Welcome to Pondering Creative

What sets good production apart from bad production? Yeah, budget, for sure. But even on a shoestring, there’s a lot you can do to make your commercials and long-form projects look good, no matter what kind of equipment or crew you employ. Learn to analyze your work according to a few basic film elements, and much of the story you’re trying to convey will be told before a word is spoken. Here’s a basic visual vocabulary:

Light
This is where most low-budget filmmakers and videographers can really benefit from some basic training. Good lighting can accomplish a number of things:

- focus viewer attention

- separate subject from background

- clarify three-dimensional shape and depth

- clarify texture

- establish mood

Doing something with light is usually better than doing nothing. You’ll be amazed how far you can go with a basic three point lighting setup. When you’re working outdoors, you can introduce an extra level of control by using scrims.

Color
Color is a subject worth many books and a lifetime of study, but here are a couple of cinematic applications:

- coding of characters and visual elements to tie them together and “program” viewers for predictable emotional responses

- contrasting of opposites, like safety and danger

Composition
Squint your eyes at the camera monitor and break down the lines, colors, lights and darks into basic shapes. Treat the video frame as a painter treats a canvas. Study art as well as film. Composition can:

- direct the viewer’s eye to what’s important in the frame

- dictate the viewer’s emotional response to what lies outside of the frame

- force comparisons through symmetry or a deliberate lack of symmetry

- establish intimacy, authority, menace, adulation … you name it

Shape
Different shapes elicit different emotional responses:

- The circle

o soft

o safe

o organic, natural

- The square

o artificial

o rigid

o industrial

o controlled, structured

- The triangle

o aggressive

o tense

- The line

o inevitable

o restrictive

There are exceptions to all these interpretations, of course. The important thing is to recognize and categorize these visual elements when you seen them in the frame, so you can understand what’s contributing to or detracting from the effect you’re trying to achieve. Start watching TV and movies with the sound turned off. With the distractions of storyline removed, you’ll be surprised what you notice.

Here are some good books, if you’re interested in learning more:

Cinematic Storytelling
Film Directing Fundamentals
Film Lighting

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The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
–Henry Miller