A jump cut is a cut in film editing in which two sequential shots of the same subject are taken from camera positions that vary only slightly. This type of edit causes the subject of the shots to appear to "jump" position in a discontinuous way. For this reason, jump cuts are considered a violation of classical continuity editing, which aims to give the appearance of continuous time and space in the story-world by de-emphasizing editing. Jump cuts, in contrast, draw attention to the constructed nature of the film. Although the term is sometimes used in a loose way, a cut between two different subjects is not a true jump cut, no matter how jarring.
Continuity editing uses a guideline called the "30 degree rule" to avoid jump cuts. The 30 degree rule advises that for consecutive shots to appear "seamless," the camera position must vary at least 30 degrees from its previous position. Some schools would call for a change in framing as well (e.g., from a medium shot to a close up). Generally, if the camera position changes less than 30 degrees, the difference between the two shots will not be substantial enough, and the viewer will experience the edit as a jump in the position of the subject that is jarring, and draws attention to itself. Although jump cuts can be created through the editing together of two shots filmed non-continuously (Spatial Jump Cuts), they can also be created by removing a middle section of one continuously-filmed shot (Temporal Jump Cuts).
George Méliès is known as the father of the jump cut as a result of having discovered it accidentally, and then using it to simulate magical tricks; however, he tried to make the cut appear seamless to complement his illusions. Contemporary use of the jump cut stems from its appearance in the work of Jean-Luc Godard (at the suggestion of Jean-Pierre Melville) and other filmmakers of the French New Wave of the late 1950s and 1960s. In Godard's ground-breaking Breathless (1960), for example, he cut together shots of Jean Seberg riding in a convertible (see right) in such a way that the discontinuity between shots is emphasized and its jarring effect deliberate. In the screen shots to the right, the first image comes from the very end of one shot and the second is the very beginning of the next shot — thus emphasizing the gap in action between the two (when Seberg picked up the mirror). Recently the jump cut has been used in films like Snatch, from Guy Ritchie, and Run Lola Run, from Tom Tykwer. It is frequently used in TV editing, in documentaries produced by Discovery Channel and National Geographic Channel (NatGeo), for example.
The jump cut has sometimes served a political use in film. It has been used as an alienating Brechtian technique (the Verfremdungseffekt) that makes the audience aware of the unreality of the film experience, in order to focus the audience's attention on the political message of a film rather than the drama or emotion of the narrative — as may be observed in some segments of Sergei Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin.
In informal contexts the term jump cut is sometimes used to describe any abrupt and noticeable edit cut in a film. However, technically this is an incorrect usage of the term. A famous example of this is found at the end of the "Dawn of Man" sequence in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. A primitive ape discovers the use of bones as a weapon and throws the bone into the air. When the bone reaches its highest point, the shot cuts to that of a similarly-shaped space station in orbit above the earth. This edit has been described as a jump cut, including on the box of the DVD release of the film, but it is more correctly a graphic match because the viewer is meant to see the similarity between the bone and the space craft and not the discontinuity between the two shots.
The jump cut was an uncommon technique for television until shows like Homicide: Life on the Street popularized it on the small screen in the 1990s. It was also famously used in a campaign commercial for US President Ronald Reagan's successful 1984 reelection bid.
Jump cuts are sometimes used to show a nervous searching scene as is done in the 2009 sci-fi film Moon where the protagonist is looking for a secret room on a space station and District 9 where Wikus searches for illegal objects in the house of Christopher's friend.
Reflections:
I am not intending to use any jump cuts in the film at the moment but I will still leave it open as a possibility.
Thursday 31 March 2011
Point of view shot
A point of view shot (also known as POV shot or a subjective camera) is a short film scene that shows what a character (the subject) is looking at (represented through the camera). It is usually established by being positioned between a shot of a character looking at something, and a shot showing the character's reaction (see shot reverse shot). The technique of POV is one of the foundations of film editing.
A POV shot need not be the strict point-of-view of an actual single character in a film. Sometimes the point-of-view shot is taken over the shoulder of the character (third person), who remains visible on the screen. Sometimes a POV shot is "shared" ("dual" or "triple"), i.e. it represents the joint POV of two (or more) characters. There is also the "nobody POV", where a shot is taken from the POV of a non-existent character. This often occurs when an actual POV shot is implied, but the character is removed. Sometimes the character is never present at all, despite a clear POV shot, such as the famous "God-POV" of birds descending from the sky in Alfred Hitchcock's film, The Birds. Another example of a POV shot is in the movie Doom, which contains a fairly long POV shot which resembles a head-up display in a first-person shooter video game, with the viewer watching through a character who is venturing through hallways shooting and killing aliens.
"Point-of-view , or simply p.o.v., camera angles record the scene from a particular player's viewpoint. The point-of-view is an objective angle, but since it falls between the objective and subjective angle, it should be placed in a separate category and given special consideration. A point-of-view shot is as close as an objective shot can approach a subjective shot - and still remain objective. The camera is positioned at the side of a subjective player - whose viewpoint is being depicted - so that the audience is given the impression they are standing cheek-to-cheek with the off-screen player. The viewer does not see the event through the player's eyes, as in a subjective shot in which the camera trades places with the screen player. He sees the event from the player's viewpoint, as if standing alongside him. Thus, the camera angle remains objective, since it is an unseen observer not involved in the action." - Joseph V. Mascelli in The Five C's of Cinematography
A POV shot need not be established by strictly visual means. The manipulation of diegetic sounds can be used to emphasize a particular character's POV.
It makes little sense to say that a shot is "inherently" POV; it is the editing of the POV shot within a sequence of shots that determines POV. Nor can the establishment of a POV shot be isolated from other elements of filmmaking — mise en scene, acting, camera placement, editing, and special effects can all contribute to the establishment of POV.
With some POV shots when an animal is the chosen character, the shot will look distorted or black and white.
A POV shot need not be the strict point-of-view of an actual single character in a film. Sometimes the point-of-view shot is taken over the shoulder of the character (third person), who remains visible on the screen. Sometimes a POV shot is "shared" ("dual" or "triple"), i.e. it represents the joint POV of two (or more) characters. There is also the "nobody POV", where a shot is taken from the POV of a non-existent character. This often occurs when an actual POV shot is implied, but the character is removed. Sometimes the character is never present at all, despite a clear POV shot, such as the famous "God-POV" of birds descending from the sky in Alfred Hitchcock's film, The Birds. Another example of a POV shot is in the movie Doom, which contains a fairly long POV shot which resembles a head-up display in a first-person shooter video game, with the viewer watching through a character who is venturing through hallways shooting and killing aliens.
"Point-of-view , or simply p.o.v., camera angles record the scene from a particular player's viewpoint. The point-of-view is an objective angle, but since it falls between the objective and subjective angle, it should be placed in a separate category and given special consideration. A point-of-view shot is as close as an objective shot can approach a subjective shot - and still remain objective. The camera is positioned at the side of a subjective player - whose viewpoint is being depicted - so that the audience is given the impression they are standing cheek-to-cheek with the off-screen player. The viewer does not see the event through the player's eyes, as in a subjective shot in which the camera trades places with the screen player. He sees the event from the player's viewpoint, as if standing alongside him. Thus, the camera angle remains objective, since it is an unseen observer not involved in the action." - Joseph V. Mascelli in The Five C's of Cinematography
A POV shot need not be established by strictly visual means. The manipulation of diegetic sounds can be used to emphasize a particular character's POV.
It makes little sense to say that a shot is "inherently" POV; it is the editing of the POV shot within a sequence of shots that determines POV. Nor can the establishment of a POV shot be isolated from other elements of filmmaking — mise en scene, acting, camera placement, editing, and special effects can all contribute to the establishment of POV.
With some POV shots when an animal is the chosen character, the shot will look distorted or black and white.
Match cut
A match cut is a cut in film editing between either two different objects, two different spaces, or two different compositions in which an object in the two shots graphically match, often helping to establish a strong continuity of action and linking the two shots metaphorically.
Match cuts form the basis for continuity editing, such as the ubiquitous use of match on action. Continuity editing smoothes over the inherent discontinuity of shot changes to establish a logical coherence between shots. Even within continuity editing, though, the match cut is a contrast both with cross-cutting between actions in two different locations that are occurring simultaneously, and with parallel editing, which draws parallels or contrasts between two different time-space locations.
A graphic match (as opposed to a graphic contrast or collision) occurs when the shapes, colors and/or overall movement of two shots match in composition, either within a scene or, especially, across a transition between two scenes. Indeed, rather than the seamless cuts of continuity editing within a scene, the term "graphic match" usually denotes a more conspicuous transition between (or comparison of) two shots via pictorial elements. A match cut often involves a graphic match, a smooth transition between scenes and an element of metaphorical (or at least meaningful) comparison between elements in both shots.
A match cut contrasts with the conspicuous and abrupt discontinuity of a jump cut.
Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey contains a famous example of a match cut. After an ape discovers the use of bones as a tool and a weapon, there is a match cut to a spacecraft or satellite in orbit. The match cut helps draw a connection between the two objects as exemplars of primitive and advanced tools respectively.
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's A Canterbury Tale contains the influence for the 2001: A Space Odyssey match cut in which a fourteenth century falcon cuts to a World War II aeroplane. The sense of time passing but nothing changing is emphasised by having the same actor, in different costumes, looking at both the falcon and the aeroplane.
An early example comes from Orson Welles's Citizen Kane which opens with a series of match dissolves that keeps the lit window of C.F. Kane's in the same part of the frame while the cuts take us around his dilapidated Xanadu estate, before a final match dissolve takes us from the outside to the inside where Kane is about to die.
Another match cut comes from Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962) where an edit cuts together Lawrence blowing out a lit match with the desert sun rising from the horizon. Director David Lean credits inspiration for the edit to the experimental French New Wave. The edit was later praised by Steven Spielberg as inspiration for his own work.
A match cut occurs at the end of Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest. As Cary Grant pulls Eva Marie Saint up from Mount Rushmore, the cut then goes to him pulling her up to his bunk on the train. The match cut here skips over the courting, the marriage proposal, and the actual marriage of the two characters who had for much of the film been adversaries. Another Hitchcock film to employ the use of a match cut is Psycho. Right after Marion Crane is murdered in the infamous "shower scene", the camera shows blood flowing down the drain of the tub, then cuts to a shot of Marion's eye.
German director Fritz Lang provided early uses of match cuts in his silent and first sound films. In Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, he shows a circular casino from above and cuts to a circle of hands at a seance happening the same night involving Mabuse and others. This not only smoothly transitions into the simultaneous scene, but also links the two activities as "decadent" pastimes of the rich in pursuit of excitement and fashionability. Lang reused the technique in M while cross cutting between the meetings of Schränker's criminal union and Inspector Karl Lohmann's homicide investigation squad. Schränker and Lohmann are matched both in movement and in dialogue (which is carried over the cut to form a coherent phrase) to illustrate their unlikely connection in a shared goal, to capture a serial child killer.
Yet another example of a match cut can be found in the final episode of the first season of David Lynch and Mark Frost's television show Twin Peaks. In the opening moments as Dr. Jacoby is struck down by a masked assailant and rolls over onto his back, the camera zooms in onto his eye which slowly fades away to a roulette wheel in One Eyed Jack's casino. This transition is a key moment in the episode as it connects two very different story lines together through a strategic cut.
Independent filmmaking
Filmmaking also takes place outside of the mainstream and is commonly called independent filmmaking. Since the introduction of DV technology, the means of production have become more democratized. Filmmakers can conceivably shoot and edit a film, create and edit the sound and music, and mix the final cut on a home computer. However, while the means of production may be democratized, financing, traditional distribution, and marketing remain difficult to accomplish outside the traditional system. In the past, most independent filmmakers have relied on film festivals to get their films noticed and sold for distribution. However, the Internet has allowed for relatively inexpensive distribution of independent films. As a result several companies have emerged to assist filmmakers in getting independent movies seen and sold via mainstream internet marketplaces, oftentimes adjacent to popular Hollywood titles. With digital self distribution, independent filmmakers who fail to garner a traditional distribution deal now have the ability to reach global audiences.
180 degree rule
The 180° rule is a basic guideline in film making that states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle.
In the example of a dialogue between two actors, if Owen (orange shirt in the diagram) is on the left and Bob (blue shirt ) is on the right, then Owen should be facing right at all times, even when Bob is off the edge of the frame, and Bob should always be facing left. Shifting to the other side of the characters on a cut, so that Bob is now on the left side and Owen is on the right, will disorient the viewer, and break the flow of the scene.
In the example of an action scene, such as a car chase, if a vehicle leaves the right side of the frame in one shot, it should enter from the left side of the frame in the next shot. Leaving from the right and entering from the right will create a similar sense of disorientation as in the dialogue example.
An example of sustained use of the 180 degree rule occurs throughout much of The Big Parade, a 1925 drama about World War I directed by King Vidor. In the sequences leading up to the battle scenes, the American forces (arriving from the west) are always shown marching from left to right across the screen, while the German troops (arriving from the east) are always shown marching from right to left. After the battle scenes, when the weary troops are staggering homeward, the Americans are always shown crossing the screen from right to left (moving west) and the Germans from left to right (moving east). The audience's viewpoint is therefore always from a consistent position, in this case southward of the action.
The 180 degree rule enables the audience to visually connect with unseen movement happening around and behind the immediate subject and is important in the narration of battle scenes. The visual disjointedness of the battle scene on Geonosis in the Star Wars film Attack of the Clones is an example.
Avoiding crossing the line is a problem that those learning filmcraft will need to struggle with. In the above example with the car chase, a possible solution is to begin the second cut with the car driving into frame from the "wrong" side. Although this may be wrong in the geographic sense on set, it looks more natural to the viewer. Another possibility is to insert a "buffer shot" of the subject head-on (or from behind) to help the viewer understand the camera movement.
In professional productions, the applied 180° rule is an essential element for a style of film editing called continuity editing. The rule is not always obeyed. Sometimes a filmmaker will purposely break the line of action in order to create disorientation. Stanley Kubrick was known to do this, for example in the bathroom scene in The Shining. The Wachowski Brothers and directors Tinto Brass, Yasujiro Ozu, Wong Kar-wai, and Jacques Tati sometimes ignored this rule also, as has Lars von Trier in Antichrist.
The British television presenters Ant & Dec extend this continuity to almost all their appearances, with Ant almost always on the left and Dec on the right, as does the Japanese pop duo PUFFY, with Yumi Yoshimura on the left and Ami Onuki on the right.
Some Filmmakers state that the fictional axis created by this rule can be used to plan the emotional strength of a scene. The closer a camera is placed to the axis, the more emotionally involved the audience will be.
In the Japanese animated picture Paprika, two of the main characters discuss crossing the line and demonstrate the disorienting effect of actually performing the action.
In Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Gollum has a conversation with himself or with his other personality. Because the Filmmakers use the 180 degree rule, and have the "good" Gollum looking left as he speaks while the "evil" Gollum looking right, the audience perceives Gollum as two different characters talking to each other.
Editing techniques
Vsevolod Pudovkin noted that the editing process is the one phase of production that is truly unique to motion pictures. Every other aspect of film making originated in a different medium than film (photography, art direction, writing, sound recording), but editing is the one process that is unique to film. Kubrick was quoted as saying: "I love editing. I think I like it more than any other phase of film making. If I wanted to be frivolous, I might say that everything that precedes editing is merely a way of producing film to edit."
* Edward Dmytryk stipulates seven "rules of cutting" that a good editor should follow:
o "Rule 1: Never make a cut without a positive reason."
o "Rule 2: When undecided about the exact frame to cut on, cut long rather than short."
o "Rule 3: Whenever possible cut 'in movement'."
o "Rule 4: The 'fresh' is preferable to the 'stale'."
o "Rule 5: All scenes should begin and end with continuing action."
o "Rule 6: Cut for proper values rather than proper 'matches'."
o "Rule 7: Substance first—then form."
* According to Walter Murch, when it comes to film editing, there are six main criteria for evaluating a cut or deciding where to cut. They are (in order of importance, most important first, with notional percentage values.):
o Emotion (51%) — Does the cut reflect what the editor believes the audience should be feeling at that moment?
o Story (23%) — Does the cut advance the story?
o Rhythm (10%) — Does the cut occur "at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and 'right'" (Murch, 18)?
o Eye-trace (7%) — Does the cut pay respect to "the location and movement of the audience's focus of interest within the frame" (Murch, 18)?
o Two-dimensional plane of the screen (5%) — Does the cut respect the 180 degree rule?
o Three-dimensional space of action (4%) — Is the cut true to the physical/spatial relationships within the diegesis?
Murch assigned the notional percentage values to each of the criteria. "Emotion, at the top of the list, is the thing that you should try to preserve at all costs. If you find you have to sacrifice certain of those six things to make a cut, sacrifice your way up, item by item, from the bottom."-Murch
* Edward Dmytryk stipulates seven "rules of cutting" that a good editor should follow:
o "Rule 1: Never make a cut without a positive reason."
o "Rule 2: When undecided about the exact frame to cut on, cut long rather than short."
o "Rule 3: Whenever possible cut 'in movement'."
o "Rule 4: The 'fresh' is preferable to the 'stale'."
o "Rule 5: All scenes should begin and end with continuing action."
o "Rule 6: Cut for proper values rather than proper 'matches'."
o "Rule 7: Substance first—then form."
* According to Walter Murch, when it comes to film editing, there are six main criteria for evaluating a cut or deciding where to cut. They are (in order of importance, most important first, with notional percentage values.):
o Emotion (51%) — Does the cut reflect what the editor believes the audience should be feeling at that moment?
o Story (23%) — Does the cut advance the story?
o Rhythm (10%) — Does the cut occur "at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and 'right'" (Murch, 18)?
o Eye-trace (7%) — Does the cut pay respect to "the location and movement of the audience's focus of interest within the frame" (Murch, 18)?
o Two-dimensional plane of the screen (5%) — Does the cut respect the 180 degree rule?
o Three-dimensional space of action (4%) — Is the cut true to the physical/spatial relationships within the diegesis?
Murch assigned the notional percentage values to each of the criteria. "Emotion, at the top of the list, is the thing that you should try to preserve at all costs. If you find you have to sacrifice certain of those six things to make a cut, sacrifice your way up, item by item, from the bottom."-Murch
Alternatives to continuity editing (non-traditional or experimental)
Early Russian filmmakers such as Lev Kuleshov further explored and theorized about editing and its ideological nature. Sergei Eisenstein developed a system of editing that was unconcerned with the rules of the continuity system of classical Hollywood that he called Intellectual montage.
Alternatives to traditional editing were also the folly of early surrealist and dada filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel (director of the 1929 Un Chien Andalou) and René Clair (director of 1924's Entr'acte which starred famous dada artists Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray). Both filmmakers, Clair and Buñuel, experimented with editing techniques long before what is referred to as "MTV style" editing.
The French New Wave filmmakers such as Jean Luc Godard and François Truffaut and their American counterparts such as Andy Warhol and John Cassavetes also pushed the limits of editing technique during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. French New Wave films and the non-narrative films of the 1960s used a carefree editing style and did not conform to the traditional editing etiquette of Hollywood films. Like its dada and surrealist predecessors, French New Wave editing often drew attention to itself by its lack of continuity, its demystifying self-reflexive nature (reminding the audience that they were watching a film), and by the overt use of jump cuts or the insertion of material not often related to any narrative.
Ideas and Reflections:
I would like my film to be non-narrative and have a lack of continuity. I have had an idea to use fading transitions for every shot in the film to give the impression that things are constantly fading, changing, flowing and evolving.
Alternatives to traditional editing were also the folly of early surrealist and dada filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel (director of the 1929 Un Chien Andalou) and René Clair (director of 1924's Entr'acte which starred famous dada artists Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray). Both filmmakers, Clair and Buñuel, experimented with editing techniques long before what is referred to as "MTV style" editing.
The French New Wave filmmakers such as Jean Luc Godard and François Truffaut and their American counterparts such as Andy Warhol and John Cassavetes also pushed the limits of editing technique during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s. French New Wave films and the non-narrative films of the 1960s used a carefree editing style and did not conform to the traditional editing etiquette of Hollywood films. Like its dada and surrealist predecessors, French New Wave editing often drew attention to itself by its lack of continuity, its demystifying self-reflexive nature (reminding the audience that they were watching a film), and by the overt use of jump cuts or the insertion of material not often related to any narrative.
Ideas and Reflections:
I would like my film to be non-narrative and have a lack of continuity. I have had an idea to use fading transitions for every shot in the film to give the impression that things are constantly fading, changing, flowing and evolving.
Continuity editing
What became known as the popular 'classical Hollywood' style of editing was developed by early European and American directors, in particular D.W. Griffith in his films such as The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. The classical style ensures temporal and spatial continuity as a way of advancing narrative, using such techniques as the 180 degree rule, Establishing shot, and Shot reverse shot.
Ideas and Reflections:
I would like to avoid this type of editing and try something more experimental.
Ideas and Reflections:
I would like to avoid this type of editing and try something more experimental.
Montage sequence
A montage sequence consists of a series of short shots that are edited into a sequence to condense narrative. It is usually used to advance the story as a whole (often to suggest the passage of time), rather than to create symbolic meaning. In many cases, a song plays in the background to enhance the mood or reinforce the message being conveyed. One famous example of montage was seen in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey (film), depicting the start of man's first development from apes to humans.
Ideas and Reflections:
I may consider using a montage sequence in my film.
Ideas and Reflections:
I may consider using a montage sequence in my film.
Soviet montage
Lev Kuleshov was among the very first to theorize about the relatively young medium of the cinema in the 1920s. For him, the unique essence of the cinema — that which could be duplicated in no other medium — is editing. He argues that editing a film is like constructing a building. Brick-by-brick (shot-by-shot) the building (film) is erected. His often-cited Kuleshov Experiment established that montage can lead the viewer to reach certain conclusions about the action in a film. Montage works because viewers infer meaning based on context.
Although, strictly speaking, U.S. film director D.W. Griffith was not part of the montage school, he was one of the early proponents of the power of editing — mastering cross-cutting to show parallel action in different locations, and codifying film grammar in other ways as well. Griffith's work in the teens was highly regarded by Kuleshov and other Soviet filmmakers and greatly influenced their understanding of editing.
Sergei Eisenstein was briefly a student of Kuleshov's, but the two parted ways because they had different ideas of montage. Eisenstein regarded montage as a dialectical means of creating meaning. By contrasting unrelated shots he tried to provoke associations in the viewer, which were induced by shocks.
Although, strictly speaking, U.S. film director D.W. Griffith was not part of the montage school, he was one of the early proponents of the power of editing — mastering cross-cutting to show parallel action in different locations, and codifying film grammar in other ways as well. Griffith's work in the teens was highly regarded by Kuleshov and other Soviet filmmakers and greatly influenced their understanding of editing.
Sergei Eisenstein was briefly a student of Kuleshov's, but the two parted ways because they had different ideas of montage. Eisenstein regarded montage as a dialectical means of creating meaning. By contrasting unrelated shots he tried to provoke associations in the viewer, which were induced by shocks.
Methods of montage
In motion picture terminology, a montage (from the French for "putting together" or "assembly") is a film editing technique.
There are at least three senses of the term:
1. In French film practice, "montage" has its literal French meaning (assembly, installation) and simply identifies editing.
2. In Soviet filmmaking of the 1920s, "montage" was a method of juxtaposing shots to derive new meaning that did not exist in either shot alone.
3. In classical Hollywood cinema, a "montage sequence" is a short segment in a film in which narrative information is presented in a condensed fashion.
There are at least three senses of the term:
1. In French film practice, "montage" has its literal French meaning (assembly, installation) and simply identifies editing.
2. In Soviet filmmaking of the 1920s, "montage" was a method of juxtaposing shots to derive new meaning that did not exist in either shot alone.
3. In classical Hollywood cinema, a "montage sequence" is a short segment in a film in which narrative information is presented in a condensed fashion.
Emotional versus Physical continuity
Continuity is a film term that suggest that a series of shots should be physically continuous, as if the camera simply changed angles in the course of a single event. For instance, if in one shot a beer glass is empty, it should not be full in the next shot. Live coverage of a sporting event would be an example of footage that is very continuous. Since the live operators are cutting from one live feed to another, the physical action of the shots matches very closely. Many people regard inconsistencies in continuity as mistakes, and often the editor is blamed. In film, however, continuity is very nearly last on a film editor's list of important things to maintain.
Technically, continuity is the responsibility of the script supervisor and film director, who are together responsible for preserving continuity and preventing errors from take to take and shot to shot. The script supervisor, who sits next to the director during shooting, keeps the physical continuity of the edit in mind as shots are set up. He is the editor's watchman. If shots are taken out of sequence, as is often the case, he will be alert to make sure that beer glass is in the appropriate state. The editor utilizes the script supervisor's notes during post-production to log and keep track of the vast amounts of footage and takes that a director might shoot.
Editors can choose between emotional and storytelling aspects of any given film over continuity- something that is much more abstract and harder to judge. (Which is why films often take much longer to edit than to shoot.) Emotional continuity, and the clarity of storytelling, can take precedence over "technicalities". In fact, very often something that is physically discontinuous will be completely unnoticeable if the emotional rhythm of the scene "feels" right. If you were to slow down scenes from many of your favorite movies, you could easily find many minuscule physical differences from one cut to the next, which are completely hidden by the course of the emotional events.
However, if a continuity error is glaring enough (as in the case of the beer glass), and the edit is emotionally necessary, it is increasingly common to order a visual effect to fix the problem. Such an effect is not "cheating" or unnecessary: as a rule, anything that distracts from the storytelling is worthy of elimination.
A good example of a continuity error is in the film Braveheart with Mel Gibson. In one of the battle scenes you see William Wallace (Mel Gibson) and his army of Scottish rebels charging into battle with the English. At one moment, you see him with no weapon. Then you see him with his claymore in hand. Then again he has no weapon. Then a pick axe. And when he finally closes in on the enemy, you see him draw his claymore from his back. This often goes unnoticed by audiences and it does not cause any real problems. The whole idea of the scene is to show the rebels fiercely charging into battle, and these errors do not actually interfere with that.
Ideas and Reflections:
I may play with continuity in my film. I may leave camera mistakes or editing mistakes in my film just to see if anyone notices. I have already had some happy accidents while filming which may just work to my advantage in some shots.
Technically, continuity is the responsibility of the script supervisor and film director, who are together responsible for preserving continuity and preventing errors from take to take and shot to shot. The script supervisor, who sits next to the director during shooting, keeps the physical continuity of the edit in mind as shots are set up. He is the editor's watchman. If shots are taken out of sequence, as is often the case, he will be alert to make sure that beer glass is in the appropriate state. The editor utilizes the script supervisor's notes during post-production to log and keep track of the vast amounts of footage and takes that a director might shoot.
Editors can choose between emotional and storytelling aspects of any given film over continuity- something that is much more abstract and harder to judge. (Which is why films often take much longer to edit than to shoot.) Emotional continuity, and the clarity of storytelling, can take precedence over "technicalities". In fact, very often something that is physically discontinuous will be completely unnoticeable if the emotional rhythm of the scene "feels" right. If you were to slow down scenes from many of your favorite movies, you could easily find many minuscule physical differences from one cut to the next, which are completely hidden by the course of the emotional events.
However, if a continuity error is glaring enough (as in the case of the beer glass), and the edit is emotionally necessary, it is increasingly common to order a visual effect to fix the problem. Such an effect is not "cheating" or unnecessary: as a rule, anything that distracts from the storytelling is worthy of elimination.
A good example of a continuity error is in the film Braveheart with Mel Gibson. In one of the battle scenes you see William Wallace (Mel Gibson) and his army of Scottish rebels charging into battle with the English. At one moment, you see him with no weapon. Then you see him with his claymore in hand. Then again he has no weapon. Then a pick axe. And when he finally closes in on the enemy, you see him draw his claymore from his back. This often goes unnoticed by audiences and it does not cause any real problems. The whole idea of the scene is to show the rebels fiercely charging into battle, and these errors do not actually interfere with that.
Ideas and Reflections:
I may play with continuity in my film. I may leave camera mistakes or editing mistakes in my film just to see if anyone notices. I have already had some happy accidents while filming which may just work to my advantage in some shots.
Final cut
Often after the director has had his chance to oversee a cut, the subsequent cuts are supervised by one or more producers, who represent the production company and/or movie studio. There have been several conflicts in the past between the director and the studio, sometimes leading to the use of the "Alan Smithee" credit signifying when a director no longer wants to be associated with the final release.
Director's cut
When shooting is finished, the director can then turn his full attention to collaborating with the editor and further refining the cut of the film. This is the time that is set aside where the film editor's first cut is molded to fit the director's vision. In the United States, under DGA rules, directors receive a minimum of ten weeks after completion of principal photography to prepare their first cut.
While collaborating on what is referred to as the "director's cut", the director and the editor go over the entire movie with a fine-tooth comb; scenes and shots are re-ordered, removed, shortened and otherwise tweaked. Often it is discovered that there are plot holes, missing shots or even missing segments which might require that new scenes be filmed. Because of this time working closely and collaborating – a period that is normally far longer, and far more intimately involved, than the entire production and filming – most directors and editors form a unique artistic bond.
Ideas and Reflections:
If I am satisfied with the final cut then I will probably not make a directors cut of my film.
While collaborating on what is referred to as the "director's cut", the director and the editor go over the entire movie with a fine-tooth comb; scenes and shots are re-ordered, removed, shortened and otherwise tweaked. Often it is discovered that there are plot holes, missing shots or even missing segments which might require that new scenes be filmed. Because of this time working closely and collaborating – a period that is normally far longer, and far more intimately involved, than the entire production and filming – most directors and editors form a unique artistic bond.
Ideas and Reflections:
If I am satisfied with the final cut then I will probably not make a directors cut of my film.
Editor's cut - continued
There are several editing stages and the editor's cut is the first. An editor's cut (sometimes referred to as the "Assembly edit" or "Rough cut") is normally the first pass of what the final film will be when it reaches picture lock. The film editor usually starts working while principal photography starts. Likely, prior to cutting, the editor and director will have seen and/or discussed "dailies" (raw footage shot each day) as shooting progresses. Screening dailies gives the editor a ballpark idea of the director's intentions. Because it is the first pass, the editor's cut might be longer than the final film. The editor continues to refine the cut while shooting continues, and often the entire editing process goes on for many months and sometimes more than a year, depending on the film.
Rough cut
In filmmaking, the rough cut is the second of three stages of offline editing. The rough cut is the first stage in which the film begins to resemble its final product. Rough cuts do not flow well and still undergo many changes before the release of the film.
Editor's cut
An Editor's Cut of a motion picture is made by the film editor on his/her own, or working with the film director. The editor tapes together the first cut of the film, the "editor's cut", arranging the separate takes into a coherent story according to the plan communicated by the director. The editor's version of the film will often be as much as two hours beyond the final running time of the film. Working from the editor's cut, decisions then need to be made, usually together with other creative staff, to improve continuity, balance the story, trim or delete scenes, etc.
A version supposedly nearer the Director's original creative vision is sometimes marketed as a Director's cut, or Editor's cut. These special-market versions of a movie DVD are more expensive than the regular edition, as they are usually longer than the theatre version, and have extra discs often including "making of ... " documentaries, out-take collections, extended interviews with cast and crew, etc.
Ideas and Reflections:
I have been considering whether to do several different cuts of my film until I find my favourite version which would be the director's cut.
A version supposedly nearer the Director's original creative vision is sometimes marketed as a Director's cut, or Editor's cut. These special-market versions of a movie DVD are more expensive than the regular edition, as they are usually longer than the theatre version, and have extra discs often including "making of ... " documentaries, out-take collections, extended interviews with cast and crew, etc.
Ideas and Reflections:
I have been considering whether to do several different cuts of my film until I find my favourite version which would be the director's cut.
Wednesday 30 March 2011
History of film editing technology
Before the widespread use of non-linear editing systems, the initial editing of all films was done with a positive copy of the film negative called a film workprint (cutting copy in UK) by physically cutting and pasting together pieces of film, using a splicer and threading the film on a machine with a viewer such as a Moviola, or "flatbed" machine such as a K.-E.-M. or Steenbeck. Today, most films are edited digitally (on systems such as Avid or Final Cut Pro) and bypass the film positive workprint altogether. In the past, the use of a film positive (not the original negative) allowed the editor to do as much experimenting as he or she wished, without the risk of damaging the original.
When the film workprint had been cut to a satisfactory state, it was then used to make an edit decision list (EDL). The negative cutter referred to this list while processing the negative, splitting the shots into rolls, which were then contact printed to produce the final film print or answer print. Today, production companies have the option of bypassing negative cutting altogether. With the advent of digital intermediate ("DI"), the physical negative does not necessarily need to be physically cut and hot spliced together; rather the negative is optically scanned into computer(s) and a cut list is conformed by a DI editor.
When the film workprint had been cut to a satisfactory state, it was then used to make an edit decision list (EDL). The negative cutter referred to this list while processing the negative, splitting the shots into rolls, which were then contact printed to produce the final film print or answer print. Today, production companies have the option of bypassing negative cutting altogether. With the advent of digital intermediate ("DI"), the physical negative does not necessarily need to be physically cut and hot spliced together; rather the negative is optically scanned into computer(s) and a cut list is conformed by a DI editor.
Early experiments in film editing
Edwin S. Porter is generally thought to be the American filmmaker who first put film editing to use. Porter worked as an electrician before joining the film laboratory of Thomas Alva Edison in the late 1890s. Early films by Thomas Edison (whose company invented a motion camera and projector) and others were short films that were one long, static, locked-down shot. Motion in the shot was all that was necessary to amuse an audience, so the first films simply showed activity such as traffic moving on a city street. There was no story and no editing. Each film ran as long as there was film in the camera. When Edison's motion picture studio wanted to increase the length of the short films, Edison came to Porter. Porter made the breakthrough film Life of an American Fireman in 1903. The film was among the first that had a plot, action, and even a closeup of a hand pulling a fire alarm.
Other films were to follow. Porter's ground-breaking film, The Great Train Robbery is still shown in film schools today as an example of early editing form. It was produced in 1903 and was one of the first examples of dynamic, action editing (the piecing together scenes shot at different times and places and for emotional impact unavailable in a static long shot). Being one of the first film hyphenates (film director, editor and engineer) Porter also invented and utilized some of the very first (albeit primitive) special effects such as double exposures, miniatures and split-screens.
Porter discovered important aspects of motion picture language: that the screen image does not need to show a complete person from head to toe and that splicing together two shots creates in the viewer's mind a contextual relationship. These were the key discoveries that made all non-live or non live-on-videotape narrative motion pictures and television possible—that shots (in this case whole scenes since each shot is a complete scene) can be photographed at widely different locations over a period of time (hours, days or even months) and combined into a narrative whole. That is, The Great Train Robbery contains scenes shot on sets of a telegraph station, a railroad car interior, and a dance hall, with outdoor scenes at a railroad water tower, on the train itself, at a point along the track, and in the woods. But when the robbers leave the telegraph station interior (set) and emerge at the water tower, the audience believes they went immediately from one to the other. Or that when they climb on the train in one shot and enter the baggage car (a set) in the next, the audience believes they are on the same train.
Sometime around 1918, Russian director Lev Kuleshov did an experiment that proves this point. (See Kuleshov Experiment) He took an old film clip of a head shot of a noted Russian actor and intercut the shot with a shot of a bowl of soup, then with a child playing with a teddy bear, then with a shot an elderly woman in a casket. When he showed the film to people they praised the actor's acting—the hunger in his face when he saw the soup, the delight in the child, and the grief when looking at the dead woman. Of course, the shot of the actor was years before the other shots and he never "saw" any of the items. The simple act of juxtaposing the shots in a sequence made the relationship.
Ideas and Reflections:
These examples of early experiments in editing are very interesting to me and have inspired me to start experimenting in the editing stage of my film. This has also made me think about film narrative. Will I have a linear or non-linear story? I could also take the route of not having a story or particular message in the film which would be interesting to explore.
Other films were to follow. Porter's ground-breaking film, The Great Train Robbery is still shown in film schools today as an example of early editing form. It was produced in 1903 and was one of the first examples of dynamic, action editing (the piecing together scenes shot at different times and places and for emotional impact unavailable in a static long shot). Being one of the first film hyphenates (film director, editor and engineer) Porter also invented and utilized some of the very first (albeit primitive) special effects such as double exposures, miniatures and split-screens.
Porter discovered important aspects of motion picture language: that the screen image does not need to show a complete person from head to toe and that splicing together two shots creates in the viewer's mind a contextual relationship. These were the key discoveries that made all non-live or non live-on-videotape narrative motion pictures and television possible—that shots (in this case whole scenes since each shot is a complete scene) can be photographed at widely different locations over a period of time (hours, days or even months) and combined into a narrative whole. That is, The Great Train Robbery contains scenes shot on sets of a telegraph station, a railroad car interior, and a dance hall, with outdoor scenes at a railroad water tower, on the train itself, at a point along the track, and in the woods. But when the robbers leave the telegraph station interior (set) and emerge at the water tower, the audience believes they went immediately from one to the other. Or that when they climb on the train in one shot and enter the baggage car (a set) in the next, the audience believes they are on the same train.
Sometime around 1918, Russian director Lev Kuleshov did an experiment that proves this point. (See Kuleshov Experiment) He took an old film clip of a head shot of a noted Russian actor and intercut the shot with a shot of a bowl of soup, then with a child playing with a teddy bear, then with a shot an elderly woman in a casket. When he showed the film to people they praised the actor's acting—the hunger in his face when he saw the soup, the delight in the child, and the grief when looking at the dead woman. Of course, the shot of the actor was years before the other shots and he never "saw" any of the items. The simple act of juxtaposing the shots in a sequence made the relationship.
Ideas and Reflections:
These examples of early experiments in editing are very interesting to me and have inspired me to start experimenting in the editing stage of my film. This has also made me think about film narrative. Will I have a linear or non-linear story? I could also take the route of not having a story or particular message in the film which would be interesting to explore.
Film editing
Film editing is part of the process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling. Film editing is the only art that is unique to cinema, separating film-making from other art forms that preceded it (such as photography, theater, dance, writing, and directing), although there are close parallels to the editing process in other art forms like poetry or novel writing. Film editing is often referred to as the "invisible art" because when it is well-practiced, the viewer can become so engaged that he or she is not even aware of the editor's work.
On its most fundamental level, film editing is the art, technique, and practice of assembling shots into a coherent whole. A film editor is a person who practices film editing by assembling the footage. However, the job of an editor isn’t simply to mechanically put pieces of a film together, cut off film slates, or edit dialogue scenes. A film editor must creatively work with the layers of images, story, dialogue, music, pacing, as well as the actors' performances to effectively "re-imagine" and even rewrite the film to craft a cohesive whole. Editors usually play a dynamic role in the making of a film.
With the advent of digital editing, film editors and their assistants have become responsible for many areas of filmmaking that used to be the responsibility of others. For instance, in past years, picture editors dealt only with just that—picture. Sound, music, and (more recently) visual effects editors dealt with the practicalities of other aspects of the editing process, usually under the direction of the picture editor and director. However, digital systems have increasingly put these responsibilities on the picture editor. It is common, especially on lower budget films, for the assistant editors or even the editor to cut in music, mock up visual effects, and add sound effects or other sound replacements. These temporary elements are usually replaced with more refined final elements by the sound, music, and visual effects teams hired to complete the picture.
Film editing is an art that can be used in diverse ways. It can create sensually provocative montages; become a laboratory for experimental cinema; bring out the emotional truth in an actor's performance; create a point of view on otherwise obtuse events; guide the telling and pace of a story; create an illusion of danger where there is none; give emphasis to things that would not have otherwise been noted; and even create a vital subconscious emotional connection to the viewer, among many other possibilities.
On its most fundamental level, film editing is the art, technique, and practice of assembling shots into a coherent whole. A film editor is a person who practices film editing by assembling the footage. However, the job of an editor isn’t simply to mechanically put pieces of a film together, cut off film slates, or edit dialogue scenes. A film editor must creatively work with the layers of images, story, dialogue, music, pacing, as well as the actors' performances to effectively "re-imagine" and even rewrite the film to craft a cohesive whole. Editors usually play a dynamic role in the making of a film.
With the advent of digital editing, film editors and their assistants have become responsible for many areas of filmmaking that used to be the responsibility of others. For instance, in past years, picture editors dealt only with just that—picture. Sound, music, and (more recently) visual effects editors dealt with the practicalities of other aspects of the editing process, usually under the direction of the picture editor and director. However, digital systems have increasingly put these responsibilities on the picture editor. It is common, especially on lower budget films, for the assistant editors or even the editor to cut in music, mock up visual effects, and add sound effects or other sound replacements. These temporary elements are usually replaced with more refined final elements by the sound, music, and visual effects teams hired to complete the picture.
Film editing is an art that can be used in diverse ways. It can create sensually provocative montages; become a laboratory for experimental cinema; bring out the emotional truth in an actor's performance; create a point of view on otherwise obtuse events; guide the telling and pace of a story; create an illusion of danger where there is none; give emphasis to things that would not have otherwise been noted; and even create a vital subconscious emotional connection to the viewer, among many other possibilities.
Tuesday 29 March 2011
Lighting technique and aesthetics
Background light - The background light is used to illuminate the background area of a set. The background light will also provide separation between the subject and the background. In the standard 4-point lighting setup, the background light is placed last and is usually placed directly behind the subject and pointed at the background.
In film, the background light is usually of lower intensity. More than one light could be used to light uniformly a background or alternatively to highlight points of interest.
In video and television, the background light is usually of similar intensity to the key light because video cameras are less capable of handling high-contrast ratios. In order to provide much needed separation between subject and background, the background light will have a color filter, blue for example, which will make the foreground pop up.
Cameo lighting - Cameo lighting in film is a spotlight that accentuates a single person in a scene. It creates an 'angelic' shot, such as one where God is shining down and a light shines down onto this person.
Cameo lighting derives its name from the art form in which a light relief figure is set against a darker background. It is often achieved by using barn-doored spotlights. It helps focus on the subject and not its environment. A problem with cameo lighting is that it can lead to color distortion and noise in the darkest areas.
Fill light - In television, film, stage, or photographic lighting, a fill light (often simply fill) may be used to reduce the contrast of a scene and provide some illumination for the areas of the image that are in shadow. A common lighting setup places the fill light on the lens axis, roughly perpendicular to the key light.
The fill light is often softer and, by definition, less intense than the key light. The ratio between light and shadow depends on the desired effect. For example, a fill light that is a small fraction of the power of the key light will produce very high-contrast or low-key lighting, while filling with half or more of the key light power will produce a high key, low-contrast tone.
An alternative to using a direct light source as a fill is to re-direct or "bounce" the key light towards the subject by using a reflector.
High-key lighting - High-key lighting is a style of lighting for film, television, or photography that aims to reduce the lighting ratio present in the scene. This was originally done partly for technological reasons, since early film and television did not deal well with high contrast ratios, but now is used to suggest an upbeat mood. It is often used in sitcoms and comedies. High-key lighting is usually quite homogeneous and free from dark shadows. The terminology comes from the key light (main light).
In the 1950s and 1960s, high-key lighting was achieved through multiple light sources lighting a scene—usually using three fixtures per person (left, right, and central) —which resulted in a uniform lighting pattern with very little modeling. Nowadays, multiple hot light sources are substituted by much more efficient fluorescent soft lights which provide a similar effect.
The advantage to high-key lighting is that it doesn't require adjustment for each scene which allows the production to complete the shooting in hours instead of days. The primary drawback is that high-key lighting fails to add meaning or drama by lighting certain parts more prominently than others.
Most recently, shows with bigger budgets moved away from high-key lighting by using lighting set-ups different from the standard three-point lighting. Part of the reason for this is the advent of new lighting fixtures which are easier to use and quicker to set up. Another reason is the growing sophistication of the audience for TV programs and the need to differentiate.
The term "high-key" has found its way from cinema into more widespread usage, for example referring to an event that requires much organization or is subject to a great deal of publicity.
Key light - The key light is the first and usually most important light that a photographer, cinematographer, lighting cameraman, or other scene composer will use in a lighting setup. The purpose of the key light is to highlight the form and dimension of the subject. The key light is not a rigid requirement; omitting the key light can result in a silhouette effect. Many key lights may be placed in a scene to illuminate a moving subject at opportune moments.
Low-key lighting - Low-key lighting is a style of lighting for photography, film or television. It is a necessary element in creating a chiaroscuro effect. Traditional photographic lighting, three-point lighting uses a key light, a fill light, and a back light for illumination. Low-key lighting often uses only one key light, optionally controlled with a fill light or a simple reflector.
Low key light accentuates the contours of an object by throwing areas into shade while a fill light or reflector may illuminate the shadow areas to control contrast. The relative strength of key-to-fill, known as the lighting ratio, can be measured using a light meter. Low key lighting has a higher lighting ratio, e.g. 8:1, than high key lighting, which can approach 1:1.
The term "low key" is used in cinematography to refer to any scene with a high lighting ratio, especially if there is a predominance of shadowy areas. It tends to heighten the sense of alienation felt by the viewer, hence is commonly used in film noir and horror genres.
Ideas and Reflections:
There are some very interesting lighting techniques listed here but I have had the idea of using natural light for my film and filming out of focus lights.
In film, the background light is usually of lower intensity. More than one light could be used to light uniformly a background or alternatively to highlight points of interest.
In video and television, the background light is usually of similar intensity to the key light because video cameras are less capable of handling high-contrast ratios. In order to provide much needed separation between subject and background, the background light will have a color filter, blue for example, which will make the foreground pop up.
Cameo lighting - Cameo lighting in film is a spotlight that accentuates a single person in a scene. It creates an 'angelic' shot, such as one where God is shining down and a light shines down onto this person.
