How can you draw attention to your subject by using composition?

Well, in this video, I'm going to show you seven tips for framing and composition that are going to help step up your filmmaking.

Framing and composition is one of the easiest things that you can do to improve your filmmaking.

It doesn't require buying a new lens or a new camera or any new editing software.

It's just absorbing this knowledge and implementing it into your techniques when you take your camera out and start shooting.

In this video, we're going to go over seven tips to improve your framing and composition.

The first tip we're going to discuss today is rule of thirds.

Rule of thirds is one of the first things you learn when you're in film school or when you that breaks your frame down into thirds.

There are two horizontal lines and two vertical lines, effectively breaking your frame into nine sections.

It also creates four PowerPoint crosses.

These are fantastic areas in the frame to place your subject because the viewer's eye is drawn to these cross points.

According to the rule of thirds, positioning your subject on these third lines will improve the composition of your cinematography.

The easiest way to start implementing rule of thirds is to go into your camera settings and turn on the grid lines.

Most cameras have this functionality.

You just turn it on and suddenly through your viewing screen, you can see these rule of thirds grid lines and you can start framing up your photos and your videos to fall on these lines.

I'm going to show you here a shot as if we just took out the camera and wanted to get the image as it's shown.

Now, if we have it just fall onto these third lines, you can see the difference in how much better frame the shot feels.

There's a real emotion that rule of thirds helps convey to your audience and it feels much better when your subject falls on one of these third lines.

If you're shooting the horizon, you might want it to fall on the top horizontal third or the bottom horizontal third as opposed to the center of your frame.

It's going to, again, add more emphasis to your subject and to the composition of your shot.

A ton of Hollywood movies use this technique.

Go watch your favorite show or your favorite movie with rule of thirds in mind and you're going to notice almost every shot follows this rule.

The center of the frame is reserved for authority or for teaching.

You'll notice in videos like this one right now, the teacher is often center frame looking right at the camera.

So not exactly following rule of thirds, but what this is doing is showing the authority of the subject who is informing or teaching a lesson to the viewer.

So always start with rule of thirds when you're composing your shots.

Then you can move on to these next techniques.

The next tip is leading lines.

These are visual pathways taken from things within your environment.

So if you go out and shoot, look for some of the natural lines in your environment that might come from a fence or a building or roads and use these to draw the viewer's eye towards your subject.

These are great for portraits as well.

Put some lines in the back of your subject to help again draw the viewer's eyes in towards whoever or whatever it is you're shooting.

Again, a lot of TV shows and movies use leading lines.

They help show where a character might be going or they help draw your eyes towards where you want to be looking on the screen.

You can also break this rule and use chaotic lines to help confuse the viewer or confuse the character or subject in the show.

So leading lines are a fantastic compositional tool that'll help improve the look of your footage and also your storytelling.

The next tip is balance.

This is all about finding balance in your frame.

If you have one side of your frame that has a lot going on and not a lot going on the other side of your frame, you might want to start thinking about this tool.

How can you balance a shot like this?

Well, if you're shooting an interview where you have your subject on one side of the frame and not a lot on the other, try adding something to the other side of the frame.

Add a lamp or a portrait or something that can sit there and fill the frame and help balance out your shot.

Do this when you're out shooting B-roll as well.

You can always think about how you can have your subject on one side of the frame and something else on that other side to really balance out the shot.

It's gonna make your viewer feel a lot more calm and relaxed and at ease seeing the nice balance in your shots.

When we talk about balance, we also want to talk about headroom and looking room.

Now, what does this mean?

Well, headroom often comes into play when you're shooting something like an interview.

And that's the distance from the top of your frame to the subject's head.

You want there to be some breathing room here.

You don't want their head going off the top of the frame or with very little space.

So make sure you're always thinking about headroom.

And the best way to do this is to put your subject's eyes on that top rule of thirds line.

Looking room is all about where your subject is looking.

So if you have an interview where a subject is looking off to the side, make sure they're looking towards the larger part of the frame as opposed towards the shorter part of the frame.

Or else it's gonna feel a little bit strange, a little bit off balance and just a bit confusing.

So when we talk about balance, we do wanna think about headroom and looking room as well.

The next tip is symmetry.

And this falls into line with balance.

Symmetry is when you have both sides of your frame matching each other in some way.

Wes Anderson is a master of this in his films.

You'll notice a lot of symmetry in all of his shots.

Symmetry is a great way to shoot interviews and documentaries.

It's a great way to use a background to help add some nice framing to your shot.

And sometimes it doesn't take much.

Sometimes you might have a shot that looks off balance and not quite symmetrical.

And all it takes is a slight camera adjustment to find the symmetry in the shot.

There's a lot of symmetry out there in the world.

And all it takes is just kind of looking around and adjusting your angle, and you can find it and help improve your composition.

Next, we've got depth.

Depth is a great compositional tool to help provide more emphasis to your subject.

And the best way to achieve depth and subject emphasis is by opening up your aperture.

If you open up the aperture in your camera, you're gonna get that shallow depth of field that both looks and feels cinematic and also really emphasizes your subject.

So open up that aperture, let a little bit more light in, and notice that background fall out of focus, adding that emphasis.

This is also great because it's gonna remove a lot of distractions.

When your aperture is really closed down and everything's in focus, there can be a lot of distractions and it becomes confusing who you're supposed to be looking at in the frame.

By opening that up, we get a shallow depth of field and we lose a lot of those distractions.

You can also add depth to your frame by pulling your subject away from the background.

This is a great tool when you're shooting an interview because it lets that background fall off and fall out of focus.

A lot of beginners will place their subject right up against a wall to shoot an interview and you just aren't gonna get that same type of depth.

So pull your subject away, have some space in the background, and maybe even consider adding something to the foreground, a plant or some sort of texture element in the foreground to show that there is depth in your shot.

Next, we've got frame within a frame.

This is using elements within your environment to help frame up your subject.

Now, this can be used in a lot of stylistic ways.

It's not always easy to do, but when you can do this, it makes a big difference in your footage.

Try shooting your subject through a window or through any opening that you might find out in the real world.

This adds that additional framing and can help, again, emphasize your subject and tell your story.

You'll notice this in a lot of films and TV shows as well, adding that additional frame and it can make a really, really big difference in your composition.

The final tip is to emphasize your subject.

Now, this is something we've been talking about throughout this whole video.

And really, you're gonna wanna use all of the tools we've already discussed to do exactly this.

Emphasize your subject.

Use rule of thirds, use depth, use symmetry and leading lines to show who it is you're telling the story of.

We don't wanna confuse our viewers.

We want to help them understand what we're trying to tell them.

And by using these framing and compositional tips, we can definitely emphasize our subjects and make our stories that much easier to understand.

So overall, framing and composition is really not that hard to do.

Try applying some of these tips the next time you're out shooting and see how they improve your cinematography.

See how you can use the rule of thirds to adjust your interviews and get your B-roll shots looking that much nicer.

See what kind of leading lines you can see out in the real world to show where a character might be going or to add emphasis to your portraits.

You can start using all of these tips today to improve your framing and composition.

So if you're enjoying these videos, go ahead and leave a like down below, subscribe to the channel.

There's a lot more to come.

Thank you for watching this one and good luck on your framing and composition.