You don't know what the average plan is, but as Théophile - Customer success manager at EasyMovie - would say, it's great! Luckily, our first article this week is dedicated to it!
As stated in the previous article on the overall shot, we've done away with shots showing both location and action to give your speaker the edge. The medium shot is the most basic and practical shot. But why? We'll explain why.
What's it for?
Also known as the foot shot, this shot is useful when you want to put your speaker at the forefront of your action. It allows you to focus on the action in question, and on your stakeholder's physique in greater detail than the plans already mentioned. In fact, this is the broadest shot you can have of your speaker, where you can focus on him or her rather than the surrounding environment. While the location is always present, it is no longer dominant and therefore less explanatory of the story. The scenery is left in the background, allowing the action and its characters to take center stage.
In Hollywood films, this shot is regularly used for fight scenes, for example. While it's unlikely that you'll ever need to film this kind of situation, this shot value can be useful when you want to introduce your speakers in your video, or to film a move, or to show a distinct overall action such as a discussion between several people around a desk.
How do I go about it?
To frame this shot, simply film your speaker from head to toe. You can leave a little space above and below your speaker, as long as it's possible to discern his or her actions and the location doesn't take over. If this is the case, you're using an overall shot, not an average shot. Most of the time, this shot is framed at eye level, as this is the angle of view that best highlights your speaker.
When filming in an open space, a speaker doesn't have to be standing head to toe to be considered a medium shot: your speaker can be seated at his desk, or like Theophilus on his chair, as long as his actions are discernible, it's a medium shot.
Last but not least, if you're going to get your speaker to talk, be sure to consider the size of your microphone cable beforehand. At EasyMovie, we don't underestimate sound for aesthetics, so we've included an extension cable to enable us to hear our speakers even if they're a little far away. If you're as fussy as we are about this video, you can try to hide the microphone by sliding it behind your speaker's leg.
So now you're ready to make this shot on your own, but to create your video in its entirety, you'll need values other than the overall, general and medium shots. And if you want to learn a new one, we'll see you in two weeks!
We hope you found this content interesting! Discover the next tuto and our other tutorials below:
[4/8] Framing: the American shot
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