Weekend Photo Assignment

Don't Forget! Tuesday is Film Night at the Wilmette 
Theatre. LA Confidential! Film begins at 6:30 should end by 8:30.

Photo Assignment:

With a digital or phone camera take several different pictures placing your subject on the intersections around the middle frame. Experiment with capturing both foreground and background. Then frame your subject within the frame of the camera—find objects to make a frame within a frame. As you take your own shots consider how background and foreground inform your subject, and how their placement in the frame changes how we understand the situation.Take 5-10 pictures and post them to your blog with a short description for each that explains an effect of your framing.

Under Files in the folder labeled Assignments First Quarter you will see a document entitled Introduction to Framing. Read that before taking your pictures. Your pictures should be blogged by Monday night so we can talk about them Tuesday.

Explanation:

Introduction to Framing:

Focal length (camera distance from subject) and angle and framing are all different concepts when it comes to film. How far the camera is from the subject, at what angle the camera is placed and what details end up in the frame all contribute to the meaning of a shot, but all can be analyzed differently.

The frame of a shot is where the subject is located in the frame of the camera. In order to understand this, consider the frame—what area of the picture you see—overlaid with a tic-tac-toe grid of 9 squares. The middle frame is what photographers and directors call the lazy frame—it’s where professionals don’t want their subjects to end up. Instead the subjects are most often placed on one of the interstices—where two lines meet, usually left or right, top or bottom of the lazy frame.  Notice the photo below:

The subject—the bee’s head is to the right of the lazy frame. While part of the body lands in the middle frame, it’s not the part of the subject we are most interested in. This concept is called the rule of thirds. Compare to this still from Minority Report (Spielberg,  2002):

Notice the hands on the tie are to the left and below the middle frame. The subject’s eyes are above the middle frame.

Another concept important to framing is foreground and background. Notice in the Minority Report still, the background provides a rich shot filled with detail that the viewer can see and helps to define character. It also balances the subject so that the subject is framed within the frame, between the woman tying his tie and the table and lamp.

Consider how individual shots in film are framed—and how a character is framed within it. The frame helps define the character, creates a sense of place, and guides us to what the director wants us to understand about the scene.