The Relationship of Photos and Videos

[emorydunn]

This is a somewhat random post, but I wanted to share the way I think about photography and video. It starts off with a bit of a story…

The project I'm currently working on has a video component, and I am far from the worlds best 'video person'. I've worked quite a bit with video but I just don't really like it. There so much more planning and set up and not to mention the light get really hot really fast. But, moving on. I drew up a basic story board for a promotional/ advert video for a product and at the time everything looked good. As I shot the scenes this morning everything looked good and a couple shots turned out exactly how I had wanted them to.

The trouble came when I started editing the clips together. They didn't flow as well as they should have. As I looked at each clip and back at my story board I started to realise why: I drafted out still images that moved.

With photography, we obviously can't actually show motion. We can hint at it, but ultimately between each frame in a series the viewer has to imagine the connections and the motion that happened in between.

I finally was able to put together my thoughts about video: I don't view it as a full story with transitions and characters moving from one place to another. I view it as a still image that takes place in the fourth dimension. I think this is one reason why time lapse movies have always interested me and why I find short, almost "test shots" to be better than a full blown short film (at least when I'm creating it).

Looking back on the video I have shot in the past it's always a way to capture the moment when a series of still images wouldn't work. There are some things that are better captured at 30 frames per second. On a side note, this is why I can't wait to get a DSLR that shoots video.



I would love to know what everyone else thinks about the topic.

Here's one of the clips and accompanying photos from this morning: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjvqkz19

 

[acearchie]

Great topic for discussion and I would like to see everyone's point of view on this.

I personally am better at making video (and ideally that's where I would like my career to be made) but I do enjoy photography.

I feel that video has more of an impact on people and if you take the analogy that a picture is worth a thousand words and since most of the videos I shoot are at least 24 pictures a second you can see why.

I think that having a good basis in photography can help you have a great eye for video. Vincent LaForet being an example of a photographer who has turned to video with a lot of success.

In photography you have to learn how to frame, expose, capture motion all in one frame and I think that you have to learn more to take a good photo than to take a good video.

From what you have said I would suggest maybe getting more movement with the camera, don't just limit yourself to movement to what's in front of it. I have built myself a DIY Fig Rig and use my tripod as a make shift steadicam for some really nice effects for less than £20.

That's my thoughts so far and I am sure that I'll chip in more as the topic progresses. I warn you that it's quite late here and my brain might not be working at 100% capacity so some of what I have said may not make complete sense at the moment!

On a side note, what context does your test clip fall into? Is it just a test shot? Are we meant to be following the character? On it's own it doesn't really make sense and doesn't really have any emotion to me but maybe within it's intended context it will be different?

 

[emorydunn]

Awesome, I was hoping to get some more "video" people responding.

As for the basics, I totally agree. The basics of photography translate perfectly into video, and having an eye for one usually means you have an eye for the other. The tricky part is telling a story in a different medium.

The test clip is actually not a test clip. It's the opening shot for the little promo video. It's for a product called the LensCapTrap, which is a little piece of velco that goes on the lens cap and camera strap so you don't lose it. The photos and video clip show a "lost" lens cap with the owner walking away from it.