Going through a pile of old family photos you’ll always find one that hits you hard and fast. Maybe a long-ago birthday party… BANG – you’re in the middle of serving the cake. The little birthday girl in her impossibly frilly dress sits at the head of the table, propped up on a stack of 1953 telephone books. Long-dead relatives in jackets and ties and dresses stare uncomfortably at the camera, some smiling a little, but most feeling the formality of the moment in a way that’s fills us with nostalgia. The kids are on their best behavior. It’s like they knew we’d be looking, over 70 years later.
How can a photograph make us see and feel so much so quickly?
The answer is that our dominant form of information gathering is visual (vs. say, a dog that can hear and smell better than it can see.) We crave visual information to keep us safe, feed us, perpetuate the species and build community. And we process it fast. Seconds after we see a photo we’ve taken it in, squeezed all the news we can out of it, and right away our brains are ready for the next thing. The same is true in video. We understand shots fast. It takes longer to get all the information out of a video shot than it does a photo, but not a LOT longer. But once we have all the infomation, our brains are ready for the next thing. Hold on one shot for too long, and we get bored. Run a camera back and forth at a soccer game for 20 minutes and we’ll get REALLY bored.
Which is why when you watch great videos, movies, or television, you’ll rarely see shots that are more than 10 seconds long. Most are much shorter. These short shots are part of modern film language. We expect the richness of language that comes with many images hitting us in succession, each carrying picture and sound that deepen our understanding of what’s going on.
The next time you pull out your phone or camera, shoot short shots. Instead of leaving it on record for 20 minutes of your daughter’s soccer game, try this: A shot of parents watching the game, and CUT. The team taking the field, and CUT. Your daughter as the ref drops the ball, and CUT. A quick shot of her running toward goal, and CUT. Continue for 20 more shots.
In 20 years, when you play the footage at her wedding, the three minutes of short shots you’ve compiled will richly recall a time and a place with more information and feeling than if you had let the shots drag on.
Get a free preview of the new video course!
Sample two lessons from our new video course free right now. No signup or credit card required!
Steve Stockman is a writer/ producer/ director in Los Angeles. How to Shoot Video That Doesn't Suck, available in 9 languages, is the best selling video how-to book in the world. You can find the updated edition from Workman Publishing wherever you get books, ebooks or audiobooks. 
5 Comments