The Mark of Quality - Shallow Depth of Field

There are many things that add to the quality and production value of films. One of these things in particular is often confused or misunderstood, and that is the effect of using a shallow depth of field. Of course there are a lot of other things which can add a huge difference to the quality of your film, but by using depth of field effectively helps bring your film out of that amatuer/student look just that much more.

One of the most common words I used to hear around film shoots was depth of field. "Give me some good depth of field", or "I want to have really deep depth of field around this character". This is a common misinterpretation, as having a deeper depth of field just means that more things will be in focus. Its when you severely limit or have a shallow depth of field that you get the nice blurring of objects surrounding the object in focus.

The main reason a shallow depth of field works to your advantage are two-fold. First, it makes the image more visually interesting, as it is a technique used more on bigger more professional productions. Secondly, it eliminates any extraneous detail from the picture and makes it lot more similar to how the human eye focuses. Human eyes can only focus on one area of interest at a time, and even when scanning a whole room or area the eye jumps focus from spot to spot, instead of taking in the whole scene as a whole. By introducing a shallow depth of field to the shot, it tells the audience exactly what to look at and what is important, since they can't see anything else in great detail. They must automatically focus on what is on focus.

Of course, with most consumer or pro-sumer grade cameras it can be hard to achieve a shallow depth of field without using some tricks. The main reason for this is both the sensor and lens size, as having a larger sensor or film size automatically makes shallower depth of fields easier to achieve. 35mm and 70mm film often gives the best results, since the film sizes are absolutely huge compared to their digital counterparts. The 35mm film is roughly 1 1/3 inches, and 70mm 2 3/4 inches wide. By comparison, most digital sensors are either 1/8 or 1/4 inch which is a huge difference, with some of the more improved and new sensors being 1/2 inch.

Often the only way to bring out a shallow depth of field with these tiny digital sensors is by physically moving the camera far away from the subject you wish to film, then zooming in as far as possible. A tripod comes in handy for using this technique, because the more zoom you're using the shakier the image is going to be. Once you achieve good focus on your subject, you should find that there is a shallow depth of field. Another technique is by shooting in slightly darker conditions, and opening the iris as far open as it will go. Using both these techniques compresses the image onto the sensor, which helps to limit the depth of field.

As you can see with both techniques, it may not always be possible to achieve good results. Sometimes you simply can't move the camera back any further, or perhaps you have to shoot on a bright sunny day. The only remedy to this is to either plan your production to try and make it easier to get shallower depths of field, or simply use a camera with a larger sensor size.

Here are a few examples of shallow depth of field in my own work:

Good Film Tips - Characters are Paramount

Image courtesy of LouLou - echslectir

This is perhaps one of the most important areas of story creation behind the story itself. Characters are what make a story live and breathe, and quite simply if you have a film full of characters no one is interested in or can relate to, it isn't going to leave a good impression. Having well developed and interesting characters is one of the most important aspects of writing, but many writers often skimp on detail when it comes to them. There are some important things to remember when it comes to incorporating quality characters in your writing, and I have taken the liberty to mention a few things below.

1. Characters should be as important as story
While it is paramount to come up with a really good story that will hold audiences interesting, not having some good characters to back this up can mean trouble. You could have the most interesting story in the world, but with bad characters people aren't going to be half as interested. A lot of writers, myself included, tend to concentrate a lot on the story. The characters become a means to use to make sure everything thats supposed to happen in the story happen. If you're not careful, they become placeholders and tools of the changes that happen in the story without really being their own entity. Sometimes it might be useful to think of the characters as being separate from the story, but yet placed into the story with all their individual reactions and thoughts. Adding importance to the development and back stories of all your main characters can really add a lot of depth to your writing, giving it a lot more intrigue and draw.

2. Characters should be captivating and unique
One of the main purposes of characters is to hold the audiences interest. One of the easiest ways to do this is to make characters captivating. Usually the way to do this is to have researched, well developed personalities for the characters, incorporating very distinctive and recognizable differences between them which makes both their actions and dialogue unique from one another. You don't want all of your characters to act and talk exactly the same, you want to make them as different as humanly possible. It adds variety and spice, and also adds interest to see how different characters react to situations and events differently, or even how they interact with each other.

