Excerpts from Jeff Goodman’s Book Action Camera Underwater Video Basics, Part 5 of 6: Filming Techniques – Eyeline, Camera Position and Angles
Whether you are filming animals or people, generally try to set the camera at the subject’s eye level. Avoid filming things from above if you can. Eye-level shots make the images far more personal and let audiences feel they are close and in touch with the subject, connecting with it. Whereas a shot from above will make the subject look smaller and out of reach.
It is said that the eyes are the windows to the soul. Looking an animal in the eye is far more exciting and impressive than looking at the top of its head. The same applies to filming other divers. The small size of action cameras allows more manoeuvrability and positioning in confined places. Short poles that you can mount your unit on mean that cameras can be put into tight places, both looking forwards and backwards, up or down.
For the next photo, I clamped a GoPro inside a piece of wreckage to be able to film myself looking at the fish. In the following one, I held the camera on a short pole beneath and behind the turtle to once again get myself in shot. This becomes the turtle’s point of view and adds a new dimension to a video sequence.
Have fun with this. Play around and put your camera in unusual places to get those special shots that would otherwise be impossible with larger units.
NEXT WEEK:
Part 6 of 6 – Ethics of Filming Wildlife
Action Camera Underwater Video Basics by Jeff Goodman is available now from DIVEDUP Publications:
https://www.divedup.com/shop/action-camera-underwater-video-basics-the-essential-guide-to-making-underwater-films/
About Jeff Goodman
Jeff is a multiple award-winning freelance TV cameraman/filmmaker and author. Having made both terrestrial and marine films, it is the world’s oceans and their conservation that hold his passion, with over 10,000 dives in his career. Having filmed for international television companies around the world and as author of two books on underwater filming, Jeff is Author/Programme Specialist for the Underwater Action Camera course for the RAID training agency.
Jeff has experienced the rapid advances in technology for diving as well as camera equipment, and has also experienced much of our planet’s marine life. He has witnessed, first-hand, many of the changes that have occurred to the wildlife and environment during that time.
Jeff runs bespoke underwater video and editing workshops for the complete beginner up to the budding professional.
