5 Most Important Camera Angles Every Filmmaker Needs To Master
Choose the best camera angle for your shot so your audience can better understand the relationships between subjects.
The camera angle helps the creator to establish different relationships between the subjects and even between the audience and the subjects. It’s very important to master these techniques if you want to become a pro filmmaker!
“Creativity arises from our ability to see things from many different angles” — Keri Smith
In this article we’ll cover the basics about Camera Angles and how each one of them will help you tell your story in the way you planned. Expanding on this in 3…2…1…
What is camera angle?
The camera angle is how you position the camera in the space to take the shot. It can be higher than the subject, lower, diagonal, perpendicular and so on.
Bird’s eye view
This type of camera angle is shot from an extremely higher position and taken directly from above. It usually frames exotic places and is used as an establishing shot to situate the audience. It contributes to give people the feeling of being in a superior position than what/who is inside the scene.
High angle
This is an angle that looks down at the subject/character and isolates it from the rest of the scenario. It also attributes the subject the characteristic of being weaker and reinforces how fragile, inferior and submissive it’s against another subject.
Eye level angle
In this camera angle the audience is put on an equal footing as the subject and it demonstrates a relationship of neutrality between the viewers and the subjects inside the scene. It’s also the most common camera angle used in the movies. This angle offers a comfort feeling of neutrality and naturality.
Low angle
The low angle is the opposite of the high angle and is used to make the subject inside the scene look powerful, dominant and superior. This is the camera angle that looks up to the subject and, therefore, makes it look bigger than it actually is.
Oblique angle
In this camera angle the camera is tilted and not parallel to the floor level. It usually gives a feeling of unbalance and instability disorientating the audience since it’s not a natural way to look at things.
Conclusion
Each one of the camera angles mentioned before serve a unique purpose: to better tell the story the creator wants to tell. So, every time you record something — a video, a movie, a home-made movie — have in mind these useful yet simple techniques to improve your shots. Sometimes, a simple change to the camera angle can add an extra information to your scene!
You can play around with the camera angles and see how they influence your scene’s mood and characters relationships on the Vliz app. Record each moment in a different camera angle and put them together in a single video. This way, you’ll be able to effectively notice how they affect your shot!
You can download the Vliz app at: vliz.tv/download
Don’t forget to read our other articles about positioning the camera if you want to master the basics of filmmaking:
