STUDY: Legend of Korra

I am still figuring out how to get the most mileage out of studies. This time I took screenshots of a sequence and then analysed the shots. I am looking at what shots are being used and why.

Why shoot wide? Why go in for a close up? most of the time the answers lie in the following :
- CLARITY (Can we tell what's going, do we know where the characters are, who is doing what action?)
- IMPACT(drama) (Are we feeling the hit, are we seeing the expressions of the character when we need it).

Very important is always to know where the characters are before you start putting your camera in action. Draw a map, it's one of the first things that helped me out the most!

This is a scene in episode 1...I actually forgot how good this is. The draughstmanship in this season is just superb! The set up for this scene is quite nice, but I'll skip over that. But basically Korra picks a fight with a couple of hoodlums

So if you want to analyse these things, ask why this is shot and staged the way it is. What are they communicating with this shot.

-> Bad guy fires off some water bending.
What do we need to see? The bad guy and the water bending. Both are accomplished here. They could've shot it from the side more, but acting to camera feels more personal, gets the viewer involved.

Then Korra takes that hit and sends it right back. Same type of shot, we are in wide to get the most out of character acting and seeing the power clearly.

Water hits the bad guy in the face and Korra turns it into ice, awesome! This time the camera is closer! So why is that? We just need to see him getting hit in the face, so we need to see his expression clearly, they stayed far enough to give enough context to the shot.

Cut wide and the bad guy stumbles forward towards Korra.

The above shot is great for clarity, but for the next move when Korra kicks him in the face, we need to be closer so we can feel the impact and see the expressions.

At the end of the day though, no matter how much you study. The only way to really learn is to storyboard. We all like different things, so there is no good or bad (well there is :P).