Cinematography-Theory-And-Practice

Figure 3.27. (top) Too much headroom.Figure 3.28. (middle) Too little headroom.Figure 3.29. (bottom) About theright amount of headroom.Figure 3.30. (above, near right) Notenough noseroom.Figure 3.31. (above, far right)Enough noseroom. When framing for our important foreground subjects, whether ornot to include the heads of background people is a judgment call. Ifthey are prominent enough, it is best to include them compositionally.If there is enough emphasis on the foreground subjects and thebackground people are strictly incidental or perhaps largely out offocus, it is OK to cut them off wherever is necessary.If the situation does call for not showing their heads, you willprobably want to avoid cutting through their heads at nose level.For example, in a scene where two people are dining, if the waiterapproaches and asks them a question, you clearly want to show allof the waiter. If the waiter is not a speaking role and he is merelypouring some water, it would be acceptable just to show him fromthe shoulders down, as the action with his arm and hands is what isrelevant to the scene.Basic Composition Rules for PeopleWhen it comes to people there are some other framing principals thatare important to observe.HeadroomCertain principles apply particularly to photographing people,particularly in a medium shot or close-up. First is headroom — theamount of space above the head. Too much headroom makes thewasted compositionally as it is often just sky or empty wall. It addsno information to the shot and may draw the eye away from thecentral subject. The convention is to leave the least amount of headroomthat doesn’t make the head seem to be crammed against the topof the frame (Figure 3.29). As the close-up gets bigger, it becomespermissible to leave even less headroom. Once the shot becomes achoker, you can even give the character a “haircut,” and bring thetop of the frame down to the forehead but not as in Figure 3.28,which is too wide a shot for a haircut. The idea is simply that theforehead and hair convey less information than the lower part ofthe face and neck. A head shot cut off above the eyebrows seemsperfectly normal. A shot that shows the top of the head but cuts offthe chin and mouth would seem very odd.NoseroomNext is noseroom, also called looking room (Figures 3.30 and 3.31). If acharacter is turned to the side, it’s as if the gaze has a certain visualweight. As a result, we rarely position the head in the exact middleof the frame, except when the actor is looking more or less straighttoward or away from the camera. Generally, the more the head isturned to the side, the more noseroom is allowed. Think of it thisway: the look has visual weight, which must be balanced.cinematography52