Oct 23 2008
7 web video myths - 7. Lots of Closeups
Close-ups work well in web video. But they also work well in television, movies and photography.
More bandwidth, faster connections are obsoleting the 320×240 frame - so the original justification for more close-ups on the web is disappearing. But the close-ups are not.
This has nothing to do with aesthetics - Videographers are become lazy! (Joyce).
Close-ups are easier to shoot: auto-exposure, auto-focus, AWB are all you need when the subject fills the frame. The effects of camera shake are minimized (Big Issue for the anti-tripod brigade), and all but the most basic rules of composition can be ignored.
Close-ups are easier to edit: you can switch back and forth between close-ups with abandon - wide shots you require careful sequencing so as to avoid disconcerting jump cuts.
Close-ups create the visual impact, wide-shots tell the visual story.
Laziness completely with justification from MTV and VH1. It drives me crazy a series of fast closeups thrown together as if the fact that no shot lasts for more than 3 seconds means that no-one can tell the difference anyway.
[…] the point about getting the shot. But I’m not confident enough to give up the sticks.Lots of closeups Back off, man. When I first read those last two, I could feel my friend Angela Grant […]
[…] we’re talking about breaking away from the so-called rules of online […]
[…] last one I really don’t agree with at all. Peter thinks we need to ditch the assumption that close-ups are king in Web video. I certainly don’t think that closeups should be the only shots we see in online videos. But […]