VVC 2005: More panel notes
Aestheics (Visual Composition) by astolat
I took a lot of notes at this panel, but I'm not sure how much sense they will make without the visual aides. Much of what was discussed are existing rules of compostion from photography and and film. We're lucky that the D.P. does a lot of this work for us, but it is useful to know what rules they are following. It will help us to make conscious rather than instinctive choices.
Layout of things within the frame
Extreme Wide Shot
-don't see subject or subject is very small
Establishing shots
Wide shot
-see more of subject but [still see background?]
Mid Shot
Focus on character
Close Up
detail
ECU [Extreme Close Up]
Angles
The normal angle is straight on.
When shot looking down at a person, it can be an emotional implication of omniscient POV.
"the power of the center" - what's important
The eye goes to the center of frame or center of object
Completely centered = static
Rule of thirds -- draw a grid dividing the shot into nine equal pieces (three lines horizontal, three vertical).
Where the lines intersect = power points. For example, the body of the person may be centered in the frame, but they are leaning slightly to the right and their eyes hit this intersection.
Focus is another thing that tells us the importance of various objects/people. Fuzzy things are unimportant.
Lining up gives dynamic power.
Infinite focus -- no one is more important than anyone else.
Lines of direction
-the lines created on the screen by scenery, background
Framed by that = signified.
Lines point us to things.
(Examples from Unbreakable, Lawrence of Arabia)
Movemenet, sense of direction, going someplace.
In Vids:
-We use short clips, disjointed clips. Don't get much information out of a single shot.
-It's more important to have lots of info in a shot.
-Important to be easily understandable
Conclusion: Short shots that respect the rules of photography are more useful for vidding purposees
We watched flummery's vid Kryptonite as an example, and looked at examples of lines, shots that lined up with the grid, how the vid signals that a character is important, and other things.
Transitions
-vary shots
ex: don't just focus on the characters
Our eyes get tired. Break it up. Wide shots. Shots of scenery.
Even small change "confuses" the eye. So if you have a two shot with character A on the left and character B on the left, switching from A B to a shot where it's B A is enough to regain visual interest.
Anime Panel run by absolut3destiny
Animation
-stylistically represents
-charicature
-condensed
-essence
-beyond reality (transformers!)
It's a fantastical form.
Successful amvs often have to do with the spectacle of animation -- hence flashiness.
Here we watched a comparison of BSG and an animation.
Animated characters don't act! The voice actors do.
AMV creators sarted using shorter cuts and adding external motion to help keep the source visually intersting.
AMVs have the flexibility to mask and move pieces -- the original source is doing it anyway.
We watched a before & after of Transcending Love, which shows the original source and the finished product on screen at the same time so we could see which elements were added. (In this constructed reality vid, three characters from different shows are combined seamlessly with a new background to create a new environment).
Doing this kind of manipulation in live action is much more difficult. Anime is 8 frames per second and it loops.
After effects has a learning curve -- but it's not as hard as you might think. You can copy and paste your settings from frame to frame, and just tweak the things that are different.
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