Framing + Aspect Ratios

“A good photograph is knowing where to stand.”

- Ansel Adams on Framing

Framing + Composition

Video is like any other storytelling art form, with strategies and rules that can enhance your delivery. Visually speaking, for video, this comes down to framing and composition, which fundamentally dictates how everything is shot. Framing is so important because if the shot doesn’t look aesthetically pleasing, then the viewer is more likely to lose interest and stop watching. This video gives an overview of:

Fundamental framing and composition rules such as the rule of thirds, leading lines and symmetry
How to make your shots more aesthetically pleasing.

Examples from Photography

photo of young child on beach with a grid of 9 lines overlayed

e.g. Rule of Thirds: composing by putting your subjects at the intersections of a 1/3rd grid

black and white of the sky peaking through the outline of perfectly symmetrical buildings, with a plane flying through

e.g. Symmetry: keeping the frame balanced vertically, horizontally, or both with your subject in the center.

extreme close up of the lines on a street bench leading to a far away child sitting

e.g. Leading Lines: using naturally occurring lines in your composition to lead the viewer's eye to your subject,

Aspect Ratio:

An aspect ratio is the relationship between the height and width of your video, and your framing and composition will change drastically based on what aspect ratio you shoot or edit in.

Aspect ratios are one of the most overlooked aesthetic choices as most cameras and phones have pre-programmed settings. An Aspect Ratio is the frame size that a video is shot on (proportion of length of width). This is a small but very powerful detail that can impact the vibe of your entire video.

This video goes over:

A history of aspect ratios (0:00 -06:00).
Various examples from modern cinema about the creative application of (6:00 - 15:27)

As good as this video is, if you don't have 15 mins and just need a quick explanation, try this shorter, but slightly less inspiring video 🤣

SIMULATING ASPECT RATIOS IN EDITING

For those that don't have fancy anamorphic lenses or are just recording footage with your phones, but you still want your video to use creative aspect rations as illustrated above, don't worry! We can accomplish this in post by using multiple sequences with different aspect ratios in our video project.

If you can get past this video maker's whining and complaining 🙄 (if there were one better we would feature it), he actually does provide a good tutorial on how to work in multiple sequences to produce creative results.

1.33 = 4:3 | 1.85 = 16:9 | 2.35 = 21:9

RESOLUTIONS FOR ASPECT RATIOS BASED ON HD VIDEO

16:9 = 1920w x 1080h

4:3 = 1440w x 1080h

3:2 = 1620w x 1080h

21:9 = 1920w x 822.86h

You can find other resolutions using this calculator. If converting from Full HD video, one dimension must always equal either 1920w or 1080h.

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