Demo Reel

Rocketman

Quote of the Day

"The waking mind is the least serviceable in the arts."
Henry miller

The Rule of Thirds and why it makes your scene interesting.

To all of the animators out there that think that the rules of the camera are not important in animation, youve got another thing coming, because if you make an animation and it is faniminal but the camera wrok is crappy, the director you show it to, will tell you to take a hike, so even though this kinda doesnt play into the mechanics of animation, listen up, because it is just as important. Oh and another thing, if any body out there is into photography, listen up, because this applies to you as well, and will make your photo shine above all of the rest.
THE RULE of THIRDS, what is this you ask, well interestingly enough, it is the spot on any screen that the audience is going to look at the most, the hot spots if you would. These are the most interesting parts of the screen, i dont know why, but they just are. The mind likes to see a lot in the scene, so if you have the character on any one of these spots the audience gets to see a lot more

Take a look at the picture to the right, what do you see, yes the awesome rule of thirds, well i guess your asking yourself, whats the deal with the tic tac toe. Well the dots that you see are the places that are the HOTSPOTS on the screen, it is any spot that you see the two lines cross eachothers paths, like i said, they are the most interesting spots on your screen.

Now take a look at the picture to the left, you see that the birds eye is right in one of those hot spots, why, because that is what the director wants you to look at, they either want you to look at the birds eye, or at the bird itself. In your scene you are going to want to do this same thing, you are going to put the most important character or thing or whatever, either near, or on  one of those hotspots. You will mostly see the upper dots used thats just so you can get more from the character.

Now look to the right again, i want you too try and figure out what is the most important part of this scene by using the rule of thirds.

 If you guessed the man with his head down, you are correct, but if you chose the guy on his phone you are also correct. Even though there are two characters in this perticular scene they are both still important, they both fall right on a hotspot, or near them, you can see that the guy with his head down, has the hotspot right on his head, because that is where you are suppose to look, and the guy on his phone also has the hotspot protruding from his head or near it, these guys are what you need to look at when you are watching the television screen, and it is so interesting because no matter what you do and no matter how hard you try, your eye will always go strait to the hotspots on the screen, even if the main character isnt on the hotspot you will always look at it first. Just imagine if the guy on the left had been in the middle of the picture, that would not have been very interesting, why, well its because he would make the picture unbalanced and you would see him cutting the photo and the scenery right in half, with him right on that hotspot, you get to see all of the scenery and still enjoy the mood he is in.

So remember that when you are putting together your scene, make sure that you have the rule of thirds in there, it will just make it that much better, oh and dont forget, this not only applies to film it most deffinately applies to photography as well, just go out and look at all of the professional pictures out there, they will all have the rule of thirds in them.

Quote of the Day

"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance."
Aristotle

Quote of the Day

"Even a true artist does not always produce art."
Carroll O'Conner

Much much more camera angles

Alright everyone i know that i already talked about camera angles but it is just that important to know all that you can about camera angles. It can easily determin to your audience if your movie is going to be crappy or good just from the first camera angle that you produce, they may not know that they think its crappy, but there is always that little thing nagging at the back of there neck that they just cant put their finger on, something about it was just unappealing(its called the camera angles were done porly you moron.) Sorry for the rude awakeing but it is true, crappy camera angles, crappy movie.
There are many different camera angles in many different movies, some have them more than others, while others dont have many at all, like i have said in the past, its all about the feel that you are going for. So the first thing that i am going to talk about are the different camera shots that you can have
CU= Close Up                                                                                            Close Up

XCU=Extreme Close Up

MS= Medium Shot

WS=Wide Shot

ES=Establishing Shot

Lets start with a close up. Your close up shot will always most likely be directed at one person on the camera, because anymore than that, it might confuse the audience on who the director wants to concentrate on, plus not to many people can fit in a close up shot and have it still look good. Anyways, a close up is a shot that is anywhere from just right under the shoulders and up, this lets the audience know that that person on screen is the most important at that moment, and that you need to listen to what he is saying to you or you may miss out some real jiucy information.
                         Extreme Close Up

Now for the Extreme Close Up. Be careful with this one folks because if you have one of these bad boys in your scene you had better have a good reason or it could make a real big mess of your shot. the Extreme Close Up is obviously  a close up a your characters face, the reason i chose this perticular photo is because it is the one that i have seen most. You would typically find it in a regular movie though, mostly in westerns or horrors, those guys just love to get the audience involved with all of the drama that the character is feeling.