Cameo lighting derives its name from the art form in which a light relief figure is set against a darker background. It is often achieved by using barn-doored spotlights. It helps focus on the subject and not its environment. A problem with cameo lighting is that it can lead to color distortion and noise in the darkest areas.
Fill light - In television, film, stage, or photographic lighting, a fill light (often simply fill) may be used to reduce the contrast of a scene and provide some illumination for the areas of the image that are in shadow. A common lighting setup places the fill light on the lens axis, roughly perpendicular to the key light.
The fill light is often softer and, by definition, less intense than the key light. The ratio between light and shadow depends on the desired effect. For example, a fill light that is a small fraction of the power of the key light will produce very high-contrast or low-key lighting, while filling with half or more of the key light power will produce a high key, low-contrast tone.
An alternative to using a direct light source as a fill is to re-direct or "bounce" the key light towards the subject by using a reflector.
High-key lighting - High-key lighting is a style of lighting for film, television, or photography that aims to reduce the lighting ratio present in the scene. This was originally done partly for technological reasons, since early film and television did not deal well with high contrast ratios, but now is used to suggest an upbeat mood. It is often used in sitcoms and comedies. High-key lighting is usually quite homogeneous and free from dark shadows. The terminology comes from the key light (main light).
In the 1950s and 1960s, high-key lighting was achieved through multiple light sources lighting a scene—usually using three fixtures per person (left, right, and central) —which resulted in a uniform lighting pattern with very little modeling. Nowadays, multiple hot light sources are substituted by much more efficient fluorescent soft lights which provide a similar effect.
The advantage to high-key lighting is that it doesn't require adjustment for each scene which allows the production to complete the shooting in hours instead of days. The primary drawback is that high-key lighting fails to add meaning or drama by lighting certain parts more prominently than others.
Most recently, shows with bigger budgets moved away from high-key lighting by using lighting set-ups different from the standard three-point lighting. Part of the reason for this is the advent of new lighting fixtures which are easier to use and quicker to set up. Another reason is the growing sophistication of the audience for TV programs and the need to differentiate.
The term "high-key" has found its way from cinema into more widespread usage, for example referring to an event that requires much organization or is subject to a great deal of publicity.
Key light - The key light is the first and usually most important light that a photographer, cinematographer, lighting cameraman, or other scene composer will use in a lighting setup. The purpose of the key light is to highlight the form and dimension of the subject. The key light is not a rigid requirement; omitting the key light can result in a silhouette effect. Many key lights may be placed in a scene to illuminate a moving subject at opportune moments.
Low-key lighting - Low-key lighting is a style of lighting for photography, film or television. It is a necessary element in creating a chiaroscuro effect. Traditional photographic lighting, three-point lighting uses a key light, a fill light, and a back light for illumination. Low-key lighting often uses only one key light, optionally controlled with a fill light or a simple reflector.
Low key light accentuates the contours of an object by throwing areas into shade while a fill light or reflector may illuminate the shadow areas to control contrast. The relative strength of key-to-fill, known as the lighting ratio, can be measured using a light meter. Low key lighting has a higher lighting ratio, e.g. 8:1, than high key lighting, which can approach 1:1.
The term "low key" is used in cinematography to refer to any scene with a high lighting ratio, especially if there is a predominance of shadowy areas. It tends to heighten the sense of alienation felt by the viewer, hence is commonly used in film noir and horror genres.
Ideas and Reflections:
There are some very interesting lighting techniques listed here but I have had the idea of using natural light for my film and filming out of focus lights.
Camera view, angle, movement, shot continued
Tilt - Tilting is a cinematographic technique in which the camera is stationary and rotates in a vertical plane (or tilting plane). A rotation in a horizontal plane is known as panning. Tilting the camera results in a motion similar to someone nodding their head "yes" or to an aircraft performing a pitch rotation.
Tracking shot - In motion picture terminology, a tracking shot (also known as a dolly shot or trucking shot) is a segment in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly, a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken. One may dolly in on a stationary subject for emphasis, or dolly out, or dolly beside a moving subject (an action known as "dollying with").
The Italian feature film Cabiria (1914), directed by Giovanni Pastrone, was the first popular film to use dolly shots, which in fact were originally called "Cabiria movements" by contemporary filmmakers influenced by the film; however, some smaller American and English films prior to 1914 had used the technique prior to Cabiria.
The tracking shot can include smooth movements forward, backward, along the side of the subject, or on a curve. Dollies with hydraulic arms can also smoothly "boom" or "jib" the camera several feet on a vertical axis. Tracking shots, however, cannot include complex pivoting movements, aerial shots or crane shots.
Tracking shots are often confused with the long take -- such as the 10-minute takes in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) -- or sequence shots.
Trunk shot - The Trunk shot is a camera angle used in cinema when one or more characters need to retrieve something or someone from the trunk of a car. Though the trunk shot can be produced with great difficulty by placing the camera inside the trunk of a car and filming the action outside the trunk of the car, it usually is "cheated" by the art department by placing a trunk door and some of the trunk frame close enough to the camera to make it appear to be shot from within the trunk. This allows the considerable bulk of a movie camera and camera operator to have a free range of movement without risk of damage to the camera or operator, makes the shot logistically easier, and allows the normal crew and equipment used in filmmaking to be utilized.
This camera angle is often noted to be the trademark of film maker Quentin Tarantino who disputes that he puts the shot in his films as a trademark and simply asks "Where would you put the camera?"[citation needed] Although he did not invent it, Tarantino popularized the trunk shot, which is featured in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Kill Bill. In Death Proof, Tarantino's traditional shot looking up at the actors from the trunk of a car is replaced by one looking up from under the hood. In Inglourious Basterds a "trunk shot" is used two times when Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) crouches over a captured Nazi with one of his soldiers, cutting a swastika into their victim's forehead (the shot is supposed to be the victim's point of view).
Possibly the earliest trunk shot can be noted in the 1948 movie by Anthony Mann (though credited to Alfred L. Werker), He Walked by Night when the police are inspecting the contents of a murder suspect's trunk. Another use of the shot is in 1967 film In Cold Blood (directed by Richard Brooks) after the two outlaws cross the borders to Mexico by a stolen car. The technique also has been used in the film Goodfellas in 1990 where the characters of Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci are opening the trunk of their car, ready to kill the man within, as well as in the CW's Supernatural (TV series), where trunk shots can be seen looking up at the protagonists, Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester, in both the pilot episode, and the second season's finale. In the music video for Colombian pop-singer Shakira's single "Objection (Tango)," Shakira is shown from a trunk shot, smiling sadistically at her ex-boyfriend and his mistress, who are bound and gagged in the trunk of her car, which she then slams shut.
Two shot - A Two shot is a type of shot employed in the film industry in which the frame encompasses a view of two people (the subjects). The subjects do not have to be next to each other, and there are many common two-shots which have one subject in the foreground and the other subject in the background.
The shots are also used to show the emotional reactions between the subjects. For instance, in the movie Stand By Me, this shot is used multiple times to show these emotions.
An 'American two shot' shows the two heads facing each other in profile to the camera.
Similarly, a three shot has three people in the composition of the frame. In these shots the characters are given more importance; this type of image can also be seen in print advertising.
Ideas and Reflections:
There are some very interesting shots listed above although it is unlikely that I will be using these in my own film.
Tracking shot - In motion picture terminology, a tracking shot (also known as a dolly shot or trucking shot) is a segment in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly, a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken. One may dolly in on a stationary subject for emphasis, or dolly out, or dolly beside a moving subject (an action known as "dollying with").
The Italian feature film Cabiria (1914), directed by Giovanni Pastrone, was the first popular film to use dolly shots, which in fact were originally called "Cabiria movements" by contemporary filmmakers influenced by the film; however, some smaller American and English films prior to 1914 had used the technique prior to Cabiria.
The tracking shot can include smooth movements forward, backward, along the side of the subject, or on a curve. Dollies with hydraulic arms can also smoothly "boom" or "jib" the camera several feet on a vertical axis. Tracking shots, however, cannot include complex pivoting movements, aerial shots or crane shots.
Tracking shots are often confused with the long take -- such as the 10-minute takes in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) -- or sequence shots.
Trunk shot - The Trunk shot is a camera angle used in cinema when one or more characters need to retrieve something or someone from the trunk of a car. Though the trunk shot can be produced with great difficulty by placing the camera inside the trunk of a car and filming the action outside the trunk of the car, it usually is "cheated" by the art department by placing a trunk door and some of the trunk frame close enough to the camera to make it appear to be shot from within the trunk. This allows the considerable bulk of a movie camera and camera operator to have a free range of movement without risk of damage to the camera or operator, makes the shot logistically easier, and allows the normal crew and equipment used in filmmaking to be utilized.
This camera angle is often noted to be the trademark of film maker Quentin Tarantino who disputes that he puts the shot in his films as a trademark and simply asks "Where would you put the camera?"[citation needed] Although he did not invent it, Tarantino popularized the trunk shot, which is featured in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Kill Bill. In Death Proof, Tarantino's traditional shot looking up at the actors from the trunk of a car is replaced by one looking up from under the hood. In Inglourious Basterds a "trunk shot" is used two times when Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) crouches over a captured Nazi with one of his soldiers, cutting a swastika into their victim's forehead (the shot is supposed to be the victim's point of view).
Possibly the earliest trunk shot can be noted in the 1948 movie by Anthony Mann (though credited to Alfred L. Werker), He Walked by Night when the police are inspecting the contents of a murder suspect's trunk. Another use of the shot is in 1967 film In Cold Blood (directed by Richard Brooks) after the two outlaws cross the borders to Mexico by a stolen car. The technique also has been used in the film Goodfellas in 1990 where the characters of Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci are opening the trunk of their car, ready to kill the man within, as well as in the CW's Supernatural (TV series), where trunk shots can be seen looking up at the protagonists, Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester, in both the pilot episode, and the second season's finale. In the music video for Colombian pop-singer Shakira's single "Objection (Tango)," Shakira is shown from a trunk shot, smiling sadistically at her ex-boyfriend and his mistress, who are bound and gagged in the trunk of her car, which she then slams shut.
Two shot - A Two shot is a type of shot employed in the film industry in which the frame encompasses a view of two people (the subjects). The subjects do not have to be next to each other, and there are many common two-shots which have one subject in the foreground and the other subject in the background.
The shots are also used to show the emotional reactions between the subjects. For instance, in the movie Stand By Me, this shot is used multiple times to show these emotions.
An 'American two shot' shows the two heads facing each other in profile to the camera.
Similarly, a three shot has three people in the composition of the frame. In these shots the characters are given more importance; this type of image can also be seen in print advertising.
Ideas and Reflections:
There are some very interesting shots listed above although it is unlikely that I will be using these in my own film.
Camera view, angle, movement, shot continued
Panning - In photography, panning refers to the horizontal movement or rotation of a still or video camera, or the scanning of a subject horizontally on video or a display device. Panning a camera results in a motion similar to that of someone shaking their head "no" or of an aircraft performing a yaw rotation.
Film and television cameras pan by turning horizontally on a vertical axis, but the effect may be enhanced by adding other techniques, such as rails to move the whole camera platform. Slow panning is also combined with zooming in or out on a single subject, leaving the subject in the same portion of the frame, to emphasize or de-emphasize the subject respectively.
In video technology, the use of a camera to scan a subject horizontally is called panning.
In still photography, the panning technique is used to suggest fast motion, and bring out the subject from other elements in the frame. In photographic pictures it is usually noted by a foreground subject in action appearing still (i.e. a runner frozen in mid-stride) while the background is streaked and/or skewed in the apparently opposite direction of the subject's travel.
The term panning is derived from panorama, a word originally coined in 1787 by Robert Barker for the 18th century version of these applications, a machine that unrolled or unfolded a long horizontal painting to give the impression the scene was passing by; Barker also invented the cyclorama in which a large painting encircles an audience.
Point of view shot - A point of view shot (also known as POV shot or a subjective camera) is a short film scene that shows what a character (the subject) is looking at (represented through the camera). It is usually established by being positioned between a shot of a character looking at something, and a shot showing the character's reaction (see shot reverse shot). The technique of POV is one of the foundations of film editing.
A POV shot need not be the strict point-of-view of an actual single character in a film. Sometimes the point-of-view shot is taken over the shoulder of the character (third person), who remains visible on the screen. Sometimes a POV shot is "shared" ("dual" or "triple"), i.e. it represents the joint POV of two (or more) characters. There is also the "nobody POV", where a shot is taken from the POV of a non-existent character. This often occurs when an actual POV shot is implied, but the character is removed. Sometimes the character is never present at all, despite a clear POV shot, such as the famous "God-POV" of birds descending from the sky in Alfred Hitchcock's film, The Birds. Another example of a POV shot is in the movie Doom, which contains a fairly long POV shot which resembles a head-up display in a first-person shooter video game, with the viewer watching through a character who is venturing through hallways shooting and killing aliens.
"Point-of-view , or simply p.o.v., camera angles record the scene from a particular player's viewpoint. The point-of-view is an objective angle, but since it falls between the objective and subjective angle, it should be placed in a separate category and given special consideration. A point-of-view shot is as close as an objective shot can approach a subjective shot - and still remain objective. The camera is positioned at the side of a subjective player - whose viewpoint is being depicted - so that the audience is given the impression they are standing cheek-to-cheek with the off-screen player. The viewer does not see the event through the player's eyes, as in a subjective shot in which the camera trades places with the screen player. He sees the event from the player's viewpoint, as if standing alongside him. Thus, the camera angle remains objective, since it is an unseen observer not involved in the action." - Joseph V. Mascelli in The Five C's of Cinematography
A POV shot need not be established by strictly visual means. The manipulation of diegetic sounds can be used to emphasize a particular character's POV.
It makes little sense to say that a shot is "inherently" POV; it is the editing of the POV shot within a sequence of shots that determines POV. Nor can the establishment of a POV shot be isolated from other elements of filmmaking — mise en scene, acting, camera placement, editing, and special effects can all contribute to the establishment of POV.
With some POV shots when an animal is the chosen character, the shot will look distorted or black and white.
When the leading actor is the subject of the POV it is known as the subjective viewpoint. The audience sees events through the leading actor's eyes, as if they were experiencing the events themselves. Some films are partially or totally shot using this technique. In fact, there is an entire genre of pornography dedicated to filming technique known as Point of view pornography.
One of the first films to use this technique was Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Everything is seen through Jekyll's eyes, as he leaves his house to go to the medical lecture. Then, as he begins to speak, Jekyll is seen for the first time. When Jekyll first transforms himself into Hyde, Mamoulian once again uses the subjective camera to record his agonized reaction to his own drugged drink.
Film, directed by Alan Schneider written by Samuel Beckett and starring Buster Keaton also uses POV extensively, switching between the main character's point of view and the view of the camera as a way to illustrate Berkeley's quote "to be is to be perceived and to perceive". Interestingly, Film is also said to refer to the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
In the film noir Dark Passage, the protagonist has plastic surgery, and when his bandages are removed, he is revealed to be Humphrey Bogart. But until that moment, everything is seen through his eyes and the viewer has no idea what he looks like.
In another film noir, Lady in the Lake, directed by and starring Robert Montgomery as Raymond Chandler's detective Philip Marlowe, the entire film is shot from a subjective viewpoint, and Montgomery's face is seen only when he looks in a mirror. The film was not a critical or popular success.
