Lesson 5 · 15 min
A beautiful frame where the eye doesn't know where to go communicates nothing. Composition is deciding what you see first, where empty space works in your favor, and how foreground, midground and background separate. It's what makes a generated image feel like real space instead of a flat backdrop.
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Goal: compose each frame with a subject you understand in one second and three layers of depth separated by focus, light or color.
Five decisions for every frame. Click each one.
The composition changes across the sequence: the scene evolves from shot to shot instead of repeating itself.
The examples come from the bakery.
Look at the frame for one second and say out loud what the subject is. If you hesitate, the audience will hesitate too.
One dominant subject per frame. Product, person and a background detail fighting for attention make a beautiful image that says nothing.
Thirds for natural flow; center and symmetry for control and monumentality; diagonal for energy and action. The choice follows the emotion of the shot, not taste.
Vary it across the scene: three frames in a row with the same composition feel repetitive.
Oven door in the center, symmetrical: the ritual. The row of loaves on a diagonal: the energy of the first batch.
Before you generate, decide: should the audience feel room to breathe or a tight squeeze? The amount of emptiness answers that before any other choice.
Dona Lia small in a corner of the frame, with the dark street filling the rest, tells the loneliness of someone who wakes up before the city.
Having foreground, midground and background is not enough: they need to be distinct. Shallow depth of field blurs the foreground or the background; backlight cuts out the subject; color and haze push the background back.
With the layers separated, the sideways camera movement (lesson 3) makes each one move at its own pace, and the space feels real.
One line per frame: the composition, the three layers and where the eye goes.
Scene: <scene name> 1 | <composition> | foreground: <what is close to the camera> | midground: <the subject> | background: <the context> | the eye goes to: <the subject> 2 | <composition> | foreground: <...> | midground: <...> | background: <...> | the eye goes to: <...> # compositions: rule of thirds, center (symmetry), diagonal, leading lines, negative space, frame within a frame
The page asks for 3 to 6 frames, each with the composition and the three layers, and at least 3 different compositions.
Pick the most important shots of your scene.
Write 3 to 6 frames of your scene with the composition, the foreground, the midground, the background and where the eye goes. Use at least 3 different compositions. Check them and download quadros.txt to the project folder.
Done when: the page replies OK: [n] frames with composition and three layers to your text and quadros.txt is in the project folder.
For each frame, read only the "the eye goes to" line and check that there is just one subject. If the line names two things, take light or focus away from one of them and rewrite it.
Done when: in every line of quadros.txt, after o olho vai para:, there is a single subject.
Four questions. The explanation shows up after each answer.
Question 1 of 4
What is the one-second test?
Question 2 of 4
Dona Lia small in the corner, the empty street filling the rest of the frame. What does the empty space say?
Question 3 of 4
How do you separate the subject from the background without changing the composition?
Question 4 of 4
What do symmetry and a centered subject convey?
Pick an answer. The explanation appears after you try.