Can Aspect Ratio help tell the story? | Part 2 - Getting to the Nitty Gritty

Can Aspect Ratio help tell the story?

Part 2 - Getting to the Nitty  Gritty

 In Part 1 we talked about three general shapes for videos and a basic premise of what type of story they lend themselves to.

Premise: Squarish is best suited to show people and stories that focus on them. Wide is best suited to conveying story elements and should be used for "plot driven" stories. Very Wide is best suited to display place and should be used when the setting plays an especially important roll in the piece.


Before we go any further I'd like to point out that we are assuming that people will be viewing things in the current time & on current devices. This means they all have the same basic shape, which is 'Wide'. I mention this because any frame that isn't the same shape will have a letter box of some sort (AKA:  the dreaded "Black Bars") to fill up the rest of the screen when in fullscreen mode. In other modes the screen will probably be full of logos, ads, and other stuff that you don't need while watching. The dreaded "Black Bars"  will come into play a bit later.

Squarish

1) Squarish

The idea goes something like this. 'Squarish' works well for showing people partly because it nicely frames a head & shoulder shot giving lots of expressiveness to the face and a little context with the shoulders. It can be conversational or dramatic without being overpowering.  This is where the "Black Bars" come in.  Watching a square frame on a wide device puts the negative space (Black Bars) on the sides.  This means when there's a person in the frame it can, sometimes, give the impression that the person is looking at something that's obscured from us.  These relatively large portions of the screen that are obscured can be exploited to enhance a sense of mystery, a sense that something is being hidden or is just out of sight. Many stories aren't about the external objects that challenge the characters, they're about the people and how the deal with challenges.

Wide

2) Wide

'Wide' frames work well when adventure or plot are driving the story. You can see more of the situation around the characters. This is great when the situation or environment is the primary driver of peoples actions within the story. If the characters are; lost in a hostel environment, in a vehicle, or in a social situation where they are expected to fit in this additional information about the environment can be helpful in telling the story and keep the danger ever present.  In regards to "Black Bars" there are none so it will seem that the viewer is getting all the information that's available. Which could also be used to catch viewers off guard when something is relieved.

Very Wide

3) Very Wide

At one time 'Very wide' frames where used to set movies apart from Television. TV was 'Squarish'
  and the only way to get the spectral of cinema was to go to a theater and see it in it's original 'Very Wide' format. A lot of it's use is still tied to that idea of the spectral of cinema. It's meant to be epic and important and awe-inspiring. It can be these things (when done well) but it excels when the story already has these elements and the frame isn't being used as an attempt to inject them into a story that doesn't already have them.  'Very Wide'  is good for stories with epic characters and epic scenery, especially epic scenery. Simply because you can see more of it.  Think of a mountain chain or a mile long space ship. They fill up a very wide frame but, in a square frame their impact would be lessened by the extra scenery at the top and bottom of the frame.

In a very wide frame the The characters take up such a small space (in wide shots) that their surroundings can become a character of it's own. If you have a "man against Nature" story the nature can look bigger stretching out from side to side with a small figure in the dwarfed in the frame. This format will create long 'Black Bars' at the top & bottom on most devices. This can give a feeling of being detached, or it can give a feeling or an overview or seeing the bigger picture.

Conclusion

This is mostly bullshit. Mostly because there are advantages and disadvantages to each frame size, but they can easily be outweighed by other things. One of the biggest is who is creating the experience, and how much thought & skill did they bring to bear on the project. If you give a master film maker a frame shaped like a star, they'll still tell a captivating story.  More important than the shape of the frame is how you use it and how that makes the viewer feel.
 
So, what if it is BS? If it makes us think more about the experience we're creating, that's not a bad thing.


 *Note All Photos from my latest visit to The Summerfolk Music & Craft Festival. To see more photos from Summerfolk 2018 follow my flickr Photo Stream.

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Can Aspect Ratio help tell the story? | Part 1 - What are we talking about?

Can Aspect Ratio help tell the story?

 Part1 - What are we talking about?

I recently saw something about the shape of the frame (AKA: Aspect ratio) and  how it can subtly influence or effect the story or message.

I think its' a pretty cool idea &  wish using different frames for different stories was considered acceptable by general audience.  In practical terms most of us will use the current standard for the majority of what we make.

