Camerawork tips

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Plan your shots. Draw storyboards. Use your camcorder to experiment with different focal lengths and develop your own visual style.

Focus on your subject’s eyes, unless you specifically want something else to be in focus.

Whatever it is that you want to be in focus, use this technique: zoom in all the way on the subject, pull focus and zoom back to get the framing you want. In this way your subject will be pin-sharp. You should do this as a matter of course on every single setup, and indeed on every take, especially if the subject moved after the last take.

The reason for zooming in before focusing is that the longest focal length has the smallest depth of field – if something is in focus at the longest end of the zoom, it will be in focus at every other focal length too.

Once again, if your subject is a person, focus on the eyes. You may not notice it in the viewfinder, but if the eyes are soft and the background is sharp it will be obvious on a TV screen and your audience will hate it.

If the camera you are using has 2/3″ CCDs, or if you are shooting on 16mm or 35mm film, accurate focusing will be even more important. Indeed, the beauty of a sharp subject against a blurred background is part of the appeal of shooting on film.

All of this means, of course, that you should use a camera with manual focus. If your camera only has auto focus you may wish to consider upgrading.

When shooting on video, light the scene in such a way as to allow a wide aperture to be used. This reduces the depth of field and will bring you closer to the film look.

When shooting outside, lighting conditions are likely to be bright, but you can still use a wide aperture if you use a neutral-density filter. Neutral-density filters are essentially color-neutral (grey) filters which reduce the brightness of the light reaching the film or CCDs. The point is that you reduce the intensity of the light by using a neutral-density filter and then compensate for it by using a wider aperture. Professional camcorders sometimes have one or two inbuilt neutral-density filters, which you can engage with a toggle switch. They can reduce the intensity of the light by several stops.

Foreground objects add texture and increase the illusion of depth. Foreground objects, which can be anything from an actor’s shoulder to a tree branch, are known as dingle in the film business. It is imperative that the foreground element should be out of focus; if it is sharp, it will distract from the main subject and will lose its textural effect. A fine example of the use of dingle is the battle scene in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr Strangelove”: almost every shot of soldiers assaulting the building have plants and branches, out of focus, in the foreground. He was so keen on foreground branches that he occasionally used light stands to hold cut branches in the correct position. It was worth the effort: the way he shot that scene gives the viewer a strong feeling of being there, crawling behind the soldiers.