                                                                                                                           Medium Shot

Now for the Medium Shot. The medium shot will typically show the character from the thighs up, you dont want to ever show the character from the knees up or just under the knees, that is a big mistake, it creates whats called a tangent on the screen, its when the eye wants to know to much about what going on, like with the knee, the eye wants to go down the leg, but cant have there eyes do that because the camera stops right at the knees. ( I dont know about anyone else but for some reason this photo sure doesnt look like Harrison Ford, well it does but doesnt at the same time, his eyes just kind of look a little funny to me.

                 Wide/Establinshing Shot.                                                                                                 .

Alright this shot it to show the tipe of envirnment that your character will be in, in this case Robert is in a bedroom laying on a bed naked. The naked part doesnt really matter, but the wide shot does. It tells your what is going to be expected for the next few minutes in your scene. What may happen while in the bedroom, you always want to audience to know somewhat what is going to happen next but still throw them off guard, you want them to guess the future and then be right about it.

Remember to choose your shots wisely, it could be the downfall or uplifting of your movie.

Quote of the Day

"If we could but paint with the hand what we see with the eye."
Honore D. Balzac

Lighting and camera angles

 I cant even begin to explain how important your lights and your camera angles are in your scene, alot of the characters mood in the scene relies heavily on said things. Now im sure everyone can guess the colors of mood that portray certain things. For instance red light may give a more evil dark mood, while blue gives a sad depressing mood but blues can also give off the illusion of mysterie, as well as green. Oranges will give out a more welcoming warm feeling, as if everything is calm and relaxing, yellows give out an upbeet feel, as if everything is happy. Remember dark colors give off a more negative feeling, but thats ok if your character is evil or if your are making a movie with a murder, dark colors are deffinalty the way to go dont think that just because the feeling is nagative, the movie wont be good, that is what audiences love, the contrast of light and dark, good and evil. Bright colors will give off a positive feeling, but be careful, they may give off some positive feelings, but there is such thing as to much positive good feelings in the movie.

Take both of these pictures for example what is the highlight, thats right, the orange, even though there is blue both on top and underneath the photo, the orange is still the main color, and if you notice, the blue is actually helping your eyes go strait to the orange, because both colors are the same on both ends of the picture, so your eyes want to be more entertained so they default to the house. It is also human nature to like warm refreshing inviting things anyway, so the orange will make them feel at ease. Just imagin if the picture was feeled with all blue, would you find that very appealing, no, because it gives off a cold fridged feeling which also brings sadness.

Now to elaberate on camera angels, very very very important stuff going on with camera angles, they can give you all characters moods at once, they can give you one characters mood, whichever you like, you just need to find what is best for your scene.

 Take these two scenes from catch me if you can for example, the one on the left shows you Leonardo and Tom talking(this is called a wide shot), but take into account where the camera is located, pretty much level with the desk underneath both there heads, why do they do this in film, well, they want the audience to feel as if they were apart of the scene, as if they are in the huddle so to speek, they want you to be able to know secrets that are being told. Then lets look at the one on the right, it is a close up of leonardo's head(this is called a close up). It usually will mean that something intense is happening, or that something intense is about to happen.

I love catch me if you can, it has so many camera different camera angles that show intensity, overpowering and calm moods, the lighting in a lot of the scenes in this movie are absolutly fanomanal as well.

Here is a challenge, go and rent Catch Me if You Can and see how many different moods you can get just from the lighting and camera angles in the scenes.

And remeber to always make sure you are setting the right mood for the scene, or your movie will look like crud.

Quote of the day

"All art is but an imitation of nature."
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Quote of the Day

"the beginning is the most important part of the work."
Plato

Awesome, funny video