Framing Your Shots

Here are some general guidelines for framing various camera shots. These are specific to Mainstreet so if you are reading from elsewhere your situation may be different. But, maybe not, so listen up.

Sermon Shots:
Since our primary objective is to serve quality IMAG to the worship center we need to be mindful of how the image looks in the house. We also need to be aware of what the DVD viewer or the people in the lobby are seeing. It's a balance act.

When the speaker is sitting we generally want to have a full upper body shot so that he/she appears as large as possible (without frightening the children) on the side screens. This means that you want to frame your shot so that the pants are out of the bottom of the frame and allow a paper thin layer of black above the head. Paper thin to the operator looking through the tiny viewfinder.

Now, we need to be ready to show illustrative hand motions. For example, if Marty is showing with his hand how big the fish was or how tall the tale is. These we'd want to capture both for the DVD and the house. We used to take one live shot during the sermon and leave the other two at a safety shot. Were going to be trying something a little different now. We still need that safety shot, especially when Marty is excited about life. He likes to sit - stand - sit -stand. We need to dump to that safety shot when he does. It makes for a much better transition. Now, in order to be ready for hand illustrations (and hopefully not hand gestures) a second camera will be at a slightly wider zoom level. Half way between "head to toe" and "waste up". We'll cut to that shot if he begins such an illustration. We'll continue to rotate each camera to a saftey shot so that you can rest for a few minutes. It's just that you may need to rest a little faster.

Illustration, or talking with your hands?
There's a difference. We will not pick up every little hand motion. If he's talking with his hands, this is not necessarily illustrative. If he's doing it a lot, you may want to adjust to include it. Otherwise let him throw those arms around any old way he pleases. Sure, it would look better on the DVD if we show every hand motion. Once again, our primary function at this point in the service is to display him larger than life in the house. This is especially true for our size of room. Most people in the room will catch the motions from the "Live Marty" not the "Video Marty" anyhow. Either consciously or subconsciously. The DVD and the lobby feed come second.

That's it for now. Check back for more framing pointers in another post. Leave a comment if you have questions or think I'm a complete looser. If nothing else it'll make good reading material for everyone else.

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