Helpful Videos

• BASIC ZOOMS 
• SLOW ZOOMS 
• ADVANCED ZOOMS 

Zoom Overview

 Zooms allow a director to move the “camera” forward, backward and side to side. Zooms give way to new dimensions of visual storytelling in the Episode gestalt.

Zoom Syntax:

@zoom on X Y to % in s

(s= number of seconds)

Finding the X, Y and % of Your Zoom:

Tap the “Zoom Helper” button at the top-left of the screen. It will generate three buttons on the left side of the screen.

 The toggle button “Switch tool: Zoom/Focus” lets you adjust the Zoom Level (%) and Focus (X, Y coordinates) of your shot. The X,Y coordinates and zoom % are displayed in the gray banner beneath the buttons.

In the example above, the zoom syntax in Donacode would be this:

@zoom on 349 383 to 8% in 0

Active Zooms vs. 0-Second Zooms

An active zoom is a zoom that lasts >0 seconds and a 0-second zoom is a zoom that happens instantly, producing a jump to a zoomed in or out static shot. A 0-Second zoom is called a “cut” in film and television, but we’ll avoid that term since @cut is an existing Donacode command.

Let’s contextualize this difference with a few examples...

In the app, open the story “Advanced Directing Guide” and click button “1.2 Zoom Time Comparison”

*To follow along in the script, open:

http://episodeinteractive.com/write/story/Advanced_Directing_Examples/1

Then jump to “label onetwo”

Example A:

In this shot, we active zoom on Marie in 3 seconds.

&zoom on MARIE to 200% in 3

Example B:

In this shot, we 0-second zoom to Marie in 0 seconds.

@zoom on MARIE to 200% in 3

In Example 3, Marie stopped talking while we zoomed on her. That’s because we used @zoom to create the shot. As we learned in Chapter 0, @commands occur as their own discrete actions. To zoom on her while she’s talking, we use the ampersand (&).  More on that in the next section...

&Zoom vs @Zoom

As we learned in Chapter 0, the ampersand (&) allows directing commands to occur simultaneously with other actions and animations. Let’s apply this to this example.

Open the story “Advanced Directing Guide” and click button “&Zoom Example” to see the 2 examples below staged in the app.

*To follow along in the script, open:

http://episodeinteractive.com/write/story/Advanced_Directing_Examples/1

Then jump to “label onethree”

Example A: In this shot, we zoom on Marie while she’s speaking.

&zoom on MARIE to 200% in 3

Here, Marie does not “wait” to continue talking until the zoom is complete. This is thanks to the handy ampersand!

Example B: In this shot, we zoom on Marie before or after she starts speaking.

@zoom on MARIE to 200% in 0

Here, Marie will either finish her line of dialogue before the zoom starts or will deliver her line of dialogue immediately after the zoom ends, depending on the dialogue’s placement in the script.

Pans

We learned at the beginning of this chapter that zooms allow a director to move the “camera” forward, backward and side to side. The first section covered forward and backward movement. This section will cover lateral and vertical movements, or “pans.”

There are two types of pans: inter-zone pans and intra-zone pans.

1. Interzone pans (pans between two different zones) are achieved with this simple Donacode

@pan to zone X in S

Example: @pan to zone 2 in 3 (the camera will pan from whatever zone it’s in to zone 2 in 3 seconds.)

1. Intrazone pans (pans within a single zone) are essentially an extension of the @zoom function.

@zoom on X Y to % in S

To achieve an intra-zone pan, you @zoom from one X Y coordinate to another at the same magnification %. The S value determines the length of this pan.

Let’s contextualize this with 3 examples...

Open the story “Advanced Directing Guide” and click button “Pans”

*To follow along in the script, open:

http://episodeinteractive.com/write/story/Advanced_Directing_Examples/1

Then jump to “label onefour”

Example A: In this shot, we pan up Marie’s body for a dramatic reveal.

Example B: In this shot, we pan from Marie to John during a conversation.

Example C: In this shot, we pan on a diagonal, from the upper left corner of the zone to the bottom right corner. This kind of shot can add a really great, dynamic feel to concert or party sequences.

Shot Composition

Episode’s stories are “filmed” in portrait (vertical) orientation with an aspect ratio of 3:2. In this section, we’ll cover how to make the most of 3-shots, 2-shots and close-ups.

1. Placing Characters In Zones

In determining ideal shot compositions per zone, it’s helpful to first get a sense of a 3-zone background’s coordinates and limitations (see image below).

For example, if you wanted to place two characters into zone 2, you know that you have X coordinates available between 320 and 640 and Y coordinates between 0 and 568 (the possible Y coordinates never change). That said, if you’re spot directing characters on screen into zone 2, they must be between these X values. Knowing these coordinates is also important for determining zooms, as we’ll learn further along in this section.

1. The “No-Zone”

Users playing on iPads or devices with different aspect ratios than the iPhone 6 see a slightly cropped version of the screen. For the sake of this explanation, let’s call the cropped-out area the “No-Zone.” Below is an image that shows where this area is. Make sure the top of your character’s head falls below this area or it will be cropped.

1. 3-Shots

For 3 characters standing in default positions (1.280% and at a Y-axis coordinate of 0) in a zone, it’s often best to stay at the default zoom of 100%. From there, there are 3 default positions to have the characters standing in:

1. 2-Shots

One of the downsides of filming in portrait (vertical) orientation is that there’s usually some negative space at the top of the screen. While we can’t address the issue of negative space at the top of the screen, we can make sure that there’s not negative space at the sides of the screen by framing 2-shots tightly around the characters. We do this by zooming in on the characters enough to tightly frame them on the screen.

Below are two examples that illustrate the difference between a “loose 2-shot” and a “tight 2-shot” (i.e. with negative space at the sides of the screen).

Ideal 2-Shot Zoom Levels for Characters in Default Positions:

To produce a tight 2-shot like in the screenshot above, there are 3 ideal possible zoom coordinates per zone based on where the 2 characters are placed. A zoom level of 125% is generally ideal for two characters in these positions. The chosen Y coordinate of 325 is an arbitrary number, since characters could be as high up on the screen as you’d like, but characters tend to look good there. The chosen X coordinates are broken down such that: for screen left/upscreen right positioning, it’s 40 pixels in from the left; for upscreen left/screen right positioning, it’s 40 pixels in from the right; and for upscreen left/upscreen right positioning, it’s exactly the midpoint of 160. Below are examples of the ideal default zooms for a tight 2-shot:

Zone 1:

Zone 2:

Zone 3:

1. Close-Ups

Make sure there’s room for your character’s arms to move during an animation. A good way to do this is to keep her back close to the side of the screen, and keep an “arm’s worth” of space free in front of her. If you don’t make adequate space for arm movement, your character may go out of frame and it will look awkward.

Good:

Bad: