative!

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zg6ff
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