Playing Chords Beginner

This is a 1.56 minute video response from Steve Eulberg on Nov 1st, 2008

Question:

"Subwolley writes "Hello Jamplay, I am a beginner guitar player. I have a quick question about learning/playing chords. My question is: When playing a chord, does every finger needed to play a chord need to be placed exactly behind the fret? It seems to me, that for most of the chords I'm learning, it's impossible to get the needed fingers close to the fret. I know when you play a single note on a string, you need to place a finger exactly behind the fret to get a clear sound, but is this true with chords? Sometimes it's hard to tell from watching the videos where exactly the fingers are. Can you explain a little bit more about finger positioning when learning chords? Thank you, Amber.""