ABSTRACT
A sense of composition—aharmonious arrangement of parts that add up to a coherent “whole”—is an essential component of a screen image, as it is in painting and photography. Composition works in the background as a muse to guide creation of pictures that exhibit order, weight, and visual hierarchy. Painters include exactly what they want to be depicted in their paintings, but lighting designers are given the environment—people, scenery, or wide—open space. The designer then chooses what is seen, using paintbrushes of light. For a show captured by the camera it is even more important to consider every element in the frame, top to bottom, front to back, and right to left, as needing some kind of treatment, even if only a graze or streak of light, because the viewer watching on a television or other device can see only what is being revealed on their screen. Negative space is important, too, but as part of an overall visual statement. In a wide shot, we want to see a dimensional, layered image that guides our eye to the most important elements and defines everything else in order of significance to the picture. Creating good composition requires moment-to-moment evaluation of everything in the frame.
