Introduction

My name is Gregory Franklyn and that is possibly the least important thing you will read in this book. I’m a guy who accidentally stumbled into a magical world of technological mumbo jumbo that changed my life forever. I owe it all to a guy named Jim Spagg. That’s probably the second least important thing you’ll read here. But it’s a cute story.

I was watching TV on an unusually boring evening in 1991 when, flipping through the channels on my cable box like we all do, I saw an image on the screen that I could NOT believe was on TV. I was looking at a beautiful scene of a meadow and off in the distance was a wide stand of brush or bushes or something. Out of these bushes comes this middle aged short, round, not particularly attractive man whose hairline was receding so fast it was leaving skid marks. He comes out of the brush wearing a pair of combat boots and flailing his arms like a man possessed. Picture this, the guy was wearing combat boots; and I mean ONLY combat boots.

I’ll spare you the details of what that image looked like because one of the few regrets I will have at the end of my life will be that I was subjected to that image. There’s just no way to wash that out of your mind. Talk about Impact! He puts his face right in the camera, makes this goofy face and says with a maniacal grin, “If you don’t like what’s on TV, come down here and make your own!”

Over the ensuing years I grew to abhor everything Jim Spagg was about, but he was right about one thing. Video has a HUGE impact. Not just on me, and that image I’ll live with for the rest of my life, but it has changed everything for nearly every living soul on the planet. It continues to do so, albeit in a way that makes me nervous these days. However, there is no doubt in my mind that video will continue to change the world and YOU, it would be hoped, will be the one to change it.

Jim was a PEG television producer. PEG stands for Public, Education and Government television. Not to be confused with PBS or Public Television. Public Television is restricted every bit as much as commercial broadcast television, and indebted to the very same forces of money and power. PEG television is YOUR television. It is the last bastion against fascism. Without it, all media is essentially controlled by about 12 boardrooms at multinational holding corporations. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to tell you what their interests are.

The airwaves that transport television and radio signals to your home belong to you, not broadcasting networks and multinational corporations. The FCC was established to insure that your best interests would be served by their use. Stop laughing, this isn’t funny!

Back when our country was young there were few enough of us that we could all gather together at the church or the fountain at the Town Square and make decisions. Today our sheer numbers and diverse lives make that impossible. But, the need for us to communicate with one another is even greater now.

Television is the new town square. It is the essence of how we communicate with each other as a society. It’s no secret that the FCC has long since abandoned its mission in favor of establishing a rough estimation of a training monopoly. While watching television, most viewers have no clue about what they are being trained for. But the grocery stores owned by those same corporations know. Make no mistake about that!

Back to Jim Spagg. My response to what I saw and what he said was. “I KNOW I can do better than that!” So I did. What a ride it’s been. I learned everything I could, volunteered on everybody’s shows, produced a mountain of programs and ended up on the staff of the station as the Public Access Coordinator. I taught classes for about 5 years in the subjects you’ll read about here. My main function was to empower you to say what you have to say whether I like the message or not.

One of my favorite movies is “The American President” starring Michael Douglas. In the big speech at the end of the movie the president decides to campaign in earnest against his opponent. He says something I think is profound and, pretty much, sums up something that is deeply important to me. He says. “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs, that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours…. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free!”

I am a stand for your right to use this magnetic and powerful tool to change the world and this book is my attempt to give you the basic tools you’ll need to get started.

That’s the background I come from, but the preaching and evangelism ends right here. This book is about the nuts and bolts of basic video production theory. With this information you should be able to say what you have to say, whatever that might be, in a way that can have an impact and COMMUNICATE with an audience effectively.

Most of what you’ll read here is less about operating the equipment you’ll be using and more about what to do with it to communicate effectively. The wheels and cogs of video equipment is an issue for another day. The equipment being used is changing rapidly and a “How To” book about equipment would have a shelf life of roughly 45 minutes before becoming obsolete. The theory of video production, however, does not change and that’s what I’m attempting to offer here.

Of course I hope you change the world, but even if you have no such interest, I hope you go out there and contribute what you ARE interested in. From my experience, you have no idea the lives you will change. You will likely never know those people or the impact you’ll have on them, but it’s there anyway. Make it something that matters to you.

Copyright 2006, 2007, 2008 by Gregory Franklyn. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized reproduction, sale or distribution of all or any part of this publication without express written consent of the author is a violation of applicable law. Violators will be prosecuted.

The Image

Shot Composition

I’d like you to watch television a little differently for a few hours. You’re looking at it with another set of eyes this time. I want you to notice things that you likely have never noticed before. Does the picture look centered? Is there anything distracting your attention from what’s being said? If you’re seeing a person, is the picture cutting off part of that person’s face while leaving plenty of room above his head? Where are the people in the picture standing? If there’s a graphic telling you who the person is, does the graphic cover part of their face? Are they in the center of the picture? Are they off to the side?

These are all elements of what is called “Shot Composition” and if you’ve ever seen home movies you’ve probably seen BAD shot composition. Bad Shot Composition will distract the attention of a viewer like no other element of video. The reason being that your viewer’s concentration will be split between what the message is, and trying to mentally adjust the camera angle so that what they’re seeing looks natural. Bad shot composition detracts from your message.

A few of the stories on your evening news are a good example of what I mean. When your news anchor is about to show you a home video of some event, they will always prep you for what you’re about to see. They will say that what you’re about to see is a home video to prepare you to expect it not to look right. What they’re doing is trying to tell you not to try and compensate in your mind for the shortcomings of shot composition so that you can get the message without splitting your concentration between the awkwardness of the image and what’s actually happening.

The Rule of Thirds

Fortunately for you, there’s a simple rule to use to get good shot composition. It’s called “The Rule of Thirds” and it comes from your childhood. Mentally draw a tic-tac-toe grid on your TV screen while you’re watching TV. Equal parts just like you’re about to play Tic-Tac-Toe on TV.

Notice that the subject’s eyes will always be somewhere close to the top line and if the subject is facing you directly, they’ll be in the center block of the grid. If they’re facing left. They’ll be somewhere close to the right line and when facing right, somewhere near the left line. That left/right composition is called “Nose Room”.

Nose room is needed if a person is not facing forward because if you don’t allow nose room the subject will look like they’re talking to or looking at the side of the screen rather than talking to someone or looking at something the viewer can not see. Basically what is happening is that you are leaving room on the screen for what your viewer is expected to fill in with their mind. They hear a voice so they naturally fill in a person that they can not see or the subject is looking at something so the viewer needs room to fill in what the subject is looking at.

But wait a minute, Gregory, in that very same newscast, the anchor is on the left side of the screen! (I can see you’re going to be a problem in this class, go sit in the back and keep quiet.). True, the anchor is on the left, but there is another element to the picture. There’s a little box on the screen with some video, or more often a cute little graphics box, above the anchor’s shoulder. Those little boxes are called “Fly Ins, “Cut Ins” or Overlays” and shot composition requires you to compensate for their presence by moving the anchor to the left. The object here is to incorporate the two and center the big picture to include both. You’ll notice on your grid that the box is on the right line and the anchor is on the left line (Usually, anyway, sometimes it’s reversed.)

The last element on your tic-tac-toe grid is called “Headroom”. Headroom is the distance between the top of a subject’s head and the top of the screen. Depending on how much of a close-up you’re doing, you should watch the headroom carefully. The closer the shot, the less headroom is needed, the longer the shot, the more headroom. You’ll notice that the eyes generally remain close to the top line no matter how close or long the shot.

If your shot is not about a person, you’ll want to put the most important object to the scene in the center square. A good example would be that groundbreaking shower scene in “Psycho”. In one of the shots you can see a little bit of the actresses lower leg, but the shot was centered on the blood going down the drain. The most important thing in the shot wasn’t the actress, it was telling you that she was being murdered. That scene is taught in film schools everywhere for good reason. It is a stellar example of shot composition and telling a story effectively. The actress was never injured, but you will likely never forget seeing her murder. Alfred Hitchcock focused your attention on the horror of what a murder would be like without actually murdering anyone. He simply implied with a succession of quick shots that the murder was actually happening by focusing your attention on the little details AROUND the murder and your mind simply filled in the rest of the action.

So the rule of thirds also applies to subjects that are not people. The center square is for single objects you want the viewer to focus on and the rest of the grid is for more than one object. You want to center the whole scene using the grid as a guide.

Backgrounds & Settings

Another element of shot composition is Background or Setting. I’ll use a newscast again because it’s a good point of reference and then move on to other uses of background settings. While you’re watching your news broadcast and a reporter is interviewing a subject notice what else is in the picture. If the subject is a lawyer, for example, you’ll see him in front of a bookshelf insinuating he’s in a law library. If the story is about a court case, the subject will be in a courtroom or on the steps of a courthouse. If the subject is a fire chief, you’ll see them in front of a fire station or fire engine.

Backgrounds help to get the message across by putting subjects in an environment that tells the viewer what the scene is about. Another example might be the “Man on the Street” shot. If the reporter is doing a live story, and they interview a witness to a crime, you’ll see that witness in front of the crime scene. There will be at least one of those yellow police caution tapes visible and probably a long shot of the crime scene behind them. If the story is about a political figure, you will see them at a desk or sitting or standing in front of a US Flag, or a congressional building or the White House or some other setting that says, this is about politics.

When choosing a background for ANY scene, place the subject in an environment that enhances the viewer’s understanding of what they’re seeing. This will help to keep your viewer’s mind on the subject. Imagine seeing an interview with a tennis player standing in front of a group of people in a knitting circle. Your viewer is likely to be confused by that. Right there you’re splitting the attention of your viewer by making them try to figure out what knitting has to do with tennis while you are trying to focus their attention on the tennis player’s story. “But, Gregory, the story is about a tennis star that is teaching handicapped people how to knit!” (Didn’t I tell you to sit down and be quiet?)

In other types of video shoots the same rule applies. If you’re shooting a love scene, for example, you wouldn’t put your subjects on a roller coaster, or at a horse race unless you’re trying to convey a sense of sexual urgency or trying to show that passion shows no regard for setting. You’d normally put them in a quiet setting with low lighting in a bedroom or in a living room on a couch or in front of a fire.

There’s an exception to every rule. Settings are a good example. If you’re shooting an action adventure, just about ANY setting will work, but they will work only because the focus of the scene is the chase, or the explosion or the action and, in that case, where the action takes place isn’t relevant to getting the message across. In this case it’s about the action, not the characters or where the action is taking place.

One more important thing about settings would have to be “Establishing Shots” or what videographers call “B-Roll”. B-Roll is shots of a location, usually, without any people or action used for transitioning the viewer from one aspect of a story to another. When you’re watching dramas, or particularly situation comedies, you’ll see quite a bit of B-Roll to establish the location of the coming scene. Hence, “Establishing Shots”.

A good example, and I’m sure you’ve seen this done, is when a scene in a show at a workplace ends and the next scene takes you to the subject’s home. You’ll see an outdoor shot of the residential street or the house in question that tells you that you are now watching something that takes place in another location at a different time. Think 90’s comedy series “Rosanne”, everybody knows that the Connors live in a house at the corner of 3^rd & Delaware because you’ve seen that street sign a BUNCH of times even if you’ve only seen a few episodes! That street sign is a classic establishing shot. When you see that sign you KNOW the next scene takes place in the Connor’s home. Establishing shots give your viewer time to make the transition with you and setting them up to better understand the context of what they’re about to see.

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