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" uses the POV shot with a tilt shift focus to imitate the lead protagonist loss of sight in one eye.
The Plainclothesman, a moderately popular crime series aired on the DuMont Television Network from 1949 to 1954, used the technique. According to David Weinstein's book The Forgotten Network, the show was even used in police training in some cities.
The British sitcom Peep Show is shown mostly through the viewpoints of the characters and even lets you hear the two lead character's thoughts in the scenes.
In Gaspar Noé's 2010 film Enter the Void the beginning of the movie is shot in first-person.
Racking focus - Racking focus is the practice of shifting the attention of a viewer of a film or video by changing the focus of the lens from a subject in the foreground to a subject in the background, or vice versa. It dated back to the time when cameras did not have reflex lenses so the operator would have to "rack focus" the camera by looking through the viewfinder, then sliding the camera over so that the shot would be in focus. The technique can be seen in as early as 1929 in the early talking picture Applause (film), directed by Rouben Mamoulian. American director Richard Rush claims that he and cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs invented the technique, first used in the 1968 motorcycle film The Savage Seven. Rush owns the patent on a lens used in the technique.
Reaction shot - Reaction shot is a term used in motion picture production and cinematography referring to a basic unit of film grammar. It is a shot which cuts away from the main scene in order to show the reaction of a character to it.
A reaction shot usually implies the display of some sort of emotion on the face of the actor being shown, and is thus most commonly a close-up shot (although a group of actors may be shown reacting together). A reaction shot is also generally bereft of dialogue, though this is not an absolute rule. Its main purpose is to show an emotional response to the immediately preceding action or words of another character in the scene, or to an event in the immediately preceding scene which may or may not involve another actor (e.g., an explosion, monster, empty room, etc.)
The assumption behind the logic of the reaction shot is that the emotional reaction of the actor being depicted will either advance the story forward, reveal character traits of the character in the reaction shot, or emphasize character traits of another character that were displayed in the action or dialog present in the preceding shot. A completely unemotional reaction may also be important if it provides information to the audience or is unexpected in the context of the scene.
Reaction shots can be especially critical in comedy, as the reaction of an actor or actors to a dramatic incident provides a psychological cue to the audience about how to respond to that incident themselves.
In some cases; the deliberate avoidance of showing a reaction shot can be used by a filmmaker to dramatic effect; for instance, if the filmmaker does not want the audience to see a character's reaction to a particular incident at that point in time.
Shot reverse shot - Shot reverse shot (or shot/countershot) is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.
SnorriCam - A SnorriCam (also chestcam, bodymount camera, bodycam or bodymount) is a camera device used in filmmaking that is rigged to the body of the actor, facing the actor directly, so when he walks, he does not appear to move, but everything around him does. A SnorriCam presents a dynamic point of view from the actor's perspective, providing an unusual sense of vertigo for the viewer.
The SnorriCam is named after two Icelandic photographers and directors, Einar Snorri and Eiður Snorri, who –although they are not related– worked together under the name Snorri Bros.
The concept of the SnorriCam has been around for decades. Various ad hoc versions of the device were implemented in films going as far back as Seconds, in 1966. However, the practicality of such a point-of-view device was limited by the weight of the camera. Since most 35mm motion picture cameras were simply too heavy to easily carry, there was no real point in developing such a device. However, with the emergence of the Steadicam and the manufacture of small, lightweight, soundproof cameras that could fit on the Steadicam platform, an added bonus of these newer, lighter cameras was the possibility of a point-of-view device such as the SnorriCam.
Uses in film
All the following films use SnorriCam sequences[2]:
* Mean Streets, where the lead character (played by Harvey Keitel) can be seen moving through a crowded bar and passing out drunk in the back.
* Truck Turner - the character played by Yaphet Kotto can be seen in his final throes of death through the eyes of a SnorriCam
* Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels when Eddie (played by Nick Moran) is leaving the boxing ring after the game of poker.
* 25th Hour
* "Psycho (film)"
* Enduring Love
* Armageddon, when an astronaut gets hit by outgassing he zooms off into space and we see him scream from a virtual Snorricam
* The Lovely Bones
* π and Requiem for a Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky, use the SnorriCam extensively.
* Kannathil Muthamittal
* Rakta Charitra
* Dil Chahta Hai
* Angst
* Dalkomhan insaeng
* Malcolm X
* Seconds
* Babel
* La sirène rouge
* Jacob's Ladder
* Guru
* The Exorcism of Emily Rose
* Stay
* Azumi 2: Death or Love
* Heyy Babyy
* Kicking & Screaming
* See No Evil
* I Am Legend
* Kidulthood
* Adulthood
* Inside Man
* Max Payne
* Tell No One
* RocknRolla
* Revolver
* District 9
* Slumdog Millionaire
* Dev.D
* Rann
* The Hangover
* Orphan
* Juice
* New York
* Terminator Salvation
* 28 Weeks Later, a zombie wears it while chasing Robert Carlyle's character.
* Touching The Void
* Bound
* Get Him To The Greek, where Jonah Hill parties and later receives an adrenaline shot.
* Va
* No Smoking
* Kaminey, used in the music video of 'Dhan Te Nan'
* Jackie
Ideas and Reflections:
There are some very interesting shots listed above although it is unlikely that I will be using these in my own film.
Film and television cameras pan by turning horizontally on a vertical axis, but the effect may be enhanced by adding other techniques, such as rails to move the whole camera platform. Slow panning is also combined with zooming in or out on a single subject, leaving the subject in the same portion of the frame, to emphasize or de-emphasize the subject respectively.
In video technology, the use of a camera to scan a subject horizontally is called panning.
In still photography, the panning technique is used to suggest fast motion, and bring out the subject from other elements in the frame. In photographic pictures it is usually noted by a foreground subject in action appearing still (i.e. a runner frozen in mid-stride) while the background is streaked and/or skewed in the apparently opposite direction of the subject's travel.
The term panning is derived from panorama, a word originally coined in 1787 by Robert Barker for the 18th century version of these applications, a machine that unrolled or unfolded a long horizontal painting to give the impression the scene was passing by; Barker also invented the cyclorama in which a large painting encircles an audience.
Point of view shot - A point of view shot (also known as POV shot or a subjective camera) is a short film scene that shows what a character (the subject) is looking at (represented through the camera). It is usually established by being positioned between a shot of a character looking at something, and a shot showing the character's reaction (see shot reverse shot). The technique of POV is one of the foundations of film editing.
A POV shot need not be the strict point-of-view of an actual single character in a film. Sometimes the point-of-view shot is taken over the shoulder of the character (third person), who remains visible on the screen. Sometimes a POV shot is "shared" ("dual" or "triple"), i.e. it represents the joint POV of two (or more) characters. There is also the "nobody POV", where a shot is taken from the POV of a non-existent character. This often occurs when an actual POV shot is implied, but the character is removed. Sometimes the character is never present at all, despite a clear POV shot, such as the famous "God-POV" of birds descending from the sky in Alfred Hitchcock's film, The Birds. Another example of a POV shot is in the movie Doom, which contains a fairly long POV shot which resembles a head-up display in a first-person shooter video game, with the viewer watching through a character who is venturing through hallways shooting and killing aliens.
"Point-of-view , or simply p.o.v., camera angles record the scene from a particular player's viewpoint. The point-of-view is an objective angle, but since it falls between the objective and subjective angle, it should be placed in a separate category and given special consideration. A point-of-view shot is as close as an objective shot can approach a subjective shot - and still remain objective. The camera is positioned at the side of a subjective player - whose viewpoint is being depicted - so that the audience is given the impression they are standing cheek-to-cheek with the off-screen player. The viewer does not see the event through the player's eyes, as in a subjective shot in which the camera trades places with the screen player. He sees the event from the player's viewpoint, as if standing alongside him. Thus, the camera angle remains objective, since it is an unseen observer not involved in the action." - Joseph V. Mascelli in The Five C's of Cinematography
A POV shot need not be established by strictly visual means. The manipulation of diegetic sounds can be used to emphasize a particular character's POV.
It makes little sense to say that a shot is "inherently" POV; it is the editing of the POV shot within a sequence of shots that determines POV. Nor can the establishment of a POV shot be isolated from other elements of filmmaking — mise en scene, acting, camera placement, editing, and special effects can all contribute to the establishment of POV.
With some POV shots when an animal is the chosen character, the shot will look distorted or black and white.
When the leading actor is the subject of the POV it is known as the subjective viewpoint. The audience sees events through the leading actor's eyes, as if they were experiencing the events themselves. Some films are partially or totally shot using this technique. In fact, there is an entire genre of pornography dedicated to filming technique known as Point of view pornography.
One of the first films to use this technique was Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Everything is seen through Jekyll's eyes, as he leaves his house to go to the medical lecture. Then, as he begins to speak, Jekyll is seen for the first time. When Jekyll first transforms himself into Hyde, Mamoulian once again uses the subjective camera to record his agonized reaction to his own drugged drink.
Film, directed by Alan Schneider written by Samuel Beckett and starring Buster Keaton also uses POV extensively, switching between the main character's point of view and the view of the camera as a way to illustrate Berkeley's quote "to be is to be perceived and to perceive". Interestingly, Film is also said to refer to the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
In the film noir Dark Passage, the protagonist has plastic surgery, and when his bandages are removed, he is revealed to be Humphrey Bogart. But until that moment, everything is seen through his eyes and the viewer has no idea what he looks like.
In another film noir, Lady in the Lake, directed by and starring Robert Montgomery as Raymond Chandler's detective Philip Marlowe, the entire film is shot from a subjective viewpoint, and Montgomery's face is seen only when he looks in a mirror. The film was not a critical or popular success.
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" uses the POV shot with a tilt shift focus to imitate the lead protagonist loss of sight in one eye.
The Plainclothesman, a moderately popular crime series aired on the DuMont Television Network from 1949 to 1954, used the technique. According to David Weinstein's book The Forgotten Network, the show was even used in police training in some cities.
The British sitcom Peep Show is shown mostly through the viewpoints of the characters and even lets you hear the two lead character's thoughts in the scenes.
In Gaspar Noé's 2010 film Enter the Void the beginning of the movie is shot in first-person.
Racking focus - Racking focus is the practice of shifting the attention of a viewer of a film or video by changing the focus of the lens from a subject in the foreground to a subject in the background, or vice versa. It dated back to the time when cameras did not have reflex lenses so the operator would have to "rack focus" the camera by looking through the viewfinder, then sliding the camera over so that the shot would be in focus. The technique can be seen in as early as 1929 in the early talking picture Applause (film), directed by Rouben Mamoulian. American director Richard Rush claims that he and cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs invented the technique, first used in the 1968 motorcycle film The Savage Seven. Rush owns the patent on a lens used in the technique.
Reaction shot - Reaction shot is a term used in motion picture production and cinematography referring to a basic unit of film grammar. It is a shot which cuts away from the main scene in order to show the reaction of a character to it.
A reaction shot usually implies the display of some sort of emotion on the face of the actor being shown, and is thus most commonly a close-up shot (although a group of actors may be shown reacting together). A reaction shot is also generally bereft of dialogue, though this is not an absolute rule. Its main purpose is to show an emotional response to the immediately preceding action or words of another character in the scene, or to an event in the immediately preceding scene which may or may not involve another actor (e.g., an explosion, monster, empty room, etc.)
The assumption behind the logic of the reaction shot is that the emotional reaction of the actor being depicted will either advance the story forward, reveal character traits of the character in the reaction shot, or emphasize character traits of another character that were displayed in the action or dialog present in the preceding shot. A completely unemotional reaction may also be important if it provides information to the audience or is unexpected in the context of the scene.
Reaction shots can be especially critical in comedy, as the reaction of an actor or actors to a dramatic incident provides a psychological cue to the audience about how to respond to that incident themselves.
In some cases; the deliberate avoidance of showing a reaction shot can be used by a filmmaker to dramatic effect; for instance, if the filmmaker does not want the audience to see a character's reaction to a particular incident at that point in time.
Shot reverse shot - Shot reverse shot (or shot/countershot) is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.
SnorriCam - A SnorriCam (also chestcam, bodymount camera, bodycam or bodymount) is a camera device used in filmmaking that is rigged to the body of the actor, facing the actor directly, so when he walks, he does not appear to move, but everything around him does. A SnorriCam presents a dynamic point of view from the actor's perspective, providing an unusual sense of vertigo for the viewer.
The SnorriCam is named after two Icelandic photographers and directors, Einar Snorri and Eiður Snorri, who –although they are not related– worked together under the name Snorri Bros.
The concept of the SnorriCam has been around for decades. Various ad hoc versions of the device were implemented in films going as far back as Seconds, in 1966. However, the practicality of such a point-of-view device was limited by the weight of the camera. Since most 35mm motion picture cameras were simply too heavy to easily carry, there was no real point in developing such a device. However, with the emergence of the Steadicam and the manufacture of small, lightweight, soundproof cameras that could fit on the Steadicam platform, an added bonus of these newer, lighter cameras was the possibility of a point-of-view device such as the SnorriCam.
Uses in film
All the following films use SnorriCam sequences[2]:
* Mean Streets, where the lead character (played by Harvey Keitel) can be seen moving through a crowded bar and passing out drunk in the back.
* Truck Turner - the character played by Yaphet Kotto can be seen in his final throes of death through the eyes of a SnorriCam
* Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels when Eddie (played by Nick Moran) is leaving the boxing ring after the game of poker.
* 25th Hour
* "Psycho (film)"
* Enduring Love
* Armageddon, when an astronaut gets hit by outgassing he zooms off into space and we see him scream from a virtual Snorricam
* The Lovely Bones
* π and Requiem for a Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky, use the SnorriCam extensively.
* Kannathil Muthamittal
* Rakta Charitra
* Dil Chahta Hai
* Angst
* Dalkomhan insaeng
* Malcolm X
* Seconds
* Babel
* La sirène rouge
* Jacob's Ladder
* Guru
* The Exorcism of Emily Rose
* Stay
* Azumi 2: Death or Love
* Heyy Babyy
* Kicking & Screaming
* See No Evil
* I Am Legend
* Kidulthood
* Adulthood
* Inside Man
* Max Payne
* Tell No One
* RocknRolla
* Revolver
* District 9
* Slumdog Millionaire
* Dev.D
* Rann
* The Hangover
* Orphan
* Juice
* New York
* Terminator Salvation
* 28 Weeks Later, a zombie wears it while chasing Robert Carlyle's character.
* Touching The Void
* Bound
* Get Him To The Greek, where Jonah Hill parties and later receives an adrenaline shot.
* Va
* No Smoking
* Kaminey, used in the music video of 'Dhan Te Nan'
* Jackie
Ideas and Reflections:
There are some very interesting shots listed above although it is unlikely that I will be using these in my own film.
Camera view, angle, movement, shot continued
Low-angle shot - In cinematography, a low-angle shot, is a shot from a camera positioned low on the vertical axis, anywhere below the eyeline, looking up.
Famous examples
* M (1931 film) (directed by Fritz Lang): Inspector Karl Lohmann is shot in low angle in his office, the camera sitting underneath his office desk. Also, two disputing men, one small and the other tall, are shot in low and high angles, respectively.
* Citizen Kane (directed by Orson Welles): there are many examples such as during the scene where Kane fires Leland. In fact, the scene where Leland confronts Travis after his defeat in the election is entirely shot in a low angle view.
