Page 128 - Convergent Journalism an Introduction Writing and Producing Across Media

DIGITAL VIDEO PHOTOGRAPHY

Balance the subject with his or her environment. Your compositions
should enhance—not distract from—the subject and scene.
A level horizon is important in news photography. It may be unnat-
ural, but a crooked shot can give the suggestion of a slanted or biased
view of your subject. Leave the cock-eyed views to Hollywood and
people’s home movies.

Shooting Sequences: The Basis for Good Storytelling
Because we want the audience to be able to experience the scene as if
they were there, we need to try to imitate the way our minds process
a scene. The best way for us to do that is to use sequences.
A sequence is a series of shots that when edited together tell a story.
A sequence can be as few as two shots or as many as you can imagine.
Typically, we think of a three- to four-shot sequence as being wide,
medium, close-up, and extreme close-up shots. The shots follow a
natural progression of how our minds process visual information.
When you walk into a room, you first see a wide shot of the whole
118 scene. It establishes where you are and what you are going to be seeing
next. As you move farther into the room, you see the subjects in a
medium shot. You capture more and more detail as you get a better
view of the action in the scene.
You concentrate on what the subject is doing with a close-up shot.
Even more detail is visible as you look very closely with an extreme
close-up shot that lets you determine exactly what is happening in the
room. The mind acts as both camera and editor, following the action
and the reaction. That same process is what you want to imitate when
you shoot and edit the story.

The Human Eye Does not Zoom or Pan
Notice when you entered the room that you didn’t immediately move
your body straight to the action. You processed each area in separate
shots. You also didn’t move your head from one side of the room to
the other watching every detail along the way. The eye and the mind
work together to cut to the action and the reaction. You should try to
shoot your sequences in a natural progression that does not use zooms
or pans.
Even a rack focus, focusing on one object then adjusting the focus
to another while recording the scene, is unnatural. Try this: Hold your
finger 3 to 4 inches in front of your face. Concentrate on your finger,