3. Characters should be unpredictable and original
Another big mistake of writers is tapping into stereotypes too much. This is even encouraged in a lot of books teaching writing skills, as they believe playing into stereotypes makes it easier for audiences to understand characters. Not only does this make characters boring and predictable, it can give audiences the feeling you're treating them as if they were stupid. A clever way to get around this, while still using most of the advantages, is by playing against stereotypes or making characters entirely unpredictable. Alfred Hitchcock was a well known for incorporating this method into his films for both the characters and plots. Playing against stereotypes can in itself be predictable if you use the most common ones, for example the ditzy pretty girl who actually has brains, the harsh and strict teacher who has heart in the end, or the rich miser who is actually very generous. However if done well playing against stereotypes can actually be really effective.

To begin with, utilizing the stereotype in the first place makes the character recognizable to the audiences. For example a nerdy guy that wears glasses (of course) and has a large knowledge of all technical subjects. Audiences can recognize and perhaps even understand such a character, because they have seen this many times before in other films. But to really throw them off and keep them guessing, and to make the character more original, you can add some plays against this predictable stereotype. Maybe he is especially gifted in social interactions, especially with women. This throws off some of the assumptions that typically go with the nerd stereotype. Maybe he is also especially good at some kind of physical activity, like sword fighting or martial arts which might come in particularly handy at one point in the story. If you keep your audience guessing it will keep them engaged in both the story and characters. Playing against stereotypes can make characters much more original and interesting, as well as throwing off audiences assumptions so they won't fall into too much of a relaxed state watching the film.

4. The audience should care about what happens to them
This one is also rather important. You can have the characters as interesting and original as you like, but if they are either intentionally or unintentionally unlikable then people are going to have difficulty caring about what happens to them. Of course I'm not recommending not using anti-hero's or characters that are intentionally pricks, because these ones can be interesting as well. At the very least you must make the characters human, so other humans will care about what happens to them in the story. All of the dramatic points and struggles in your story will loose both their meaning and effect if the audience can't relate to your characters. You have to remember that if audiences don't care what happens to the characters, they're not going to care about the struggles or obstacles you're placing in front of them. On the flipside, however, if they are actively engaged then they will be hanging on every moment you're putting the character into dangerous or tricky situations. If audiences are engaged in the characters then they will be engaged in your story.

A good example of movies that should absolutely having characters you care about in is horror films. If you don't care about the characters, you're not going to care if they slowly get killed off one by one. The Scream trilogy used this really well by having interesting characters that you honestly didn't want getting killed off by the masked killer. If only more horror films would learn how effective this is, instead of creating cardboard cutout characters that audiences couldn't care less about if they happened to get killed along the way.

In conclusion if you have both a good story and good characters, you have the best of both worlds and a great foundation on which to build your film around. Don't let character development fall into the background in story development, good characters are absolutely paramount in making a good film.

Slow Times in Tahoe

Well time is passing as per usual, but not a whole lot of things are happening at the moment. It warmed up here for about a week, and we saw temperatures of around plus 5 degrees Celsius which was a nice change, before they dropped down once again and the snow returned. I'm sure spring will roll around at some point, or at least I certainly hope it will.

I haven't been feeling entirely productive lately, with work taking up most of my time at the moment. I want to get a lot of things started and get to work on various items, but its slightly difficult at the moment to find both the space and time to do them. Just before I arrived here the basement which I was supposed to move into flooded, so all the new floor boardings and parts of the wall had to be taken out. Three months later, absolutely nothing has happened towards the progress of the basement apart from it being dried out. Once the basement is finally completed, if ever, I plan to set up a desk and area where I can actually work on things and feel productive.

Some areas I plan to focus some attention on are adding more content to the website, reading some more and most importantly getting started on some writing, which unfortunately I have neglected for some time. I have a couple of script ideas I want to work on, and at the moment have only been coming up with some ideas for the stories.