* Psycho (directed by Alfred Hitchcock): the house where Norman Bates lives is usually shot from a low angle.
* Star Wars (directed by George Lucas): Darth Vader is often shot at a low angle, for example, the first time we see his character as he is walking down a hallway.
* Touch of Evil (directed by Orson Welles): In this film noir, Hank Quinlan is often shot in low angle to make him look menacing, large, and in-charge.
* The Lady From Shanghai (directed by Orson Welles): examples of low-angle shot are during the scene where George Grisby is confronted by Broome and he shoots him.
* Used while filming World Wrestling Entertainment interviews with André the Giant.
* The Dark Knight (directed by Christopher Nolan): Nolan uses extremely low angle shots to give the Joker a more powerful image in The Dark Knight, especially during the scene where the truck he was driving is flipped over and he gets out and starts shooting at Batman. In this scene, the angle actually goes from a normal medium close up and slowly moves into a low angle shot.
* Full Metal Jacket (directed by Stanley Kubrick): examples of a low angle shot is during the scene where the boot camp Sgt. is yelling at Joker.
Master shot - A master shot is a film recording of an entire dramatized scene, from start to finish, from an angle that keeps all the players in view. It is often a long shot and can sometimes perform a double function as an establishing shot. Usually, the master shot is the first shot checked off during the shooting of a scene—it is the foundation of what is called camera coverage, other shots that reveal different aspects of the action, groupings of two or three of the actors at crucial moments, close-ups of individuals, insert shots of various props, and so on.
Historically, the master shot was arguably the most important shot of any given scene. All shots in a given scene were somehow related to what was happening in the master shot. This is one reason why some of the films from the 1930s and 1940s are considered "stagey" by today's standards. By the 1960s and 1970s, the style of film shooting and editing shifted to include radical angles that conveyed more subjectivity and intimacy within the scenes. Today, the master shot is still an extremely important element of film production, but scenes are not built around the master shot in the same way that they were when professional filmmaking was in its infancy.
Matte - Mattes are used in photography and special effects filmmaking to combine two or more image elements into a single, final image. Usually, mattes are used to combine a foreground image (such as actors on a set, or a spaceship) with a background image (a scenic vista, a field of stars and planets). In this case, the matte is the background painting. In film and stage, mattes can be physically huge sections of painted canvas, portraying large scenic expanses of landscapes.
In film, the principle of a matte requires masking certain areas of the film emulsion to selectively control which areas are exposed. However, many complex special-effects scenes have included dozens of discrete image elements, requiring very complex use of mattes, and layering mattes on top of one another.
For an example of a simple matte, we may wish to depict a group of actors in front of a store, with a massive city and sky visible above the store's roof. We would have two images—the actors on the set, and the image of the city—to combine onto a third. This would require two masks/mattes. One would mask everything above the store's roof, and the other would mask everything below it. By using these masks/mattes when copying these images onto the third, we can combine the images without creating ghostly double-exposures. In film, this is an example of a static matte, where the shape of the mask does not change from frame to frame.
Other shots may require mattes that change, to mask the shapes of moving objects, such as human beings or spaceships. These are known as traveling mattes. Traveling mattes enable greater freedom of composition and movement, but they are also more difficult to accomplish. Bluescreen techniques, originally invented by Petro Vlahos, are probably the best-known techniques for creating traveling mattes, although rotoscoping and multiple motion control passes have also been used in the past.
Mattes are a very old technique, going back to the Lumière brothers. A good early American example is seen in The Great Train Robbery (1903) where it is used to place a train outside a window in a ticket office, and later a moving background outside a baggage car on a train 'set'.
Medium shot - In film, a medium shot is a camera shot from a medium distance. The dividing line between "long shot" and "medium shot" is fuzzy, as is the line between "medium shot" and "close-up". In some standard texts and professional references, a full-length view of a human subject is called a medium shot; in this terminology, a shot of the person from the knees up or the waist up is a close-up shot. In other texts, these partial views are called medium shots. (For example, in Europe a medium shot is framed from the waist up). It is mainly used for a scene when you can see what kind of expressions they are using.
There is no evident reason for this variation. It is not a distinction caused by, for example, a difference between TV and film language or 1930s and 1980s language.
Medium shots are relatively good in showing facial expressions but work well to show body language.
Over the shoulder shot - In film or video, an over the shoulder shot (also over shoulder, OS, OTS, or third-person shot) is a shot of someone or something taken over the shoulder of another person. The back of the shoulder and head of this person is used to frame the image of whatever (or whomever) the camera is pointing toward. This type of shot is very common when two characters are having a discussion and will usually follow an establishing shot which helps the audience place the characters in their setting. It is an example of a camera angle.
Ideas and Reflections:
There are some very interesting shots listed above although it is unlikely that I will be using these in my own film.
Famous examples
* M (1931 film) (directed by Fritz Lang): Inspector Karl Lohmann is shot in low angle in his office, the camera sitting underneath his office desk. Also, two disputing men, one small and the other tall, are shot in low and high angles, respectively.
* Citizen Kane (directed by Orson Welles): there are many examples such as during the scene where Kane fires Leland. In fact, the scene where Leland confronts Travis after his defeat in the election is entirely shot in a low angle view.
* Psycho (directed by Alfred Hitchcock): the house where Norman Bates lives is usually shot from a low angle.
* Star Wars (directed by George Lucas): Darth Vader is often shot at a low angle, for example, the first time we see his character as he is walking down a hallway.
* Touch of Evil (directed by Orson Welles): In this film noir, Hank Quinlan is often shot in low angle to make him look menacing, large, and in-charge.
* The Lady From Shanghai (directed by Orson Welles): examples of low-angle shot are during the scene where George Grisby is confronted by Broome and he shoots him.
* Used while filming World Wrestling Entertainment interviews with André the Giant.
* The Dark Knight (directed by Christopher Nolan): Nolan uses extremely low angle shots to give the Joker a more powerful image in The Dark Knight, especially during the scene where the truck he was driving is flipped over and he gets out and starts shooting at Batman. In this scene, the angle actually goes from a normal medium close up and slowly moves into a low angle shot.
* Full Metal Jacket (directed by Stanley Kubrick): examples of a low angle shot is during the scene where the boot camp Sgt. is yelling at Joker.
Master shot - A master shot is a film recording of an entire dramatized scene, from start to finish, from an angle that keeps all the players in view. It is often a long shot and can sometimes perform a double function as an establishing shot. Usually, the master shot is the first shot checked off during the shooting of a scene—it is the foundation of what is called camera coverage, other shots that reveal different aspects of the action, groupings of two or three of the actors at crucial moments, close-ups of individuals, insert shots of various props, and so on.
Historically, the master shot was arguably the most important shot of any given scene. All shots in a given scene were somehow related to what was happening in the master shot. This is one reason why some of the films from the 1930s and 1940s are considered "stagey" by today's standards. By the 1960s and 1970s, the style of film shooting and editing shifted to include radical angles that conveyed more subjectivity and intimacy within the scenes. Today, the master shot is still an extremely important element of film production, but scenes are not built around the master shot in the same way that they were when professional filmmaking was in its infancy.
Matte - Mattes are used in photography and special effects filmmaking to combine two or more image elements into a single, final image. Usually, mattes are used to combine a foreground image (such as actors on a set, or a spaceship) with a background image (a scenic vista, a field of stars and planets). In this case, the matte is the background painting. In film and stage, mattes can be physically huge sections of painted canvas, portraying large scenic expanses of landscapes.
In film, the principle of a matte requires masking certain areas of the film emulsion to selectively control which areas are exposed. However, many complex special-effects scenes have included dozens of discrete image elements, requiring very complex use of mattes, and layering mattes on top of one another.
For an example of a simple matte, we may wish to depict a group of actors in front of a store, with a massive city and sky visible above the store's roof. We would have two images—the actors on the set, and the image of the city—to combine onto a third. This would require two masks/mattes. One would mask everything above the store's roof, and the other would mask everything below it. By using these masks/mattes when copying these images onto the third, we can combine the images without creating ghostly double-exposures. In film, this is an example of a static matte, where the shape of the mask does not change from frame to frame.
Other shots may require mattes that change, to mask the shapes of moving objects, such as human beings or spaceships. These are known as traveling mattes. Traveling mattes enable greater freedom of composition and movement, but they are also more difficult to accomplish. Bluescreen techniques, originally invented by Petro Vlahos, are probably the best-known techniques for creating traveling mattes, although rotoscoping and multiple motion control passes have also been used in the past.
Mattes are a very old technique, going back to the Lumière brothers. A good early American example is seen in The Great Train Robbery (1903) where it is used to place a train outside a window in a ticket office, and later a moving background outside a baggage car on a train 'set'.
Medium shot - In film, a medium shot is a camera shot from a medium distance. The dividing line between "long shot" and "medium shot" is fuzzy, as is the line between "medium shot" and "close-up". In some standard texts and professional references, a full-length view of a human subject is called a medium shot; in this terminology, a shot of the person from the knees up or the waist up is a close-up shot. In other texts, these partial views are called medium shots. (For example, in Europe a medium shot is framed from the waist up). It is mainly used for a scene when you can see what kind of expressions they are using.
There is no evident reason for this variation. It is not a distinction caused by, for example, a difference between TV and film language or 1930s and 1980s language.
Medium shots are relatively good in showing facial expressions but work well to show body language.
Over the shoulder shot - In film or video, an over the shoulder shot (also over shoulder, OS, OTS, or third-person shot) is a shot of someone or something taken over the shoulder of another person. The back of the shoulder and head of this person is used to frame the image of whatever (or whomever) the camera is pointing toward. This type of shot is very common when two characters are having a discussion and will usually follow an establishing shot which helps the audience place the characters in their setting. It is an example of a camera angle.
Ideas and Reflections:
There are some very interesting shots listed above although it is unlikely that I will be using these in my own film.
Camera view, angle, movement, shot continued
Forced perspective - Examples of forced perspective:
* A scene in an action/adventure movie in which dinosaurs are threatening the heroes. By placing a miniature model of a dinosaur close to the camera, the dinosaur may look monstrously tall to the viewer, even though it is just closer to the camera.
Movies (especially B-movies) in the 1950s and 1960s produced on limited budgets sometimes feature forced perspective shots which are completed without the proper knowledge of the physics of light used in cinematography, so foreground models can appear blurred or incorrectly exposed.
Forced perspective can be made more believable when environmental conditions obscure the difference in perspective. For example, the final scene of the famous movie Casablanca takes place at an airport in the middle of a storm, although the entire scene was shot in a studio. This was accomplished by using a painted backdrop of an aircraft, which was "serviced" by dwarfs standing next to the backdrop. A downpour (created in-studio) draws much of the viewer's attention away from the backdrop and extras, making the simulated perspective less noticeable.
Freeze frame shot - A freeze frame shot is used when one shot is printed in a single frame several times, in order to make an interesting illusion of a still photograph.
"Freeze frame" is also a drama medium term used in which, during a live performance, the actors/actresses will freeze at a particular, pre-meditated time, to enhance a particular scene, or to show an important moment in the play/production[like a celebration]. The image can then be further enhanced by spoken word, in which each character tells their personal thoughts regarding the situation, giving the audience further insight into the meaning, plot or hidden story of the play/production/scene. This is known as thought tracking, another Drama Medium.
A very memorable freeze frame is the end of François Truffaut's The 400 Blows, a New Wave film from 1959. Director George Roy Hill frequently made use of the technique when depicting the death of a character, as in The World According to Garp (1982) and in the memorable ending to the classic western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Hong Kong director John Woo also makes extensive use of freeze frames shots, usually to gain a better focus on to a character's facial expression or emotion at a critical scene. An early use of the freeze frame in classic Hollywood cinema was Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life where the first appearance of the adult George Bailey (played by James Stewart) on-screen is shown as a freeze frame. This technique is used quite a lot in the film Pieces of April. The director uses this to capture special moments that are very significant. Tim Davis' infamous 'wink' at the conclusion of Cocoon: The Return is widely regarded as an unsuccessful use of this technique; Roger Ebert, in his review of the film, remarked of its conclusion, "who is this guy and why is he winking after apparently killing the protagonists?!"A recent use of this techniques is in the opening titles of the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
High-angle shot - In film, a high angle shot is usually when the camera is located above the eyeline.
With this type of angle, the camera looks down on the subject and the point of focus often get "swallowed up" by the setting.
High angle shots also make the figure or object seem vulnerable or powerless.
High angle shots are usually used in film to make the moment more dramatic or if there is someone at a high level that the character below is talking to.
Long shot - In photography, film and video, a long shot (sometimes referred to as a full shot or a wide shot) typically shows the entire object or human figure and is usually intended to place it in some relation to its surroundings. It has been suggested that long-shot ranges usually correspond to approximately what would be the distance between the front row of the audience and the stage in live theatre. It is now common to refer to a long shot as a "wide shot" because it often requires the use of a wide-angle lens. When a long shot is used to set up a location and its participants in film and video, it is called an establishing shot.
A related notion is that of an extreme long shot. This can be taken from as much as a quarter of a mile away, and is generally used as a scene-setting, establishing shot. It normally shows an exterior, eg the outside of a building, or a landscape, and is often used to show scenes of thrilling action eg in a war film or disaster movie. There will be very little detail visible in the shot, as it is meant to give a general impression rather than specific information.
Long take - A long take is an uninterrupted shot in a film which lasts much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general, usually lasting several minutes. It can be used for dramatic and narrative effect if done properly, and in moving shots is often accomplished through the use of a dolly or Steadicam. Long takes of a sequence filmed in one shot without any editing are rare in films.
The term "long take" is used because it avoids the ambiguous meanings of "long shot", which can refer to the framing of a shot, and "long cut", which can refer to either a whole version of a film or the general editing pacing of the film. However, these two terms are sometimes used interchangeably with "long take".
When filming Rope (1948), Alfred Hitchcock intended for the film to have the effect of one long continuous take, but the cameras available could hold no more than 1000 feet of 35 mm film. As a result, each take used up to a whole roll of film and lasts up to 10 minutes. Many takes end with a dolly shot to a featureless surface (such as the back of a character's jacket), with the following take beginning at the same point by zooming out. The entire film consists of only 11 shots. (For a complete analysis of Hitchcock's hidden and conventional cuts in Rope, see David Bordwell's text "Poetics of Cinema" 2008.)
The length of a take was originally limited to how much film a camera could hold, but the advent of digital video has considerably lengthened the maximum length of a take. At least two theatrically-released feature films, Russian Ark and PVC-1 are filmed in one single take; others are composed entirely from a series of long takes, while many more may be well-known for one or two specific long takes within otherwise more conventionally edited films.
Sequence shot - A sequence shot involves both a long take and sophisticated camera movement; it is sometimes called by the French term plan-séquence. The use of the sequence shot allows for realistic and dramatically significant background and middle ground activity. Actors range about the set transacting their business while the camera shifts focus from one plane of depth to another and back again. Significant off-frame action is often followed with a moving camera, characteristically through a series of pans within a single continuous shot. An example of this is the first scene in the jury room of 12 Angry Men, where the jurors are getting settled into the room.
