Generally, shorts are classified as wide, medium, or close ups. Each has its own function. Here is a discussion of close-ups, the most important and expressive shot and also the one novices tend to ignore!
Close-ups- I am a big fan of close-ups. If you read this site a lot, you’ll know how I harp on the fact that close-ups are your most valuable and informative shot.
As an example of the value of close-ups, look at the two pictures below. The first one is a close-up of the XLR audio inputs on a video camera. The second shot is a wide shot of the same video camera. If I am trying to help you understand what an XLR audio input is, the wide shot would be virtually worthless but the close-up tells you EXACTLY what I am talking about.
Use lots of close-ups!
Close-up is abbreviated CU and ECU stands for extreme close-up. ECU shots can give a viewer a perspective that would be hard to get with the naked eye and can be awe-inspiring.
A standard close-up on a person would be considered chest up. This is about the same perspective you’d get if you were standing a few feet away from somebody talking one-on-one, obviously a personal vantage point that conveys reasonably intimate emotional detail.
An extreme close-up would have the face filling up the frame.
A viewer gets to know someone fairly well through a close-up.
Lots of people like ECUs of faces, especially if the subject has particularly distinctive features or is expressing extreme emotion. No doubt, shots like this can be effective and they’re used all the time.
Since the viewer should always be the video producer’s number one concern, think about how the shot affects them. Do they need the ECU or is it something they’d rather not get that up-close and personal with? I mean, the viewer could be eating spaghetti and your exciting close-up of a worm infestation might interfere with that. Just something to think about!
Show your product off!
ECUs are critical for product detail shots. An ECU will fill up the frame with something as tiny as a postage stamp and gives the viewer incredible perspective. An ECU makes almost anything look magnificent.
Macro lens
In order to get good close-ups, you will want a camera lens with a macro lens feature. A macro lens enables you to get virtually on top of your subject and still get it in focus. (Most lenses need to be at least three feet from a subject in order to focus.)
When you use a macro lens on a video camera like this, you need to have your zoom lens zoomed all the way OUT. The macro feature works best on the wide-angle setting of your lens. In fact, with most inexpensive camcorders, if you get really close to something with your lens zoomed all the way out, the macro feature will kick in automatically.
While taking an ECU of a postage stamp, a camera with a good macro lens might only be ½ an inch from the stamp. This would completely fill the frame with the stamp; the only real difficulty here is having the camera cast a shadow onto the stamp. (If that happens, move the light source.)
The other technique for getting a close-up is to zoom all the way in on it, but often, you run into focus problems doing it that way and you can’t get in as close as you want. (Make sure and use a tripod when you zoom in otherwise the camera will appear terribly shaky.)
So for good close-ups, a macro feature is essential. Fortunately, macro is quite common, even on cheap cameras. Just last week I took some phenomenal ECUs of butterflies with my cheapie, old, mini DV camera. You can actually see the butterfly’s scales! I was right on top of it, literally. Good thing it was too busy slurping nectar from my buddleia bush to care about my rude intrusiveness.
Close-ups are the shot novices tend to ignore. Many novie videos are filled with wide shots. This makes for a bopring video. close-ups add detail and excitment to your video. USE THEM!
Close-ups also go a long way toward making up for the fact that an online video viewer is probably watching an extremely small sized screen. Sometimes, given the small screen size of online video, a close-up is about the only way a viewer will really be able to see something.
Thanks for reading Video Production Tips
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