We'll break here to familiarize ourselves with some of the common options when it comes to Aspect Ratio. If you want more info about what aspect ratio is I'll wait while you google it, as many people have already explained it better than I can.

... ... ...

Ok, now you know what aspect ratio is and you have probably seen a whole series of different ones.  For today I'm going to stick to 3 main categories. There are lots of  specific aspect ratios out there.

Squarish

For this post I'm simplifying to:






1) Square'ish  | "close to a square"
SD TV & a few social media Platforms are square or pretty close to square.

Wide

2) Wide | "wide  enough to notice"
These are pretty standard now days as they are the aspect ratios of HD & 4K and all the stuff that uses those terms. They are all noticeably wider than they are tall.

Very Wide

3) Very Wide  "wide enough to look thin"
Frame shapes that have, in the past, primarily been associated with theatrical releases. They went by names like pano-vision, vista-vision, cinemascope etc. While modern devices can display any shape content, not many are actually shaped this way.





I'll leave you with the basic premise.

Squarish is best suited to show people and stories that focus on them. 
Wide is best suited to conveying story elements and should be used for "plot driven" stories. 
Very Wide is best suited to show places and should be used when the setting plays an important roll. 

In the next post we'll look a little deeper at this idea.



*Photos from last summers visit to the Ten Thousand Buddha Temple in Niagara Falls. 
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Birds in Flight at the Canadian Raptor Concervancy

“Birds in Flight” is a program at the Canadian Raptor Conservancy that offers photographers (& videographers) the opportunity to capture images of some fantastic birds outdoors and in flight.

I had a good day despite the cold and even got to stop for a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper on the way home.

There where lots of different birds and plenty of time and flights of the birds that flew & a few that where stationary. I ended up with so much footage it was hard to trim it down to 3 videos of reasonable length.the hard part was comparing 5 or 6 flights of the same bird trying to find the one to use, when really any of the 5 would work fine.

As usual I brought too much gear that never got used.  What I did use was a new set up with rails and matte box configured as a shoulder rig with a quick release plate on the bottom to easily switch from sticks to shoulder.  It worked pretty well. Maybe a bit bulky but, the weight & size did have the benefit that the tracking shots where smoother than I could have gotten without it. It's the 1st time I could go from shoulder to tripod easily & I really really liked it.

There's a bit of Slow motion but I could have easily put in a lot more. Every flight clip I slowed down looked so nice. I tried not to go overboard, just enough to catch the eye.

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PoTd - Leftovers

Pic-of-The-day

Left over parts at a former boat storage & repair facility.
I rarely do Black & White but, every now & then I find something that seems like a good fit.

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PoTd - The Old Scow

Pic-of-The-day

 

Pictures of "The Old Scow" taken at the event in 2018 Commemorating it's stranding above Niagara Falls & the unveiling of new plaques telling it's story. It's a great story and one of my favourite landmarks.

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PoTd -

Pic-of-The-day

It's Back ! I wish I could say "Back by popular demand", but it's back.  Mostly because I haven't been posting enough and PoTd is a little more stream lined than some other types of posts.

Starting with a photo & adding a description & maybe a bit of background is usually more straight forward than looking around the world and coming up with something to write about, then writing, then editing, & then making a photo or graphic to go with the writing.

That being said I do hope to do some posts that are more focused on the writing than the images . I might even get around to some posts About writing or at least what I'm writing.   I'm hoping to get back to work on a script I was working on as a writing exercise/practice. If that happens I also hope to put some progress updates and possibly samples here on the blog. 

A Shot of the Scow itself from the the 2018 event Commemorating the stranding of the Old Scow above Niagara Falls & unveiling of new plaques telling it's story.

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Scheduling Videos - trying to get caught up, and maybe stay on track

I've been neglecting my videos.  

Yes, I haven't been producing as many as I'd like, but that's for another post.  Today I'm writing about how I have videos that are finished, have been delivered to clients, they've posted them and the event is passed ... and I still haven't posted them on my own channels.

I guess what I'm really writing about is how I'm trying to fix that. I don't just want to get caught up on the batch I have waiting, what I'm trying to do is create a system to keep video posting on a regular basis.

As I was looking at a folder full of finished videos needing to be posted I had a few thoughts in quick succession.
1) this is going to be a lot of work. 
2) I keep getting myself into this situation 
3) How can I make this easier?
4) how can I keep out of this situation (having a back log of stuff to post)
5) I always rush posting videos and don't do a good job.
6) This is a lot of work to let sit here and not show show anyone.
7) Stills are so, much easier to post.