Directors known for long takes
* Chantal Akerman
* Robert Altman
* Paul Thomas Anderson
* Michelangelo Antonioni
* Alfonso Cuarón
* Brian De Palma
* Carl Theodor Dreyer in his sound films
* Bruno Dumont
* Michael Haneke
* Hou Hsiao-Hsien
* Alfred Hitchcock
* Miklos Jancso
* Jia Zhangke
* Mikhail Kalatozov
* Kenji Mizoguchi (see description of Mizoguchi's long take mastery in David Thomson's Biographical Dictionary of Film))
* Max Ophüls
* Otto Preminger
* Jean Renoir
* Jacques Rivette
* Martin Scorsese
* Alexander Sokurov
* Andrei Tarkovsky
* Béla Tarr
* Rob Tregenza
* Tsai Ming-Liang
* Apichatpong Weerasethakul
* Orson Welles
* Joe Wright
* Quentin Tarantino
* M. Night Shyamalan
Ideas and Reflections:
I Find all of the shots listed above incredibly interesting and I have had an idea of using freeze frames shot of empty streets for my own film.
* A scene in an action/adventure movie in which dinosaurs are threatening the heroes. By placing a miniature model of a dinosaur close to the camera, the dinosaur may look monstrously tall to the viewer, even though it is just closer to the camera.
Movies (especially B-movies) in the 1950s and 1960s produced on limited budgets sometimes feature forced perspective shots which are completed without the proper knowledge of the physics of light used in cinematography, so foreground models can appear blurred or incorrectly exposed.
Forced perspective can be made more believable when environmental conditions obscure the difference in perspective. For example, the final scene of the famous movie Casablanca takes place at an airport in the middle of a storm, although the entire scene was shot in a studio. This was accomplished by using a painted backdrop of an aircraft, which was "serviced" by dwarfs standing next to the backdrop. A downpour (created in-studio) draws much of the viewer's attention away from the backdrop and extras, making the simulated perspective less noticeable.
Freeze frame shot - A freeze frame shot is used when one shot is printed in a single frame several times, in order to make an interesting illusion of a still photograph.
"Freeze frame" is also a drama medium term used in which, during a live performance, the actors/actresses will freeze at a particular, pre-meditated time, to enhance a particular scene, or to show an important moment in the play/production[like a celebration]. The image can then be further enhanced by spoken word, in which each character tells their personal thoughts regarding the situation, giving the audience further insight into the meaning, plot or hidden story of the play/production/scene. This is known as thought tracking, another Drama Medium.
A very memorable freeze frame is the end of François Truffaut's The 400 Blows, a New Wave film from 1959. Director George Roy Hill frequently made use of the technique when depicting the death of a character, as in The World According to Garp (1982) and in the memorable ending to the classic western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Hong Kong director John Woo also makes extensive use of freeze frames shots, usually to gain a better focus on to a character's facial expression or emotion at a critical scene. An early use of the freeze frame in classic Hollywood cinema was Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life where the first appearance of the adult George Bailey (played by James Stewart) on-screen is shown as a freeze frame. This technique is used quite a lot in the film Pieces of April. The director uses this to capture special moments that are very significant. Tim Davis' infamous 'wink' at the conclusion of Cocoon: The Return is widely regarded as an unsuccessful use of this technique; Roger Ebert, in his review of the film, remarked of its conclusion, "who is this guy and why is he winking after apparently killing the protagonists?!"A recent use of this techniques is in the opening titles of the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
High-angle shot - In film, a high angle shot is usually when the camera is located above the eyeline.
With this type of angle, the camera looks down on the subject and the point of focus often get "swallowed up" by the setting.
High angle shots also make the figure or object seem vulnerable or powerless.
High angle shots are usually used in film to make the moment more dramatic or if there is someone at a high level that the character below is talking to.
Long shot - In photography, film and video, a long shot (sometimes referred to as a full shot or a wide shot) typically shows the entire object or human figure and is usually intended to place it in some relation to its surroundings. It has been suggested that long-shot ranges usually correspond to approximately what would be the distance between the front row of the audience and the stage in live theatre. It is now common to refer to a long shot as a "wide shot" because it often requires the use of a wide-angle lens. When a long shot is used to set up a location and its participants in film and video, it is called an establishing shot.
A related notion is that of an extreme long shot. This can be taken from as much as a quarter of a mile away, and is generally used as a scene-setting, establishing shot. It normally shows an exterior, eg the outside of a building, or a landscape, and is often used to show scenes of thrilling action eg in a war film or disaster movie. There will be very little detail visible in the shot, as it is meant to give a general impression rather than specific information.
Long take - A long take is an uninterrupted shot in a film which lasts much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general, usually lasting several minutes. It can be used for dramatic and narrative effect if done properly, and in moving shots is often accomplished through the use of a dolly or Steadicam. Long takes of a sequence filmed in one shot without any editing are rare in films.
The term "long take" is used because it avoids the ambiguous meanings of "long shot", which can refer to the framing of a shot, and "long cut", which can refer to either a whole version of a film or the general editing pacing of the film. However, these two terms are sometimes used interchangeably with "long take".
When filming Rope (1948), Alfred Hitchcock intended for the film to have the effect of one long continuous take, but the cameras available could hold no more than 1000 feet of 35 mm film. As a result, each take used up to a whole roll of film and lasts up to 10 minutes. Many takes end with a dolly shot to a featureless surface (such as the back of a character's jacket), with the following take beginning at the same point by zooming out. The entire film consists of only 11 shots. (For a complete analysis of Hitchcock's hidden and conventional cuts in Rope, see David Bordwell's text "Poetics of Cinema" 2008.)
The length of a take was originally limited to how much film a camera could hold, but the advent of digital video has considerably lengthened the maximum length of a take. At least two theatrically-released feature films, Russian Ark and PVC-1 are filmed in one single take; others are composed entirely from a series of long takes, while many more may be well-known for one or two specific long takes within otherwise more conventionally edited films.
Sequence shot - A sequence shot involves both a long take and sophisticated camera movement; it is sometimes called by the French term plan-séquence. The use of the sequence shot allows for realistic and dramatically significant background and middle ground activity. Actors range about the set transacting their business while the camera shifts focus from one plane of depth to another and back again. Significant off-frame action is often followed with a moving camera, characteristically through a series of pans within a single continuous shot. An example of this is the first scene in the jury room of 12 Angry Men, where the jurors are getting settled into the room.
Directors known for long takes
* Chantal Akerman
* Robert Altman
* Paul Thomas Anderson
* Michelangelo Antonioni
* Alfonso Cuarón
* Brian De Palma
* Carl Theodor Dreyer in his sound films
* Bruno Dumont
* Michael Haneke
* Hou Hsiao-Hsien
* Alfred Hitchcock
* Miklos Jancso
* Jia Zhangke
* Mikhail Kalatozov
* Kenji Mizoguchi (see description of Mizoguchi's long take mastery in David Thomson's Biographical Dictionary of Film))
* Max Ophüls
* Otto Preminger
* Jean Renoir
* Jacques Rivette
* Martin Scorsese
* Alexander Sokurov
* Andrei Tarkovsky
* Béla Tarr
* Rob Tregenza
* Tsai Ming-Liang
* Apichatpong Weerasethakul
* Orson Welles
* Joe Wright
* Quentin Tarantino
* M. Night Shyamalan
Ideas and Reflections:
I Find all of the shots listed above incredibly interesting and I have had an idea of using freeze frames shot of empty streets for my own film.
Camera view, angle, movement, shot continued
Crane shot - In motion picture terminology, a crane shot is a shot taken by a camera on a crane. The most obvious uses are to view the actors from above or to move up and away from them, a common way of ending a movie. Some filmmakers like to have the camera on a boom arm just to make it easier to move around between ordinary set-ups. Most cranes accommodate both the camera and an operator, but some can be operated by remote control. They are usually, but not always, found in what are supposed to be emotional or suspenseful scenes. One example of this technique is the shots taken by remote cranes in the car-chase sequence of To Live and Die in L.A..
During the last few years, camera cranes have been miniaturized and costs have dropped so dramatically that most aspiring film makers have access to these tools. What was once a "Hollywood" effect is now available for under $400
Dolly zoom - The dolly zoom effect is an unsettling in-camera special effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception in film.
The effect is achieved by using the setting of a zoom lens to adjust the angle of view (often referred to as field of view) while the camera dollies (or moves) towards or away from the subject in such a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout. In its classic form, the camera is pulled away from a subject while the lens zooms in, or vice-versa. Thus, during the zoom, there is a continuous perspective distortion, the most directly noticeable feature being that the background appears to change size relative to the subject.
As the human visual system uses both size and perspective cues to judge the relative sizes of objects, seeing a perspective change without a size change is a highly unsettling effect, and the emotional impact of this effect is greater than the description above can suggest. The visual appearance for the viewer is that either the background suddenly grows in size and detail and overwhelms the foreground, or the foreground becomes immense and dominates its previous setting, depending on which way the dolly zoom is executed.
The effect was first developed by Irmin Roberts, a Paramount second-unit cameraman, and was famously used by Alfred Hitchcock in his film Vertigo.
The dolly zoom is commonly used by filmmakers to represent the sensation of vertigo, a "falling-away-from-oneself feeling" or a feeling of unreality, or to suggest that a character is undergoing a realization that causes him or her to reassess everything he or she had previously believed. After Hitchcock popularized the effect (he used it again for a climactic revelation in Marnie), the technique was used by many other filmmakers, and eventually became regarded as a gimmick or cliché. This was especially true after director Steven Spielberg repopularized the effect in his highly regarded film Jaws, in a memorable shot of a dolly zoom into Police Chief Brody's (Roy Scheider) stunned reaction at the climax of a shark attack on a beach (after a suspenseful build-up).
Spielberg used the technique again in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The effect was also used in Michael Jackson's Thriller video, just as the zombies are gathering. It was originally used within the reimagined Battlestar Galactica to depict the feeling experienced by characters when the ship utilizes faster-than-light travel. However, the technique was not used again until the fourth season.
A relatively slow and more subtle dolly zoom was also used in Martin Scorsese's 1990 film Goodfellas in the conversation scene between Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) and James 'Jimmy' Conway (Robert de Niro) set in a diner, with a view of the street forming the background of the shot.
Mathieu Kassovitz's French film, La Haine, on the other hand, features an especially apparent 16 second dolly zoom.
The Lion King, an animated film, simulated a zoom shot in the scene where young Simba realizes the sound in the canyon is a wildebeest stampede. It is not a standard dolly zoom shot, as the "camera" zooms in on Simba, but the background does pull away dramatically, providing a similar effect.
In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the effect is used without a foreground subject. The purpose of the shot is to emphasize the sense of unreality and fear Frodo feels as the Nazgûl approach, on the road to Bree. The shot is used similarly, with no foreground subject, in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, as Frodo is about to enter the cave of Shelob.
Many of the car reviews on the BBC television program Top Gear use a dolly zoom shot of the front of the car at speed.
Dutch angle - Dutch tilt, Dutch angle, oblique angle, German angle, canted angle, or Batman Angle are terms used for a cinematic tactic often used to portray the psychological uneasiness or tension in the subject being filmed. A Dutch angle is achieved by tilting the camera off to the side so that the shot is composed with the horizon at an angle to the bottom of the frame. Many Dutch angles are static shots at an obscure angle, but in a moving Dutch angle shot the camera can pivot, pan or track along the director/cinematographer's established diagonal axis for the shot.
A Dutch angle differs from a high-angle shot and low-angle shot (although Dutch angle shots are often combined with those for artistic and/or dramatic effect), in that those refer to placement of the camera in height relative to the subject (which for human subjects is mostly defined by a person's eyeline).
Dutch angles are frequently used by film directors who have a background in the visual arts, such as Tim Burton (in Edward Scissorhands, and Ed Wood), and Terry Gilliam (in Brazil, The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Tideland) to represent madness, disorientation, and/or drug psychosis. In the Evil Dead trilogy, Sam Raimi used Dutch angles to show that a character had become possessed.
Establishing shot - An establishing shot in film and television sets up, or establishes the context for a scene by showing the relationship between its important figures and objects. It is generally a long- or extreme-long shot at the beginning of a scene indicating where, and sometimes when, the remainder of the scene takes place.
Establishing shots may use famous landmarks to indicate the city where the action is taking place or has moved to, such as Big Ben to identify London, the Statue of Liberty to identify New York, the Sydney Opera House to identify Sydney, the Eiffel Tower to identify Paris or the Las Vegas Strip to identify Las Vegas.
Sometimes the viewer is guided in his understanding of the action. For example, an exterior shot of a building at night followed by an interior shot of people talking implies that the conversation is taking place at night inside that building - the conversation may in fact have been filmed on a studio set far from the apparent location, because of budget, permits or time limitations.
Alternatively, an establishing shot might just be a long shot of a room that shows all the characters from a particular scene. For example, a scene about a murder in a college lecture hall might begin with a shot that shows the entire room, including the lecturing professor and the students taking notes. A close-up shot can also be used at the beginning of a scene to establish the setting (such as, for the lecture hall scene, a shot of a pencil writing notes).
Establishing shots were more common during the classical era of filmmaking than they are now. Today's filmmakers tend to skip the establishing shot in order to move the scene along more quickly. In addition, scenes in mysteries and the like often wish to obscure the setting and its participants and thus avoid clarifying them with an establishing shot.
An establishing shot may also establish a concept, rather than a location. For example, opening with a martial arts drill visually establishes the theme of martial arts. A shot of rain falling could be an establishing shot, followed by more and more detailed look at the rain, culminating with individual raindrops falling. A film maker is colluding with his audience to provide a shorthand learned through a common cinematic cultural background.
An establishing shot should be two or three seconds - long enough for viewers to appreciate the scene. However, a good example of an establishing shot that breaks that rule can be found at the beginning of the film Wake in Fright, where it pans over the vast desert landscape of Australia, accompanied by unsettling music to set the mood for the whole film that the desert is a big and dangerous place. The pan shot lasts for about half a minute. An establishing shot of that length would be cumbersome if placed after the film had started, because by then the film should have been established and the story would be underway.
Follow shot - Follow shot or tracking shot is a specific camera shot in which the subject being filmed is seemingly pursued by the camera. The follow shot can be achieved through tracking devices, panning, the use of a crane, and zoom lenses resulting in different qualitative images but, nevertheless, recording a subject (performer) in motion.
# Elephant: Each character is followed continuously during their narrative time.
# 2:37: Each character is followed several times, in a style similar to that of the previously-mentioned Elephant.
# The Shining: The camera follows Danny as he rides his tricycle through the long hallways of the hotel.
Ideas and Reflections:
I am very interested in the Dolly Zoom effect and how it is achieved. I may attempt to use this camera technique in my own film.
During the last few years, camera cranes have been miniaturized and costs have dropped so dramatically that most aspiring film makers have access to these tools. What was once a "Hollywood" effect is now available for under $400
Dolly zoom - The dolly zoom effect is an unsettling in-camera special effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception in film.
The effect is achieved by using the setting of a zoom lens to adjust the angle of view (often referred to as field of view) while the camera dollies (or moves) towards or away from the subject in such a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout. In its classic form, the camera is pulled away from a subject while the lens zooms in, or vice-versa. Thus, during the zoom, there is a continuous perspective distortion, the most directly noticeable feature being that the background appears to change size relative to the subject.
As the human visual system uses both size and perspective cues to judge the relative sizes of objects, seeing a perspective change without a size change is a highly unsettling effect, and the emotional impact of this effect is greater than the description above can suggest. The visual appearance for the viewer is that either the background suddenly grows in size and detail and overwhelms the foreground, or the foreground becomes immense and dominates its previous setting, depending on which way the dolly zoom is executed.
