I was lucky enough to attend the workshop Exploring Cinematography for Digital Arts taught by Dr. Mark Bond during the Peloponissos International Documentary Film Festival.
Some useful tips I gathered:
- Make sure your shots have interest, depth and balance.
- Before shooting, have visual references (e.g. a moodboard).
- Shoot with the native ISO of your camera and set manual white balance and focus.
Lighting
- The key light should be at maximum 90 degrees (in either direction) from the camera-subject axis. It usually goes above the subject, mimicking the sun.
- The fill light is usually 90 degrees in the opposite direction of the key light. Sometimes, it can be right next to camera, for instance, to get catchlights in the eyes.
- The back light usually goes at 30 degrees in either direction from the camera-subject axis, behind the subject.
- For natural light, it is sometimes useful to have a 5 in 1 reflector. Just avoid using the silver/gold for video, because any movement in its surface will create light artifacts in the subject.
Shot checklist
- Make sure eyelines match across subjects.
- Watch out for headroom and looking room.
- Be aware of the 180 degree rule.
- Make sure to take a 10-second establishing shot.
- Start running the camera before the action, and stop it later. Make sure you have beat (the action you want), top and tail (the space before and after the beat) for each shot.
- Make sure to take ultra wide shots, non-sync wide and details. These can give you editing flexibility with the audio.