Three Filmmaking Rules You Should Be Breaking

Once you've learned the rules for photography, should you learn to break them? Perhaps.

Rules and creativity often feel like antonyms. When you start out in any artistic discipline, it's prudent to learn the foundational rules that make up the basics of the craft. However, once you're experienced and comfortable, should you look to break them? The bulk of my experience is in photography, and to that end, I'd say yes. That's not say you should be trying to break them, but sometimes breaking them just makes sense.

One of my favorite examples of this is our very own Fstoppers writer, Jason Vinson. His wedding imagery seldom plays by the "rules", particularly those pertaining to composition and he does so with stunning effect. His subjects are often places off the rule of thirds in a way that you might expect would lose them in the frame, but instead it creates a powerful overall image.

In this video, YCImaging discusses whether the same approach to rule breaking is necessary in videography too, and giving three examples of ones you ought to break. What rules do you not abide by?

Robert K Baggs's picture

Robert K Baggs is a professional portrait and commercial photographer, educator, and consultant from England. Robert has a First-Class degree in Philosophy and a Master's by Research. In 2015 Robert's work on plagiarism in photography was published as part of several universities' photography degree syllabuses.

Log in or register to post comments
10 Comments

"Filmmaking"? It's videography.

No mate. It is whichever term you, yourself prefers.

Not another self-appointed 'expert'. Wherever they come from, FStoppers manages to find each and every one.

What exactly is your issue with this person and what he offers? Keep in mind that you are not obliged to read the article nor watch the video. Did you pay to be here? No. Enough with the contrived outrage.

There's no contrived outrage, merely mild ennui.

Furthermore, I have absolutely no problem with this person. I don't know him. What he espouses may or may not be of general interest. I don't know.

My issue is that every day on Fstoppers there's yet another bunch of videos randomly pulled from self-publishing websites such as YouTube. It's like Fstoppers has lost its journalistic vision and needs to rely on 3rd party articles to supply it.

I suggest you take a week to add up the number of third party articles vs original content. You may be pleasantly surprised.

Filmmaking??

You mean youtube videoing...right?

Also...big female booties in bikinis...rented supercars and funky music with lots of pretend liquor...who focuses on rules?

Music videos are short films with performance scenes. So that would constitute filmmaking, right? I've seen this guys videos before, the b-roll in that video didn't really pertain to the subject, just entertainment for the viewer, so I see how its not a great example of traditional filmmaking but the concepts still apply and he makes music videos with more story to them. I wish people would look into things before assuming someone's advice is less valuable.

Filmmaking, comes next to phonograph records... 🤣

Yup, women in bikinis still in fashion I see...for some anyway.