Cinematography Workshop at Escape Studios

Understanding the language of cinematography is one of the key skills all our students learn in their first year at Escape Studios. Being able to compose an image, take a picture, and use a moving camera is part of the fundamental language of visual storytelling.  At Escape Studios, Animators and VFX artists learn how to tell stories with pictures.  Watch the video above to see our cinematography class in action, led by Head of VFX Clement Gharini. 

Why Animators Should Cut on Movement

One of the key principles of cinematography is to cut on movement. What does that mean? It means that if you start an action in one shot, carry it over into the second.  

Let's say you are cutting from a wide shot to a close up, you start the motion in the wide shot, then carry it over to the next shot. This makes the cut feel less abrupt.

Never Cross the Line: The "180 Degree Rule"

180-Degree Rule

What is "Crossing the Line?", and why should animators never (or, almost never) cross it?

"Crossing the Line" is also known as the "180-Degree Rule", and it is one of the fundamental rules of cinematography.

Like most rules of film-making, the only way to really understand the 180 Degree Rule is to break it, figure out what went wrong - and then work out how to fix it next time.

Let's say you have a shot with two characters talking to one another. Draw an imaginary line between the two characters. This is the "line" that we should not cross.

Why Characters Shouldn't Look at The Camera

Bugs - stop looking at us!

One of the most common mistakes made by student animators is to have their characters talk directly to the camera, breaking the so-called "Fourth Wall".

Inexperienced animators often make this error. We pose out our character and we think - who is she talking to? I know - she's talking to me! But in a film, or a play, or a TV Series, the camera (ie the audience) is almost always an observer, never a participant.

Part of the so-called Willing Suspension of Disbelief is that the characters acting for us don't know we are there.

Sometimes characters will talk to the camera (like Bugs Bunny, left) but this is unusual. Mostly, on-screen characters look at each other, not at us. 

How to Render Depth of Field in Maya and Arnold

How do we create Depth of Field in Maya and Arnold? Sometimes we don't want the audience to see everything in our shot. Animators are film-makers, and the audience needs to be guided through the scene, shown only what is important - and leaving out what is unimportant.  Focus and Depth of Field can help with this - if something in the shot isn't important, simply blur it out. To see how to create Depth of Field in Maya, watch the short video above.  And to understand the theory behind it, read this blog post.

Michael Hunter Returns for Photography Sept 2024

Michael Hunter teaches Photography and Composition

We're delighted to welcome back photographer and tutor Michael Hunter to teach the "Photography and Composition" mini-module to our first year students at Escape Studios.

One of the first subjects our students will tackle in their first year at Escape Studios, "Photography and Composition ", introduces students to the art and craft of photography, and the compositional skills that underpin the medium. 

Animate a Simple Camera Shake in Maya

Animate a Camera Shake in Maya with Monty

In this free animation tutorial we show how to animate a camera shake in Maya.  It's a simple tutorial aimed at beginners learning 3d animation in Autodesk Maya. 

To animate the camera shake is simple - it's just a few keyframes on the x rotation on the shot camera, simulating what might happen to a real camera operator if (as in this example) a school bus were to whizz past at high speed. 

Understanding the Rule of Thirds

What is the Rule of Thirds?  It is a "rule of thumb" for composing visual images.  The Rule of Thirds proposes that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally spaced horizontal lines and two equally spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections.  In the simplest terms, try to avoid staging your character dead centre in the middle of the screen.

How To Create a Shot Camera in Maya

In this short video we show how to create and animate a shot camera in Autodesk Maya.  If you were on a live action set, one of the first things you would do is set up your camera and decide what the shot was going to look like. But in Maya, because we get a Perspective View for free, animators often forget to create a shot camera. This is a mistake - we want to make an early decision on what the audience is going to see. Watch this beginner's video tutorial above to find out how to create a camera in Maya and lock it off. 

Sagar Rathod Explains "The Rule of Thirds" - Pt 1

In this short video Escape Studios VFX tutor Sagar Rathod explains the principles behind the "Rule of Thirds" in Previsualisation and Cinematography.  The Rule of Thirds - more a guideline than a rule - is a "rule of thumb" for composing visual images such as designs, films, paintings, and photographs.  The  guideline proposes that an image should be imagined as divided into nine equal parts by two equally spaced horizontal lines and two equally spaced vertical lines, and that important compositional elements should be placed along these lines or their intersections.

