Filming sequences: ideas for filming action & activities

When you’re filming, one way to make your finished video more interesting is to include action and activities, rather than static shots of people sitting at desks or the outside of buildings.

Often however, when you come to edit the results of filming action, the results are difficult to cut together effectively and end up looking amateurish, as you have disconcerting breaks in the action, known as “jump cuts”.

The trick is not to “spray and pray”, filming everything that moves and following the action, but to film sequences.

This is a series of four-five standard shots which you can edit together easily to show the activity, and often, to compress time. These are:

1. Close up of the hands
2. Close up of the face
3. Mid shot
4. Over the shoulder
5. Geography/long shot

For example, if you were filming someone typing, you might include:

1. extreme close up of the keys
2. side angle of keyboard
3. move from keyboard to screen
4. move from hands to face
5. screen with reflection

If you were filming someone chopping a carrot:

1. Close up of the knife/carrot
2. Close up of the face
3. Medium shot showing the face and hands
4. Geography shot showing the person and the room
5. Over the shoulder shot or POV (point of view).
6. In addition: move the camera from the hands to the face and vice versa

Read more: Seven simple tips for DIY video production

As you become more experienced, you can expand the number of shots you film to add visual interest, including point of view and tracking shots and reflections, or through glass or plants.

Here are some shots you might include if you were filming someone walking:

1. Close up of the feet walking through frame
2. Close up of the face walking through frame
3. Medium shot walking through frame
4. Geography – long shot
5. Over the shoulder shot
6. Tracking shot, walking with the person, either close up, medium or as a long shot – or all three. You can combine this with a shot of them leaving frame
7. Tracking shot from behind the feet

And if you were filming someone entering and leaving a room:

1. hand on handle
2. handle turning
3. feet
4. approaching the room from room 1
5. person walking out of the door
6. head shot
7. POV walking through door
8. Feet walking through
9. Low angle

We can help you learn how to create videos using just your smartphone. Contact us to find out more about our smart video training courses on 020 8332 6200 or info@roughhouse.co.uk.

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