In storytelling, a picture is more than an image containing a collection objects. Cinematic shots are purposefully composed to service the story visually, like a stage in a play. When you’re watching a film, ideally in every shot you look at, your eyes should naturally fall onto the elements of the scene that matter to the story. A well orchestrated shot should describe a story to its audience without the need for words.
“What a film director really directs is the audience’s attention.”
Using light, depth, object placement, movement, and even color and value choices in the objects and environment, you can direct the audience attention to what you want them to know. Emphasizing what’s important to the story.
Flow
Depth
I’m using objects throughout the scene as tools to guide the audience’s attention to the story in the scene. Similar to how road signs guide motorists in the direction they are supposed to travel. The directional composition even helps to keep your eye there, by creating a circle with the direction of objects in the middle of the scene.
I used the scene lighting to create contrast in the center of the image, where the most important elements of the story are. Conversely, the objects in the background are dark in shadow and lack contrast.
Even the color of some of the objects was chosen specifically to group their importance in the audiences mind; the hand drill, telescoping camera, and the large specialty socket affixed to the safe are all in the red-yellow hue range. These are objects of action in this story, they’re being used to break open the safe - I want you to see them.
Creating depth in a shot is more than just placing objects in the foreground and background. Scene lighting and the camera’s focus is what creates the feeling of depth in a scene.
When it comes to human perception; what’s in focus in a a shot is just as important as what’s out of focus; what’s well-lit is just as important as what is in shadow. If everything in your shot is evenly lit and every element is in focus, the human eye doesn’t know what to look at.
In my scene the most important narrative elements, the television and the safe, are in focus and directly lit. Other objects in the scene are lit indirectly and are out of focus. I want you to ‘feel’ the background elements, but not focus on them.
Depth, flow, color, light, shapes, movement, framing.
If you want your story and image to make sense, then when composing your shots all of these elements need to be considered and directed. This only gets more complicated in scenes with multiple shots and movement of camera. In the end, how well you’re able to execute on these fundamentals will determine how interesting an image you’re creating will be.