"Previs Chess" with Sagar Rathod

In this short video tutorial titled "Pre-Vis Chess", Escape Studios' VFX tutor Sagar Rathod explains how the previsualisation ("previs") process works in vfx film-making.  What is previs? What is it for, and how do digital artists use it to solve practical film-making problems? This video forms a part of our growing library of video tutorials on Cinematography, 3D Layout, and Previs, which you can find at our Vimeo Tutorial Channel here. 

Clement Gharini Explains the Art of Cinematography

Clement Gharini, Escape Studios' Head of VFX, has released the first of a series of tutorials on the Art and Craft of Cinematography for students of VFX, Animation and Games.  Clement Gharini worked as a camera operator and compositor for more than 20 years in the film industry before joining us at Escape Studios; he teaches cinematography and compositing, as well as running our Green Screen and Motion Capture pipelines.  In this first cinematography episode Clem addresses two simple questions: What is Cinematography? And...Who Needs It?

How to Animate Cameras with Marc Stevenson

In this latest video, Escape Studios' animation tutor Marc Stevenson explains the use of cameras in animation film-making, exploring different kinds of cameras and how to use them.  Marc Stevenson has built up a comprehensive library of animation video tutorials, which can be found at his personal YouTube Channel here.  Marc’s animation tutorials are all completely free, and can be used at any time by any of our students to catch up on classroom exercises or develop their animation skills.

Vimeo Tutorials: Camera, Previs & 3D Layout

The 180 Degree Rule

Our Vimeo Tutorial Channel is our hub for animation and VFX video tutorials, making it easy for our students to find tutorials to support their classroom studies.  

We also have a series of tutorials on Cinematography, Camera, Previsualisation & 3D Layout.  

All of the above are essentially ways of describing the same problem - how to tell a story visually, with a series of still or moving images. 

What is an Establishing Shot? What is "Crossing The Line"? Watch our playlist below to find out. 

Cinematography and Lighting with Clem Gharini

Cinematography and Lighting starts again on September 19th; one of a number of mini-modules taken by all our first year students.  Taught by our in-house Director of Photography Clement Gharini, Cinematography and Lighting module introduces students to the art of moving cameras and green screen photography.  Cinematography is one of the core skills that all our students must master; to find out more, watch the video above, and read Clem's post below.

Meet Your Tutors - Clement Gharini

Clement Gharini

Clement Gharini teaches Cinematography and Compositing on our Visual Effects courses, and also teaches our first year and third year undergraduate students. 

Clement teaches CR4001 Craft Foundations - Cinematography in which our undergraduate students first get to grips with live action cameras, offering a foundation for the study of cinematography.  

"Planet Mars" Best Cinematography at GNIFF

Planet Mars Best Cinematography at Golden Nugget Fest

Congratulations to the creators of the animated short mockumentary  "Planet Mars", which has won another festival award - Best Cinematography at the Golden Nugget International Film Festival.  

Directed by Escapee Sebastian Kuder, and produced by Katerina Zacharakis, Planet Mars was a Studio Project completed by second year animation students at Escape Studios. It has won many festival awards.

Cinematography in Unreal Engine with Clem

Clement Gharini

Cinematographer Clement Gharini is currently leading classes in cinematography in Unreal Engine to all our MA students at Escape Studios.  These classes will be of special interest to students studying our MA in Storyboarding & Previsualisation. 

As Unreal Engine becomes an increasingly important visualisation tool,  not just in Games but in Animation & VFX, Clem is introducing our students to the use of cameras in Unreal Engine, demonstrating how to integrate different tools across multiple platforms. 

"Good Old Days" Wins Best Cinematography

"Good Old Days" wins "Best Cinematography"

Many congratulations to Escapee Sebastian Kuder whose short animated film The Good Old Days has won its first festival award - Best Cinematography in the short film category at the Halicarnassus Film Festival. 

The Good Old Days is a story about an elderly gentleman who tries to re-live the glory days of his youth, but things don't quite go to plan.

Why Animators Must View Shots in Continuity

Jerich0 - excellent shot continuity

Animators working on short film projects can easily get tunnel vision - just focusing on their own shot. The cure for this is always to cut your scene into the main edit, and then view the shot in continuity.  This way, you get a feel for how the shot plays in relation to the other shots in the film.

Animators are commonly assigned to work on single shots on a project, which means there will be another shot, animated by another animator, on either side of theirs.

These shots must play together in continuity, meaning that there must be a smooth flow from one to another. The character's pose at the end of Shot 1 should be the same pose in Shot 2, or else the shots won't "hook up".