The effect was first developed by Irmin Roberts, a Paramount second-unit cameraman, and was famously used by Alfred Hitchcock in his film Vertigo.
The dolly zoom is commonly used by filmmakers to represent the sensation of vertigo, a "falling-away-from-oneself feeling" or a feeling of unreality, or to suggest that a character is undergoing a realization that causes him or her to reassess everything he or she had previously believed. After Hitchcock popularized the effect (he used it again for a climactic revelation in Marnie), the technique was used by many other filmmakers, and eventually became regarded as a gimmick or cliché. This was especially true after director Steven Spielberg repopularized the effect in his highly regarded film Jaws, in a memorable shot of a dolly zoom into Police Chief Brody's (Roy Scheider) stunned reaction at the climax of a shark attack on a beach (after a suspenseful build-up).
Spielberg used the technique again in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The effect was also used in Michael Jackson's Thriller video, just as the zombies are gathering. It was originally used within the reimagined Battlestar Galactica to depict the feeling experienced by characters when the ship utilizes faster-than-light travel. However, the technique was not used again until the fourth season.
A relatively slow and more subtle dolly zoom was also used in Martin Scorsese's 1990 film Goodfellas in the conversation scene between Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) and James 'Jimmy' Conway (Robert de Niro) set in a diner, with a view of the street forming the background of the shot.
Mathieu Kassovitz's French film, La Haine, on the other hand, features an especially apparent 16 second dolly zoom.
The Lion King, an animated film, simulated a zoom shot in the scene where young Simba realizes the sound in the canyon is a wildebeest stampede. It is not a standard dolly zoom shot, as the "camera" zooms in on Simba, but the background does pull away dramatically, providing a similar effect.
In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the effect is used without a foreground subject. The purpose of the shot is to emphasize the sense of unreality and fear Frodo feels as the Nazgûl approach, on the road to Bree. The shot is used similarly, with no foreground subject, in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, as Frodo is about to enter the cave of Shelob.
Many of the car reviews on the BBC television program Top Gear use a dolly zoom shot of the front of the car at speed.
Dutch angle - Dutch tilt, Dutch angle, oblique angle, German angle, canted angle, or Batman Angle are terms used for a cinematic tactic often used to portray the psychological uneasiness or tension in the subject being filmed. A Dutch angle is achieved by tilting the camera off to the side so that the shot is composed with the horizon at an angle to the bottom of the frame. Many Dutch angles are static shots at an obscure angle, but in a moving Dutch angle shot the camera can pivot, pan or track along the director/cinematographer's established diagonal axis for the shot.
A Dutch angle differs from a high-angle shot and low-angle shot (although Dutch angle shots are often combined with those for artistic and/or dramatic effect), in that those refer to placement of the camera in height relative to the subject (which for human subjects is mostly defined by a person's eyeline).
Dutch angles are frequently used by film directors who have a background in the visual arts, such as Tim Burton (in Edward Scissorhands, and Ed Wood), and Terry Gilliam (in Brazil, The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Tideland) to represent madness, disorientation, and/or drug psychosis. In the Evil Dead trilogy, Sam Raimi used Dutch angles to show that a character had become possessed.
Establishing shot - An establishing shot in film and television sets up, or establishes the context for a scene by showing the relationship between its important figures and objects. It is generally a long- or extreme-long shot at the beginning of a scene indicating where, and sometimes when, the remainder of the scene takes place.
Establishing shots may use famous landmarks to indicate the city where the action is taking place or has moved to, such as Big Ben to identify London, the Statue of Liberty to identify New York, the Sydney Opera House to identify Sydney, the Eiffel Tower to identify Paris or the Las Vegas Strip to identify Las Vegas.
Sometimes the viewer is guided in his understanding of the action. For example, an exterior shot of a building at night followed by an interior shot of people talking implies that the conversation is taking place at night inside that building - the conversation may in fact have been filmed on a studio set far from the apparent location, because of budget, permits or time limitations.
Alternatively, an establishing shot might just be a long shot of a room that shows all the characters from a particular scene. For example, a scene about a murder in a college lecture hall might begin with a shot that shows the entire room, including the lecturing professor and the students taking notes. A close-up shot can also be used at the beginning of a scene to establish the setting (such as, for the lecture hall scene, a shot of a pencil writing notes).
Establishing shots were more common during the classical era of filmmaking than they are now. Today's filmmakers tend to skip the establishing shot in order to move the scene along more quickly. In addition, scenes in mysteries and the like often wish to obscure the setting and its participants and thus avoid clarifying them with an establishing shot.
An establishing shot may also establish a concept, rather than a location. For example, opening with a martial arts drill visually establishes the theme of martial arts. A shot of rain falling could be an establishing shot, followed by more and more detailed look at the rain, culminating with individual raindrops falling. A film maker is colluding with his audience to provide a shorthand learned through a common cinematic cultural background.
An establishing shot should be two or three seconds - long enough for viewers to appreciate the scene. However, a good example of an establishing shot that breaks that rule can be found at the beginning of the film Wake in Fright, where it pans over the vast desert landscape of Australia, accompanied by unsettling music to set the mood for the whole film that the desert is a big and dangerous place. The pan shot lasts for about half a minute. An establishing shot of that length would be cumbersome if placed after the film had started, because by then the film should have been established and the story would be underway.
Follow shot - Follow shot or tracking shot is a specific camera shot in which the subject being filmed is seemingly pursued by the camera. The follow shot can be achieved through tracking devices, panning, the use of a crane, and zoom lenses resulting in different qualitative images but, nevertheless, recording a subject (performer) in motion.
# Elephant: Each character is followed continuously during their narrative time.
# 2:37: Each character is followed several times, in a style similar to that of the previously-mentioned Elephant.
# The Shining: The camera follows Danny as he rides his tricycle through the long hallways of the hotel.
Ideas and Reflections:
I am very interested in the Dolly Zoom effect and how it is achieved. I may attempt to use this camera technique in my own film.
Types of close-up
There are various degrees of close-up depending on how tight (zoomed in) the shot is. The terminology varies between countries and even different companies, but in general these are:
* Medium Close Up ("MCU" on camera scripts): Half-way between a mid shot and a close-up. Usually covers the subject's head and shoulders.
* Close Up ("CU"): A certain feature, such as someone's head, takes up the whole frame.
* Extreme Close Up ("ECU" or "XCU"): The shot is so tight that only a fraction of the focus of attention, such as someone's eyes, can be seen.
* Lean-In: when the juxtaposition of shots in a sequence, usually in a scene of dialogue, starts with medium or long shots, for example, and ends with close-ups.
* Lean-Out: the opposite as a lean-in, moving from close-ups out to longer shots.
* Lean: when a lean-in is followed by a lean-out.
When the close-up is used in shooting, the focused on should not be put in the exactly middle of the frame. Instead, it should be located in the frame according to the law of golden section.
The earliest filmmakers — such as Thomas Edison, Auguste and Louis Lumière and Georges Méliès — tended not to use close-ups and preferred to frame their subjects in long shots. Film historians disagree as to which filmmaker first used a close-up, but D.W. Griffith used the shot extensively at an early date. For example, one of Griffith's short films, The Lonedale Operator (1911), makes significant use of a close-up of a wrench that a character pretends is a gun.
Close-ups may be more expensive than other shots due to the extra lighting and make-up needed.
Ideas and Reflections:
I will consider using all of the shot's listed above and I may even experiment with some of these shots. I have had an idea of using a a Medium Close Up of an object with dead plants on top of it.
* Medium Close Up ("MCU" on camera scripts): Half-way between a mid shot and a close-up. Usually covers the subject's head and shoulders.
* Close Up ("CU"): A certain feature, such as someone's head, takes up the whole frame.
* Extreme Close Up ("ECU" or "XCU"): The shot is so tight that only a fraction of the focus of attention, such as someone's eyes, can be seen.
* Lean-In: when the juxtaposition of shots in a sequence, usually in a scene of dialogue, starts with medium or long shots, for example, and ends with close-ups.
* Lean-Out: the opposite as a lean-in, moving from close-ups out to longer shots.
* Lean: when a lean-in is followed by a lean-out.
When the close-up is used in shooting, the focused on should not be put in the exactly middle of the frame. Instead, it should be located in the frame according to the law of golden section.
The earliest filmmakers — such as Thomas Edison, Auguste and Louis Lumière and Georges Méliès — tended not to use close-ups and preferred to frame their subjects in long shots. Film historians disagree as to which filmmaker first used a close-up, but D.W. Griffith used the shot extensively at an early date. For example, one of Griffith's short films, The Lonedale Operator (1911), makes significant use of a close-up of a wrench that a character pretends is a gun.
Close-ups may be more expensive than other shots due to the extra lighting and make-up needed.
Ideas and Reflections:
I will consider using all of the shot's listed above and I may even experiment with some of these shots. I have had an idea of using a a Medium Close Up of an object with dead plants on top of it.
Camera view, angle, movement, shot
Aerial shot - Aerial shots are usually done with a crane or with a camera attached to a special helicopter to view large landscapes. This sort of shot would be restricted to exterior locations. A good area to do this shot would be a scene that takes place on a building. If the aerial shot is of a character it can make them seem insignificant. Circular shots are also possible.
American shot - "American shot" is a translation of a phrase from French film criticism, "plan américain" and refers to a medium-long ("knee") film shot of a group of characters, who are arranged so that all are visible to the camera. The usual arrangement is for the actors to stand in an irregular line from one side of the screen to the other, with the actors at the end coming forward a little and standing more in profile than the others. The purpose of the composition is to allow complex dialogue scenes to be played out without changes in camera position. In some literature, this is simply referred to as a 3/4 shot.
The French critics thought it was characteristic of American films of the 1930s or 1940s; however, it was mostly characteristic of cheaper American movies, such as Charlie Chan mysteries where people collected in front of a fireplace or at the foot of the stairs in order to explain what happened a few minutes ago.
Howard Hawks legitimized this style in his films, allowing characters to act, even when not talking, when most of the audience would not be paying attention. It became his trademark style.
Bird's eye shot - In film, a Bird's eye shot refers to a shot looking directly down on the subject. The perspective is very foreshortened, making the subject appear short and squat. This shot can be used to give an overall establishing shot of a scene, or to emphasise the smallness or insignificance of the subjects. These shots are normally used for battle scenes or establishing where the character is. It is shot by lifting the camera up by hands or by hanging it off something strong enough to support it. For a scene that needs a large area shot, then it will most often likely to be lifted up by a crane or some other sort of machine.
Close-up - In film, television, still photography and the comic strip medium a close-up tightly frames a person or an object. Close-ups are one of the standard shots used regularly with medium shots and long shots. Close-ups display the most detail, but they do not include the broader scene. Moving in to a close-up or away from a close-up is a common type of zooming.
Close-ups are used in many ways, for many reasons. Close-ups are often used as cutaways from a more distant shot to show detail, such as characters' emotions, or some intricate activity with their hands. Close cuts to characters' faces are used far more often in television than in movies; they are especially common in soap operas. For a director to deliberately avoid close-ups may create in the audience an emotional distance from the subject matter.
Close-ups are used for distinguishing main characters. Major characters are often given a close-up when they are introduced as a way of indicating their importance. Leading characters will have multiple close-ups. There is a long-standing stereotype of insecure actors desiring a close-up at every opportunity and counting the number of close-ups they received. An example of this stereotype occurs when the character Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, announces "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up" as she is taken into police custody in the film's finale.
Close-up shots do not show the subject in the broad context of its surroundings. If overused, close-ups may leave viewers uncertain as to what they are seeing. Close-ups are rarely done with wide angle lenses, because perspective causes objects in the center of the picture to be unnaturally enlarged. Certain times, different directors will use wide angle lenses, because they can convey the message of confusion, and bring life to certain characters.
Ideas and Reflections:
I will consider using all of the shot's listed above and I may even experiment with some of these shots.
American shot - "American shot" is a translation of a phrase from French film criticism, "plan américain" and refers to a medium-long ("knee") film shot of a group of characters, who are arranged so that all are visible to the camera. The usual arrangement is for the actors to stand in an irregular line from one side of the screen to the other, with the actors at the end coming forward a little and standing more in profile than the others. The purpose of the composition is to allow complex dialogue scenes to be played out without changes in camera position. In some literature, this is simply referred to as a 3/4 shot.
The French critics thought it was characteristic of American films of the 1930s or 1940s; however, it was mostly characteristic of cheaper American movies, such as Charlie Chan mysteries where people collected in front of a fireplace or at the foot of the stairs in order to explain what happened a few minutes ago.
Howard Hawks legitimized this style in his films, allowing characters to act, even when not talking, when most of the audience would not be paying attention. It became his trademark style.
Bird's eye shot - In film, a Bird's eye shot refers to a shot looking directly down on the subject. The perspective is very foreshortened, making the subject appear short and squat. This shot can be used to give an overall establishing shot of a scene, or to emphasise the smallness or insignificance of the subjects. These shots are normally used for battle scenes or establishing where the character is. It is shot by lifting the camera up by hands or by hanging it off something strong enough to support it. For a scene that needs a large area shot, then it will most often likely to be lifted up by a crane or some other sort of machine.
Close-up - In film, television, still photography and the comic strip medium a close-up tightly frames a person or an object. Close-ups are one of the standard shots used regularly with medium shots and long shots. Close-ups display the most detail, but they do not include the broader scene. Moving in to a close-up or away from a close-up is a common type of zooming.
Close-ups are used in many ways, for many reasons. Close-ups are often used as cutaways from a more distant shot to show detail, such as characters' emotions, or some intricate activity with their hands. Close cuts to characters' faces are used far more often in television than in movies; they are especially common in soap operas. For a director to deliberately avoid close-ups may create in the audience an emotional distance from the subject matter.
Close-ups are used for distinguishing main characters. Major characters are often given a close-up when they are introduced as a way of indicating their importance. Leading characters will have multiple close-ups. There is a long-standing stereotype of insecure actors desiring a close-up at every opportunity and counting the number of close-ups they received. An example of this stereotype occurs when the character Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, announces "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up" as she is taken into police custody in the film's finale.
Close-up shots do not show the subject in the broad context of its surroundings. If overused, close-ups may leave viewers uncertain as to what they are seeing. Close-ups are rarely done with wide angle lenses, because perspective causes objects in the center of the picture to be unnaturally enlarged. Certain times, different directors will use wide angle lenses, because they can convey the message of confusion, and bring life to certain characters.
Ideas and Reflections:
I will consider using all of the shot's listed above and I may even experiment with some of these shots.
Cinematic techniques
The use of different shot sizes can influence the meaning which an audience will interpret.
The size of the subject in frame depends on two things: the distance the camera is away from the subject and the focal length of the camera lens.
Common shot sizes:
* Extreme close-up: Focuses on a single facial feature, such as lips and eyes.
* Close-up: May be used to show tension.
* Medium shot: Often used, but considered bad practice by many directors, as it often denies setting establishment and is generally less effective than the Close-up.
* Long shot
* Establishing shot: Mainly used at a new location to give the audience a sense of locality.
Choice of shot size is also directly related to the size of the final display screen the audience will see. A Long shot has much more dramatic power on a large theater screen, whereas the same shot would have less of an impact on a small TV or computer screen.
Ideas and Reflections:
I will consider using all of the shot's listed above and I may even experiment with some of these shots. I have an idea of opening the film with a close up of something. 28 Days Later and Koyaanisqatsi are strong influences as I find the cinematography in both films very powerful.
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