Cinematography: How to shoot establishing shots for TV

In this video, television Producer-director Steve Morgan shares everything you need to know about filming establishing shots for a television show. This is essential information if you want to improve your shooting skills and become a cinematographer. Steve recommends a camera, lenses and equipment, shooting angles for the best shots, the best time of day for shooting and his advice on how to break into the television broadcast industry as a cinematographer. Watch the video below, or read on to learn more.

I'm Steve Morgan, I'm a shooting producer-director for television. So that means I'm on location filming, operating the camera, interviewing and asking the questions. You do a little bit of everything for that job. You're doing the technical side of things and you're doing the editorial side as well.

Pick the right camera

At the minute, I'm working on a series for Channel 4 where I have to do a lot of filming. I'm filming at least two or three days every single week. So you need to make a decision about what's the best camera for when you're working hard like that. The Sony PXW-FS7, in terms of spec, still really measures up for what we need to deliver. We're delivering in HD, sometimes we'll do filming in 4k, but the Sony FS7 can deliver that. 

Shoot your footage in Log

One of the main reasons we went for the Sony FS7 was the S-Log footage that it can deliver. Almost every professional broadcast programme I've worked on in the last five or six years has wanted the footage in Log. It just gives you so much more flexibility to standardise footage shot across a number of cameras, by a number of different people. You can just smooth that out and standardise it so that you've got a programme that doesn't feel like you're jumping around from cameras. 

Choose a camera that can handle your shooting conditions

The Sony FS7 is an ergonomic camera that really sits on the shoulder really well. I'm doing quite a lot of ‘dirty work’—I'm filming on building sites, filming people painting and slapping concrete in places. I wanted to have a camera that I would be sort of comfortable throwing around in those dirty situations. It's a slightly older camera, so it's slightly cheaper. I know I can get the spec I need and I can get the good quality I need, but I'm not worried that I've got twelve grand on the line when I'm dangling off some scaffolding! I'm not scared about putting it where I need it to be. So that's why I went for the Sony FS7. It hits all the specs you need, but I'm just not worrying about it when I'm in the thick of it.

Bring a set of lenses 

On a typical day's filming, I'll take out the Sony FS7 with three lenses—a wide lens, a long lens and a sort of mid lens, which I use as the workhorse lens. At the moment, I'm using the Sony FE 12-24mm f/2.8 GM, the long lens Sony FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM OSS and a mid-lens Sony FE 24-70mm f/2.8 GM. That will give me the range I need to pick up close-ups as you go, without being too heavy to carry around. And it still opens up to f/2.8, so you can really get a nice depth of field if you have to stop suddenly and do an interview. 

We're starting here at the Shambles. It's very dark, but it always is because the building's sort of ‘close in’ on each other. We're starting here early and then we're going to move on around the city from there. I'll get a few different shot sizes in each location. 

Exposure

The exposure is quite severe here because you're really in the shadows and it's really bright where the sun is. But these are the situations where you really need to be shooting in Log—you'd never be able to get much out of it if you were shooting in standard.

Framing

I'll try and do a shot where I get some of these old bricks in the foreground of the shot and a bit of the old shops going into a distance but ideally, I'll frame out the big Greggs sign that's right at the end of the street. You don't want to broadcast too many brand names or brand logos. 

Storytelling

We're trying to show York as a really historic and ancient place. You've got a nice shot with the bricks just in the edge of the foreground, and you can just pan off that a little bit and come in and see the little Shambles sign on that Tudor wood and look down at this winding street. So that's quite nice, that'll last about three seconds at most but put them all together and it should be quite nice. 

These are just general views of the city where it could go anywhere in a number of different episodes that have York in it. One of the episodes we're doing focuses on brick construction where they're using traditional materials to build a house.

So I'm always on the lookout for anything that looks old and York-like and has nice red bricks on it. At the end of this street, there's a really nice proud old brick building with lovely windows. It could help in a number of places as a general setup, or could help in that story specifically to when there'll be a montage of like York's historic brick buildings.

Composition and rule of thirds

My personal style for shooting GVs (general views) and the style for this particular production is quite formal, it's quite traditional—everything's on the tripod and very steady. I like to compose things with the rule of thirds, so I've got something of interest in each third of the composition. I like all the vertical lines to be nice and true and steady, and that's what I think is a really satisfying way to shoot general views. I’ll work on other productions where they want a lot of movement, they want it all handheld or on a gimbal or on an easy rig. With the Sony FS7, I can do either of those things and that's why it's been useful for this production.

So what I'll do is I'll start with the wide shot. The big obvious lovely wide you can do here with a few moves, and then start picking off details of little things you can see of old buildings and old streets. There's probably quite a lot to do up here. Sometimes I'll go and I'll film things, it'll just be me. In an ideal world, I'll have a pal come along and help and talk with people and help with the kit. 

I'm on the 12-24mm, which is the widest lens I've got. Even on the FS7, which isn't full frame, the thing you're really interested in is big and amazing. But because we want to introduce York in general, I don't need to spend time getting loads of details of it or getting really close to it and getting wide shots from the ground of it. I think all these city ones will work for that, so let's have a look. 

Do your research beforehand

So when I'm going to do GVs of a new location or a new city, I try to do as much research beforehand before I get there to really speed up the process. So I'll try and look on Google Street View to look at the interesting places that might work. I’ll look at where there's going to be space, where it's going to look good but there is space to put a tripod up. I always try to get to a location before I'm filming as I want to spend some time there. So, ideally, the day before you'd go around and get a sense of each location and what the light's going to be like when you're actually filming. If it's only good in the morning, and you can only film in the evening, just sack it off and go somewhere else. 

Shoot at the right time of day

It's about prioritising where the light and locations are going to work together. The time of day for filming for general views and exteriors is really important. The light early in the morning and late in the evening is just much softer, and much more beautiful. It really lights up the spaces a lot better. What you get is when that light hits a building or a landscape it lights it up and kind of makes it ‘3D’. You get a grade from what's lit and what's in shadow, whereas in the middle of the day, the sun can be so harsh. 

I'm trying to get a shot of this old pub with lots of greenery on it. And we could even get some brickwork of this old street in the foreground, maybe. The problem is there's like a massive car parked on double-yellow lines, right in front of it. You can try and work around that, do a detailed shot pointing up a little higher. Or we might have to go in and ask to see if they know whose car that is—and if they'll move it for us. I'm going to set up, I'll try and do a shot above the ground floor showing the old bricks and the foliage.

This is actually the best time of day to be here. A lot of the streets here are so dark that when you see something bright in the distance, you can't expose both of them very easily. But this one, the sun is hitting this white building with such force, it's lighting up the rest of the street. Maybe when the sun is slightly higher, and it's more above that house, you wouldn't quite get that ‘lift’ in the rest of it.

I've gone from the wide lens to the 24-70mm because I've probably got enough of York Minster for the show now. So I'm going to think about details of other houses. So on the wide lens, every shot ends up being about the Minster because it's just so big. So I'll switch around to the 24-70mm.

Advice for joining the TV industry

If you are looking to break into broadcast television, an excellent way to do it is to think about programmes you like. So, when you watch something and you enjoy it, look at who's made it. Watch the credits, and see which companies made it. Send them an email, get in touch and tell them why you like it and what you want to do. It won't always work, and you won't always get a response, but sometimes you will. 

By putting yourself out there, you'll get the meetings you need that will turn into opportunities. It's all about being proactive. No one's going to look at your CV if you haven't got the experience to say “we're going to employ you”—you've just got to force it on them, you've got to keep the timing and you've got to keep pressing. Be proactive and you'll get an opportunity.

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