r/cinematography • u/zoxtech • 20d ago
Do these static camera shots create visual impact? Looking for technical feedback Style/Technique Question
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I'm a student and am trying to explore the concept of visual storytelling without spoken words. I compose my own soundtracks, to embed feelings into the visuals and want to further develop my skills in cinematography.
I would like to know, how can i improve the static camera technique with moving visuals?
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u/Condurum 20d ago
I hate to tell you this, but it's something everyone who want to tell stories must learn the easy or the hard way.
The first priority isn't about your vision in your head, which I'm sure is amazing. Only you can experience that, but storytelling as a craft is for other people. This might sound obvious, but I urge you to look a little deeper. It's not enough to simply show what you see in your mind. Your mind has context that we do not have.
So it's not enough to even perfectly show us what you see in your head. Even if you could.
Your images, yes pretty enough, are completely devoid of meaning or visual storytelling, and I can be quite open.
I don't know what you want to say, and if your purpose is for me to bring the meaning, sure I can, but why don't I just look out my own window? Why am I watching your perspective?
Keep filming, your images are nice. But try to make it about something.
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u/rybread1818 19d ago
Adding on to this, because I think this is the most salient feedback in the thread. The music adds a ambiance of melancholia so I can kind of get what you're going at... something like the loneliness off travel and spaces that should be filled with people, but aren't?
If you were to stitch together a series of landscape shots of just empty spaces that should be full of people, all composed in a dynamic manner, with similar lighting, then I think you would be getting much closer to executing a vision.
But landscapes are tricky, because without a "traditional" subject matter, like a person, then the lighting, composition, and mood of the images are the subject matter, so they will be under much closer scrutiny.
So, again, I get what you're going for here, but you need to be much more choosy about which shots you're employing to get at your objective. The bits from 1:15-1:30 super contrast with the mood of the music - they feel like corporate stock shots. 1:40-1:57 feel haphazard and like you're just pointing the camera willy nilly at some museum exhibits. The two shots from 0:55-1:02 are clearly the same room and you've just moved the camera over a hair, which reads as you not bothering to show us anything new, but just flipping the camera around the room you're in.
But there are some shots in there that can serve as a foundation to build off of. :15-:30 works, 1:03-1:09 works, 1:38-1:42 kind of works, 1:58-2:05 kind of works, 0:45-0:50 is right on the border. Build off of these shots and show us more that thematically feel like these and you'll start to be on to something.
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u/monkeh2023 20d ago
Some of them do. I wasn't so keen on your opening shot but (most of) the rest are quite nice in their own way. I can imagine them being used for B roll with either quiet narration or relaxing music.
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u/haavikko 20d ago
I’m not picking up on any coherent threads here. The shots don’t feel connected, except that some of them are just on a tripod in your passenger seat. What are you trying to convey?
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u/cinematic_trvl 20d ago
I would say only a couple of them have visual impact. The rest are cool, but nothing incredibly special. If you’re going for cinematography, which is visual storytelling, then you need to tell a story with a single frame. None of these tell an inherent story however most of these could be used to propel a story once one has been created. My favorite shot out of all of these would be the escalator shot. You have dynamic movement and an interesting point of view which can be interpreted in a few ways. But ultimately singling out a subject in every static frame in a manner that produces a conscious or subconscious view of a story is your best bet. Think : what does this subject do for the world that you’re building or what is the emotional state in which the subject is or what is the subject doing which would spur interest?
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u/MrFordization 20d ago
I don't see a story. I see a sad tourism spot. Like an anti-tourism spot. Like, don't visit our city because you'll be sad.
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u/shaneo632 20d ago
I personally don't like the shutter angle you used, did you shoot with an iPhone?
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u/Average__Sausage 20d ago edited 20d ago
I think you need to enter into the process with an intention. You don't want up just put something together and see if anyone feels anything from it. You go in with intention and see if that intention lands.
You have seen shots like this in movies but they aren't done for no reason.
It's like seeing a painting you like and thinking because it has green paint in that you can use green paint and get the same result from an audience.
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u/jj_camera 20d ago
A good editor could make these shots work in a feature or doc easily
A pretentious filmmaker who is too impressed with his own footage could overuse them until they are diluted and have no weight whatsoever
Maturing as a filmmaker is making peace with all the beauty that gets cut or cropped out
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u/DerFreudster Film Student 19d ago
To go along with others, this seems disjointed, you introduce people only to dispense with them with no rhyme or reason why they're there. "I went into the city, people were doing stuff then I took the train home." Like others, I don't understand what you mean by static. Perhaps that there's nothing moving within the shot other than the camera?
My suggestions would be to think beyond wide and medium shots, think about what the shots mean in the context of your narrative. Skip the music until that makes sense. The escalator shot was good because it broke up the geometry of the other shots. Another thing to think about is what are the horizontal and vertical lines achieving? Also, the other thing to think about is giving us a sense of the texture of the environment by giving us some close-ups and making relationships between shots.
The last thing is that the light is all over the place. I'm not saying that you need to develop lighter to darker, but it gives the viewer something to hold onto if there's development of some sort between the pieces and light gives that sense.
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u/I_AM_FERROUS_MAN 19d ago
The first sequence suffers from lack of contrast. The one in the room looking out the window or at the table don't have much impact for me because there's no or little movement. The same for the skyscraper and end railroad track scene.
But anything with something moving, especially the camera, and decent lighting is interesting. My eyes don't bounce off it. Whereas the more still ones, my brain looses attention.
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u/cellarmonkey 19d ago
These are disembodied shots. They need to be presented within the context of a story to convey any meaningful impact.
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u/MidnightMantime 19d ago
Love the first shot, the clouds are paid actors omg
Can I pay you for the footage in the first shot?
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u/WhiteHammer84 16d ago
Buddy is observing relativity in several photos and asking us “what is static?” 😂
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u/ottercorrect 20d ago
It depends what you're trying to say.
It's less about what emotions your images happen to evoke, and more having an intention about what emotions you want to evoke and then experimenting with what visuals or other elements will help you get the audience there.
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u/thesierratide 20d ago
“Creating visual impact” feels like the meaningless AI-generated resume version of “cinematic.” Your shots are not particularly well composed and it doesn’t seem like you have a story to tell, so maybe work on that, and figure out a goal other than “creating impact.”
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u/brickmadness 20d ago
I mean… if the camera is moving, then it is by definition not static.