In other news I may be visiting Japan for a couple of weeks in the next two months, which would be an interesting trip. If I do end up going I'll make sure to bring that old Practika camera of mine and take lots of photos. I've never been to a place where the culture is so different from what I'm used to, so I'm sure that would be an interesting experience. Plus they have pretty good food over there so I'm sure I'd be happy in that regard.

Website Launched

The Eye of the Sky website has officially gone live, you can check it out - Eye of the Sky Studios. The site is a starting place to start generating some presence on the internets, similar to the purpose of the old Twilight Shadow site. It is also a way to show a web based portfolio of work.

Later down the track the site will serve a greater purpose, but at least now the foundations have been laid down. I'm glad to have finally finished the preliminary work and have it fully up and running.

Another Website Update

Well the launch of the website is coming up quickly, with only two or three days remaining before its unveiling. I must admit that it is definitely near completion, with just a few final touches needed before I release it to the wild. Its taken a lot longer than I could have imagined, although the site itself isn't very big or grandiose. The main reason its taken so long apart from time constraints is that I had to basically relearn web design to make the site design almost completely CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) based.

I've done a few web sites in my time, and they've all consisted of using the old tried and true method of using tables to lay out the design. Believe it or not this type of design isn't even taught any more, our class at the S.I.T. for web design was the last one that taught web design using this arcane method. Its now all CSS based which makes a lot more sense, unless in the case you haven't learnt it which can make things a little more difficult.

CSS is interesting because you put all your design instructions into the one text file, and you can have every page on your website look to this text file for reference of how to lay everything out and for formatting rules. In the old school of CSS you would just define a few fonts and colors for your text, and that would be about all CSS was used for. Now it is used for the entire layout of website, and you can define layers and place them anywhere you want.

Some of the main advantages of using CSS are as follows :

1. They use take up less space and bandwidth, since you don't have to duplicate formatting code in every page.

2. They are lot more flexible, seeing as you can put elements anywhere on the page, even overlapping other elements if you so desire.

3. They are easier to update, seeing as you only have to change the code in one location instead of every single page if you decide to change the layout or some fonts.

Almost all browsers support the full CSS instruction set now which is nice, seeing as how its been around for many years now. CSS2 is starting to make more prominence, but its probably going to be a little into the future before we start seeing full support for this new development. It may have taken me a lot longer to basically relearn how to code sites, but it was worth it. And as a bonus it definitely shouldn't take as long for future projects.

Good Film Tips - Story First, Conventions Second

This second installment may not apply to all people, only those who have received formal education in terms of screenwriting, namely following Hollywood conventions. Also, anyone who has read through any of Syd Field's or Joseph Campbell writings may find this useful due to the emphasize put on conventions and structure.

First things first - most audiences don't really care about conventions or structure. In fact, following conventions too closely can lead to boring and predictable stories, as audiences are usually bombarded with hundreds of different movies that follow along the same predictable storylines, especially such movie genres as romantic comedies or action films. Conventions are a set of rules conformed to by the screenwriter, who must make their script fit certain moulds and have certain features. The common Hollywood structure states that the script must have three acts, two main plot points, as well as a multitude of other things.

This was one of the things we were forced to adhere to during my time at the S.I.T. Although conventions can add to a film and make it more audience friendly, conventions hold a number of problems which can arise while following them.

1. Story is more important

If you spend all your energy trying to adhere to a set of rules, its going to have consequences, namely being your story is going to suffer. Developing a good story should be the most important thing, and once you have that all worked out then you can apply some conventions to improve the script if need be. One prime example is the first Star Wars film by George Lucas. Mr. Lucas often attributes the success of the film and story to Joseph Campbell, which wrote "The Hero With a Thousand Faces", which is basically a set of conventions based of the mythology of the world, and how almost all mythology contains certain common threads that all humanity recognizes. Of course, Mr. Lucas had already written a couple of drafts of his script before he even read that book, and then decided to add a more mythical structure to the script and incorporated many features he learnt in the book to make it better. The important thing to note is that he already had most the story worked out first, and didn't work straight from the book as most would believe.

