8 Steps to Cinematic Movement | Tomorrow's Filmmakers

[Music] hey guys justus here with tomorrowsfilmmakers. com the largest online film academy in the world and today we're talking about cinematic movement now this video is part three in our cinematic trilogy cinematic composition cinematic lighting and cinematic movement now you might not know this but if you move the camera at all you communicate something to your audience and every movement of the camera communicates a message and an emotion to your audience so we have to determine exactly how to take advantage of that and use every single moment and every single movement to deliver the right emotion now this video is not a video on every single type of camera movement like a push in or a pull away or a crane shot etc we have episodes all about that in our full course but this video is about the eight steps that you need to take in order to create cinematic movement and because of that reason inside our full course we have two entire cinematography courses one taught by chris kimlin and the other taught by josh osley both of these courses together will teach you everything you could possibly need to know about cinematography and lighting and you can learn more about that inside our full course at tomorrowsfilmmakers. com now we've been selling our film course successfully for years with an 800 price tag and have had over 4 000 students but right now we're doing something we have never done before and we are running an insane sale of only 97 bucks our entire lifetime membership to our award-winning 800 film course for only 97.

no joke if you want to take advantage of this crazy deal you can check out our website in the link below and head on over to tomorrowsfilmmakers. com to learn more but today i want to give you the eight steps you need to take in order to have cinematic movement in your projects if you take these eight steps i promise you your projects will look a thousand times better even if you just have a cell phone starting off with the very first step that will improve your projects faster than you can imagine is to avoid handheld nothing screams amateur more than seeing some handheld footage in someone's filmmaking now some projects require more of a handheld look for more grittiness and a certain style but not the handheld that we're talking about this kind of handheld should never be used in your filmmaking career and this is probably the most common mistake i see filmmakers make who are either just starting out or really just don't really know how to film properly they grab their camera click record and start filming i did it when i was starting out and you probably did too you see the point of your project is to make the audience forget that they're looking through the lens of a camera you want them to get sucked into the project and think that they're just watching this unfold in front of them but if you pick up your camera and start shooting with this jittery handheld look it's just a constant reminder to the audience that there is a cameraman holding the camera and to be honest no movement looks better than bad handheld movement putting your camera on a tripod is going to look better than a handheld shot especially if you try to move the camera trying to pan left or right while holding the camera looks crazy amateur but if you try and pan on a tripod it makes a world of a difference but even if you're not panning or doing anything like that just having your camera stationary on a tripod with good composition looks better than bad jittery shaky handheld movement when i was starting out i used to film everything handheld and then when i learned not to do that anymore the production value in my projects increased significantly i didn't buy a new camera i didn't buy new lights or even a stabilizer yet the quality difference is huge just by me not holding my camera anymore if you know that you need to film handheld for certain projects or a certain style prepare for it with a shoulder rig or a camera cage to take away all those small jitters but just picking up the camera and filming avoid it like the plague because if you avoid it you will improve the quality of your filmmaking instantly step number two is zooming and why to never do it a push in and a pull away are where you physically move the camera but a zoom on the other hand is where you zoom your camera towards the subject now the problem with a zoom and actually filming the zoom is that it feels very artificial and reminds the audience that there is a camera present now some projects are great for zooms like the office the office is a tv show that's supposed to be about a documentary team following these people around in their daily lives and since you already know that zooms don't feel out of place because you're watching it through someone who is following them with a camera the bourne movies are also a good example paul greengrass zooms all the time because it's about a man constantly on the run from the government and he gives the feeling that someone is always watching him but whenever you zoom it reminds the audience that there is a cameraman holding the camera and for that reason it tends to take the audience out of the moment and reminds them that they're watching a movie or watching a promo or watching whatever project that you're making when your character is supposed to be alone with nobody around and your camera zooms it feels like you're watching a reality tv show zooming in on your projects should be avoided at all cost and when you first pick up your camera you're going to be tempted to do two things go handheld and zoom i've seen it countless times and that's why i made a point to say no handheld and no zooms because avoiding these two things will improve your projects number three is smooth movements if your camera movements aren't smooth the cinematic quality of them will be completely gone invest in a stabilizer please you can't get smooth movements without something to make your camera smooth and also just because you have a gimbal or a glidecam doesn't mean you will automatically have smooth footage i see many filmmakers purchase gimbals and glidecams but still have shaky movement and they ask me how to fix it and the truth is it's because they just don't know how to use it now there are two quick ways to make sure that your shots are smooth whenever you're using a gimbal number one is to balance your gimbal with a glidecam if it's not balanced it's going to be impossible to film with but with a gimbal even if it's not balanced it's going to look like it's ready to go and because of that reason many people are not getting smooth shots be sure to take that extra time and balance your gimbal and your glidecam properly and number two is the way you walk getting smooth shots does depend on how you walk you must bend your knees and walk like your lower half is completely separate from your upper half let your legs absorb everything without letting it get to your upper half this is especially useful when moving quickly or running since you tend to have more movement in your shots mentally you have to train yourself to naturally squat when you walk because you aren't used to doing that this shot was taken on a gimbal while walking normal it doesn't even look like it's on a stabilizer and that's because it all depends on the way you walk number four is depth many times if we're moving our camera we can tell that the background is moving but we aren't really able to see just how much we're moving