9 Ways to Composition

     Film is like photography but with a bunch more pictures. Point being your shots should be interesting. Good camerawork is what separates Roland Emmerich's masterpieces from shaky cam garbage in teen novel movies. My personal favorite rule of composition is the rule of thirds. I never notice it until we got that packet, but now I know the magic it holds. Shots without it SUCK. Vertices help lead the audiences' eye to the picture, which creates the illusion of depth. Third are diagonals, they are similar to vertices, provide a more subtle yet dynamic way of directing the eye. A good example of Vertices and diagonals are present in this screenshot from 2012.

See how dynamic that stuff is?
Next comes framing, the ability to make a border out of the environment is an excellent way to make depth. Then there's contrast, which is a juxtaposition in color to make the subject pop. There is also frame fillage, an important subject takes a bunch of the frame while the insignificant part takes less room. Next is to center a character's dominent eye to freak out the audience. Eight is to use patterns so that it's easy on the eye. No one likes shaky cam. Use symmetry, not perfect symmetry, but a good balance so we can take it all in.

     I like this one. Although we literally already learned all of this. But not the Animation class. Ms. Licata should teach them to use these techniques. Their projects will be more aesthetically dynamic.