Do you dream of making your film one day? Perhaps become the next Tarantino. Even if you do not want to direct a film, you want a career that directly correlates to cinematography. If you are serious about pursuing a career in cinematography, you will need more than just sponsors, gear, and technical knowledge.

What are the Elements of Film Making?

A good filmmaker must have a good grasp of the elements. These elements are the building blocks of a film. Filmmakers cannot create movies without having a good sense of these elements. The elements are:

  • Plot
  • Attraction
  • Theme
  • Acting Dialogue
  • Editing & Effects
  • Cinematography
  • Sound & music

Some Basic Filmmaking techniques

To be a good filmmaker, you need to be highly knowledgeable in the type of film you intend to make. Directors have a clear goal towards their goal from the moment they make the storyline and will not move away from it. If you intend to become a filmmaker, you need to have resolution and determination. If you are serious about filmmaking, learn the techniques. You would need to use them accordingly when making films as both a director and cinematographer.

Zoom

Zoom shots are one of the more basic techniques that most beginners use when they are just starting to make films. Zoom shots relay a sense of urgency, focus, and connection with the subject matter. They often happen at core intensive scenes in a movie. Zooms are often kept to a minimum in most films- at only 2 to 3 times.

Dutch Angle

It is a technique where the film is shot from an angle that gives a more dramatic view. A Dutch angle is used to disorient the audience, giving them a general feeling of uneasiness towards whatever is portrayed on screen. The audience shares the same feeling as the ones felt by the characters in the film. Just like zoom, Filmmakers should also use dutch angles more sparingly.

Rack Focus

Rack focus is a simple focus point change from a foreground object to a background object or vice-versa. This is used to reveal more details, no matter how subtle they are, to the audience.

To effectively use the rack focus, you also need to know the variety of styles accompanying this technique. Also, rack focus is considered more of an intermediate technique due to all these accompanying styles. Due to its complexity, a completely single specialist called a focus puller works on the rack focus footage. The styles included in this system are:

  • Follow Focus
  • Wireless Lens Control System
  • Servo

Shot reverse shot

This is one of the most vital techniques in filmmaking that is used for coverage purposes. In this technique, a sequence of shots, which are cut together, is cut together to create a sense of conversation between two characters.

By shooting a scene from each character’s perspective, you give your editor a greater sense of control over the final result of the film. He will have more maneuverability on how to enhance and produce the footage.

Bird’s eyeshot

This is an impressive viewpoint in not only filmmaking but also photography. The bird’s eye shot shows massive scale but from a much higher angle to the point where the land starts to show abstract shapes and lines out of roads, buildings, and trees. It is also typically used as an establishing shot for introductions and scene transitions. The audience tends to find such transitional shots to be very interesting.

High-Key Lighting

High key lighting is a style of presenting the lighting on the subject so that the face f the subject is not exposed to shadows. It is mostly used in talk shows and sitcoms. A major advantage of high key lighting is that the sets are pretty cheap and easy to use. This makes this type of lighting one of the most used lightings in films.

Low-Key Lighting

This is the exact opposite of high key lightings. In this case of lightings, the subject is exposed to very low lighting, and the background tends to have low contrast. This is used in films that require certain moods like horror, suspense, or edginess.

J Cut

J cut is an intermediate editing technique. Editors use this technique so that the audience can hear sound from a different source before seeing the accompanying scene from the video source. It is slightly uncommon for most narrative films and features a dissolve in transition from one scene to another.

Keying

Keying is an important technique for VFX. It is simple and is just a single part of the entire VFX process in a film. It usually involves editing out the background from your subject. You could also add other backgrounds or new tones.

Green screen keying is the most common form of keying due to being an easy option for keying backgrounds. The green color tends to be less reflective of light, which sets it apart as a color for keying compared to another color keying.

Composition

Composition is the act of compiling and adding multiple digital assets to a film scene. It is mainly used to give the film some visual effects that make it more appealing to the eye and more interesting. The most common compositing software in filmmaking is After Effects and Nuke, with the former representing the go-to tool of choice for indie-VFX artists

Conclusion

So what is your favorite film making technique? Most of them are hard to master but with enough practice, and the right amount of talented people by your side you will get to understand them slowly.

One last advice if you intend to pursue a filmmaking career- make sure to build up a network/ Only then would you receive sponsors and have talented people working for you on various roles and posts.