That's when I started to look at things differently.  "Stills are so, much easier to post."  Expect it's not true. Once they are ready to upload a good stills post is not easier than a good video post. You still need a  title, an interesting & accurate description, useful & descriptive keywords/tags. Once it's posted its' a god idea to back it up with a link or mention of it on other platforms and channels.

If the process of posting stills and videos is so similar why did my slightly overwhelmed brain think stills are easier? That's easy to answer. I have a system and I'm in the habit of using that system.

In Praise of Systems

Before I had a system for posting stills they went up when ever I felt like it, singly or in bunches, with random keywords (if any) and descriptions that had very little consistency.

Once I found some software to schedule my stills posts things started to fall into place. I created a post production process that moved images to completion efficiently and consistently & the scheduling software made the posts consistent, in that they where at the same time (then times) each day with certain keywords/tags in most posts and each post had links to other work in the description.  Aside from that it let me make things now and post them when the time was right, like around an event or holiday.

This process brought me from a place where 700 hits in one day was so noteworthy I made a blog post about it. Where as today I'm consistently getting over 4000-5000 hits a day.

What Took Me So Long?

Short answer, I'm not sure. But, once I looked at it that way it was obvious I need a parallel system to get videos to the places where people can see them.

I already have a pretty good system to get videos from idea, into shooting, through post production & into the hands of the client.  But, the supply chain ended there. What I've been working on is a logical & practical set of steps to keep it moving from there to Youtube, Vimeo, and Flickr in a consistent and predictable way. AKA: Systematically & on a schedule.

There are some tools available, but all the ones I've seen are paid options. I'm not ready for a paid service, at least not yet.

What Exactly is that I'm doing?

It's all  very simple and obvious.  The hardest part was just starting it all in motion.
To start once the piece is finished and the client has it I move it into a folder "Needs to be Scheduled". Youtube has a scheduling feature that let you to upload it now and schedule the date it will be posted.
 Once it's scheduled on Youtube the project moves into the "Scheduled-Queued" folder  then "Posted" and eventually to the "completed" folder on a pair of portable hard drives for long term storage.

The completed folder is were all of my projects have always gone.  The difference is that I won't have to go in there at random times during the year and try to figure out what has or hasn't been posted to which channels.

The Glue

There are two things that are holding everything together for now. A text doc & a spread sheet.

The text doc holds a description template & a list of common key words grouped together by subject. This helps save time when adding this info when uploading to the different platforms.

The spreadsheet is used to keep track of the projects through the posting process.  It has all the project names, the platforms they need to be posted on, the "Release Date" and fields to indicate what steps have been completed. 

This is the kind of stuff that I'd like to see in scheduling software.  For now, I'll spend some time with my system and see how things go and also keep an eye out for something that can keep all the info in one place.

The Schedule

While starting to setup this process I've set the target of posting one video a week for the next 52 weeks, which will end on my my birthday. I have the first video posted on 3 platforms (Youtube, Vimeo & Flickr) 10 more scheduled on all 3. the posts for the first batch aren't perfectly coordinated on all platforms. This is because of my hap-hazard practices in the past.  Some videos had been posted on  or two but never 3 and never at the same time.  So, my 1st scheduling task was to get the first batch of videos on all platforms without any repeats.

Then I started to schedule some seasonal stuff.  I have a Christmas project and an Easter Project ready.  They are both  scheduled appropriately and I'm working on finishing a few personal projects and getting them into the scheduling system. 

Well Duh.

Everything in this post is pretty obvious.  Make schedule, organize the projects, stick to the schedule, keep track of the projects through the system.
It is obvious and pretty simple and for some reason I never applied it to videos.  I used it to post 3 stills a day every day for years. But never applied it to videos.
Videos that take so much more time and more work to plan, to shoot and to finish in post. All that work and I slacked off when it came to the part that allowed people to (hopefully) see and appreciate them.  Duh!

What Next?

Now that I've song the praises of scheduling and regular posting we'll have to see how it works. 
Will I be able to produce enough content to fill the schedule? That will be difficult but, "I think I can" If I do will I be able to get more people to look at my videos?  That might require  a bit more work.