especially if it's a wider shot one way to create depth and show your movement better is to simply put something in your foreground to show that movement it adds an entirely new level to our movements and allows us to have lots of depth we already talked about this a little bit in our composition episode but both of these shots are moving from left to right but the one with a foreground object looks much more appealing by adding depth and also shows us as an audience how much we are moving and it doesn't have to be anything large like a person or an object it could be something small like leaves plants coming from behind something to reveal the subject many things you can do to add depth but placing something in front of your camera to either shoot through or move around can greatly affect the cinematic quality it adds depth it adds another element to your image and if your subject is on a flat wall and you can't move him away from that wall the best thing to do to add depth is to put something in the foreground it takes the image to an entirely new level next is motivated movement now just like we talked about in our lighting episode with motivated lighting now we have motivated movement this is movement that is motivated by something else in the frame now some movements just look fine out of the blue but some movements can seem jarring and take your audience out of the moment if the camera just moves for no reason motivated movement will completely fix this if we're gonna move from one person to the other instead of just moving back and forth which can seem jarring we could follow another person to our destination this is what is called motivated movement they use this many times in longer takes and it really adds a lot sometimes the person's only job in the scene is to allow the camera to somewhat follow them even if they're just in the background think if we had this shot without the person walking to move the camera the movement would just seem jarring and out of place for the camera to just move with no real reason as an example if we have two people having a conversation instead of moving back and forth to where it kind of feels awkward and out of place we could have them tossing a ball back and forth and following the ball this feels much more natural because the movement is motivated and you don't necessarily need to focus on the ball when it's moving and make it a subject in the scene but just move in the direction with it and it will seem more natural if there wasn't motivation for the movement it would feel out of place i've also used motivated movement many times with real estate shoots instead of just walking in a room to show how nice it is or especially the front door we simply follow somebody into that room and have them walk out of the way and it feels more natural to the viewer because the movement is motivated so if you can add some sort of motivated movement to your shots and you will be amazed at the difference it makes next is minimize rack focusing now what is a rack focus a rack focus is when your focus is on something really far away and then you rack the focus wheel all the way until you focus on something really close or vice versa this has been used in hollywood for ages and can be used in your projects to communicate a message the reason i'm making a point about this is because back in the day racking focus was pretty much impossible without some sort of adapter right when dslrs came out racking focus was super easy and available to everyone so guess what everyone did myself included we were racking focus at every chance we could because we hadn't been able to do it before and then it started to get monotonous and constant so when you first pick up your dslr and you're first getting into filmmaking you'll have a tendency to want to do that all the time because it looks so cool i mean a typical hollywood movie might have maybe one rack focus shot in the entire film so i know it might seem like a small and simple step but i've seen it over and over again we're beginning filmmakers rack focus with almost every single shot just because they can and it looks cool so please don't do it next is to shoot for the edit we talked about this before in our top gimbal tips and tricks videos but one of the most popular things right now are cinematic transitions especially with a gimbal it is everywhere but if you're wanting your transitions more cinematic you'll need to plan them out beforehand don't just start filming and think that you'll add some preset transition in the edit use your gimbal to create those cinematic transitions if you're wanting to do a whip pan transition start your shot and at the end of the take pan quickly to the left then on your next gimbal shot start with panning quickly to the left and then ease back into normal with one end with a pan with the other start with a pan once in the edit you can blend those shots together seamlessly because you planned it out beforehand if you didn't plan it out and just decided to add a preset transition it doesn't look nearly as good as if you planned it out beforehand and actually moved the camera so take your gimbal your stabilizer or whatever it is and film your shots with your transitions in mind and finally step number eight and probably one of the most important plan out your movements before you press record like i said at the beginning of the video every movement communicates a message and if you want cinematic movements in your projects you need to know what emotion you want to communicate before you move the camera if you just show up with your camera and do all these crazy moves for no reason the audience will be confused handheld may communicate tension and anxiety while a tripod shot may communicate calmness and control if you use a jittery handheld shot at the wrong time the audience can feel confused as to what you're trying to communicate before you ever start filming determine what emotion you want and that will determine what camera movement you need and the reason i'm putting this step in this video is because if you really do want cinematic movements in your projects they don't just fall into your lap you have to plan them out and determine what movement you want for the scene and going back to the handheld versus tripod movement in this scene one character is freaking out while the other character is calm and under control they have a handheld shot for the one freaking out and a tripod shot for the one that's in control they did not come up with this on the spot this was planned out beforehand to communicate in emotion in the insider when this conversation takes a turn in a completely different direction the director breaks the 180 degree rule and moves the camera to the other side giving us a sense of awkwardness and also a visual representation of the change that is taking place in this dialogue all of this was designed and planned out so in the end don't move the camera for absolutely no reason and also move the camera for a reason if the camera moved to the other side during this conversation yet nothing changed in the conversation it would be extremely distracting and make no sense have purpose in your camera movements and plan them out according to the emotion so i hope that these eight steps have really helped you guys out in creating cinematic camera movement if you'd like to learn more about camera movement in general from the different types of shots and what emotions they communicate check out our full academy at tomorrowsfilmmakers.