By fixing this most common camera placement error, your video directing will connect better with your viewers, lay the foundation for great live appeal, and provide improved story-telling.
In other posts, we have talked about proper camera placement and our ultimate goal of telling an effective story. In this post I want to highlight the most common mistake I see in camera placement. That mistake is simply this: placing one camera in the center of the room and additional cameras on the outside edges of the room. I call this the equal distance between cameras theory.
It looks like this:
Facing the stage, there is a camera that shoots the pastor from the left side of the sanctuary, one in the center, and one from the right side of the sanctuary.
Why is this wrong?
Instead of one simple answer, I would like to lay out some observations that lead to the conclusion that this is not a best practice. Along the way, this discussion will expose some of my presuppositions. As always, although I have strong opinions, and stand behind them, I understand there is more than one way to tell an effective story. However, Hollywood and sporting events have trained people to watch TV and movies in a certain way. By using similar techniques, we minimize barriers to communication.
Think of these techniques as video grammar, if it helps. Grammar is the system and structure of language. Grammar provides the framework for communication. If we all used language in our own way – providing a scrambled word order in each sentence, our unique spelling, not considering subject/verb agreement, substituting our own system of punctuation – communication would evaporate.
The same is true in video story-telling!
Technically Thinking 