2. Convention can lead to boring, predictable scripts

A lot of Hollywood screenwriters out there use conventions as almost a kind of bible, basing every part of their story around it as though the conventions were laid down by Moses in the Old Testament. They equate convention with success, attempting to make their script both as commercial and easily digestible by audiences as possible. The problem with this of course is predictability. How many films out there are entirely, utterly predictable. A fair few by my count. If you follow conventions way too closely and concentrate on them more than the actual story itself, you're going to end up with a fairly boring script. It may be commercially successful, like a lot of bad Hollywood, but that doesn't mean its actually any good.

3. Use conventions to improve your script, not write your script

Similar to my example about Star Wars, you simply cannot use conventions to base your script from or write your script around right from the beginning. More often than not, your story won't even make sense if you write this way. In terms of Hollywood conventions, the main stream of rules goes as follows - Hook, Establish Normal Life, Plot Point One, The Pinch, Plot Point Two, and the Conclusion. Although this might not make a lot of sense, these are the most common elements in Hollywood convention. Conventions can only help structure your story, they can't really be a basis for the story itself.

Conventions are usually sold to budding screenwriters as the be all end all way of becoming a successful screenwriter, especially in Hollywood where it is almost a requirement for being selected by a major studio. However as I have pointed how there are definite dangers in following these too rigidly, as you will most likely end up with predictable, mindless dribble. It can also suck out a lot of creativity in the writing process, as any ruleset can. So my advice would be to concentrate entirely on story first, and conventions second, in order to make a good story. You can use conventions as much or as little as you like after you have the main story worked out, just don't use them to influence your story too greatly to start with.

Good Film Tips - Plot That Makes Sense

Photo courtesy of fotogail

There are many factors that go into making a good film. Filmmaking has got to be one of the hardest occupations out there, at least to do well. This is primarily because there are just so many factors that go into a films creation, and many stages - you have preproduction, production itself and postproduction, and at each stage lies many different components that must fit together in order for the film to work or be good. I firmly believe that a good story or script is a good starting ground in making a good film, because if there are errors or problems in the foundation of the film its going to be difficult to turn it into something good. This is to be the first post in a series of posts talking about my experiences and things I have learnt. Although I've hardly made many good films, or at least films which I would consider good personally, I have learnt a great many things along they way which will help in the future with both writing and filmmaking, which might be useful to those either writing or planning to make a film.

One of the most important features of a story or screenplay is a plot that makes sense, something that often gets lost in the writing process. I've seen this so many times in my fellow students pieces of work, including films and animation, and have certainly see it in a lot of my own work and creations. Basically, what happens in the story and why it happens has to make sense and actually be understandable. Although you may have some cool visuals or interesting sequences or ideas in your film/animation, if it doesn't make sense then your audience won't understand or perhaps appreciate it as much. Its all very well for them to say ooh or aah, but afterwards its never nice to hear the words "So... what actually happened?"

An understandable story needs to have a plot that would make sense to a child. The underlying plot needs to be simple, dead simple. Person A gets from Location A to Location B. It doesn't matter exactly how you present this information, or the layers you build up onto it to make it interesting, the main plot has to be simple and understandable. With this in place it should give audiences a decent enough cue to follow what is happening in the story.

Another important feature is for a story to have many layers. Onions have layers, to use a Shrek analogy, and so should stories. This can be seen most clearly in the way a lot of children's films and animation deal with comedy. They use many layers of comedy, which include jokes that cater to the lowest common denominator for the youngest in the audience, up to jokes that only adults would understand. If they included only jokes for adults, or wrapped up adult jokes in a way that only adults would understand, then these films wouldn't appeal to as big of an audience and certainly wouldn't be considered children's films.

Although your target audience may be teens or adults, it is still important to include a plot that caters to the lowest common denominator. It will always be much more difficult for someone not familiar with your story to follow it, so you must take steps to ensure you're guiding them through by proverbially holding their hand through the plot.

Having a simple, understandable plot that makes sense really is an important factor in the creation of a good story, which in turn is needed to make a good film. Although the story itself may not be simple at all, having the basic underlying plot simple and understandable will help in leaps and bounds for people to make sense of what is happening in your film.