Welcome back to our frame series presented by Théophile our wonderful customer success manager. If you wonder why he is now expressing himself in a foreign language, I'll give you a clue: it does have a link with the use of these wonderful dialects used by our friend the Americans.
Enough jokes and back in this beautiful language that is French. If you did not understand it, it is the American plan that we are discussing today. A very commonly used plan whose creation is rather absurd! Together, we are going to discover the American plan.
The origin of the name of this plan could not be more unusual! Indeed, it is so called because it was created by American filmmakers. They needed a shot specific to the western that could show a cowboy from head to gun. Since this genre of film was created in the 1890s and spread rapidly in North America, this logically gave rise to the American plan.
Apart from highlighting the caliber of a cowboy in the Wild West, this plan was later democratized in our more western Europe. So it is very likely that you have recently seen this shot in your favorite movies like Inglorious Basterds or Top Gun. He allows you to supervise one or more speakers at mid-thigh and you can easily discern their actions by leaving room for the speakers' movements. In your videos, This plan can be useful for your tutorials or interviews. Frames where there are therefore one or more people, and can also be used as a basic plan in order to vary your assembly with other tighter ones.
How do you go about it?
In order not to highlight the crotch of your speaker (s), or their forehead, prefer Shoot this shot from the point of view at eye level That is to say: face and right. Frame your speaker from head to thigh height and don't forget to Leaving some space in your plan so that all the movements are well filmed. We also recommend that you place your camera on a tripod in order to be completely stable.
If in this plan you decide to frame several actors, be sure to make your frame according to the larger of the two so as not to cut off part of his head. A little advice, when making your frame, ask that The person present is standing up straight so that it reaches its maximum size. This makes it possible to reduce the chances of an executive who is too casual if you have a somewhat hectic interlocutor in front of you. With this shot, you can therefore film your speakers closely enough so that we can distinguish them in their gestures but also in their facial expressions.
As at the end of each article, we end up telling you that the next plan will not be discovered until two weeks later. But between us, I can tell you that we are as close to the end of these tutorials as we are to the face of your speaker!
Discover our other tutorials:
[5/8] Video frames: the close-up
Light tutorial #1: placing your speaker in the indoor light
Transition tutorial #1: video transitions
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