Every Frame is a Painting:
Mastering the Art of Composition
Cinema in its purest form is a visual storytelling; by composing an arrangement of an image we could create an eye captivating piece of art while we convey the story, through staging, framing, depth and balance, we could present space in each frame.
Composition is the most important field in cinema’s fundamental principles, deciding the placement of subjects through view finding of a camera is not merely a technical decision, but rather an expressive one, or in other words, Composition is simply defined as how the elements in a frame are exhibited to the viewer.
Over the Millennia visual artists have realized successful visual templates that are used to this day, such as: the rule of thirds, golden ratio, and triangular composition…to the recent template the quadrant system, those tested formulas that cinematographers often use to make images that are pleasing to the eye. Most of the applications of composition derive from visual necessity, a series of disciplines or guidelines that enhance the meanings of an image and gain focus, without those guidelines cinema could be a sensory overload of information lacking any structure. Those visual devices are: geometry, framing, eye line of subjects, Focus, and scale.
Cinema is relatively young art form, and it took in it’s infancy technics from other existing medias, many early directors and filmmakers were directly hailed from theater or the very least were influenced by that art form, composition did not find it’s true form at early times, instead technics were imported from theater. However filmmakers pioneers such as Fritz Lang and others in German expressionist used Composition to tone the leverage, for intense: wide angles are used as key notes for epics, where canted angles and crooked shapes are synonymous with horror, camera movement became less restrictive and could capture excitement better that before.
Like the German expressionists, many film movements flourished after world war two shaping cinematography as we know it today, those movements including: the British new wave, Scandinavian revival, Japanese golden age, Italian neorealism, Soviet montage, Golden age of Hollywood, and finally the French La nouvelle vague. Most beautiful and iconic shots in movie history use composition in every frame, evoking emotions, astounding the audience, it could be used to affect them in a psychological level, we will create an artistic venture conveying a massage, where the audience will realize that the screen they thought they were watching is in fact is a camera.