Cinematography: Theory and Practice: Image Making for Cinematographers, Directors, and Videographers

contents introduction ......................................................................................... ix filmspace ............................................................................................... 1 Cinematic technique .............................................................................. 2 Subjective and objective POV............................................................. 6 The building blocks of scenes........................................................... 9 Character shots ...................................................................................... 12 The fine art of cheating ....................................................................... 15 The master scene method.................................................................. 17 . . ................................................................................................ Trans~t~ons 19 Coverage................................................................................................... 22 P16n scene .............................................................................................. 25 Hitchcock's rule ..................................................................................... 26 Triple take or overlapping method................................................. 27 Montage ................................................................................................... 28 Conclusion:a mixture of techniques .............................................. 28

visual language ....................................................................... . .

29 Design prlnc~ples ................................................................................... 31 The three dimensional field ............................................................... 34 Depth........................................................................................................ 34 Forces of visual organization............................................................. 37 .. Film and video compos~t~on .............................................................. 43 Basic composition rules for people.................................................44

lens language ................................................................................ 4s

The lens and the frame........................................................................ 46 Lens perspective.................................................................................... 47 Deep focus................................................................................... 48 Compression of space ............................................................. 49 Manipulating perspective...................................................... 50 Selective focus............................................................................ 51 Image control........................................................................................ 54

camera dynamics....................................................................

61 Motivationand invisible technique................................................ 62 Types of moves..................................................................................... 64 Moving shots .......................................................................................... 66 Camera mounting............................................................................... 68 Dolly terminology ................................................................................. 69 Cranes ....................................................................................................... 72 Car shots .................................................................................................. 74 Aerial shots .............................................................................................. 75 Other types of camera mounts .................................................... 76 Steadicam .................................................................................... 76 Motion control........................................................................................ 77

cinematic continuity .................................................... . .

79 Types of cont~nulty............................................................................... 80 Continuity of content ............................................................. 80 Continuity of movement........................................................ 80 .. Continuity of posltlon.............................................................. 81

Continuity of time ..................................................................... 81 The line......................................................................................................83 What establishes the line?..................................................... 84 . . Screen d~rect~on .....................................................................................84 Deliberately breaking the rules............................................ 85 Reverse.......................................................................................... 87 Cheating the turnaround ....................................................... 88 Cuttability.................................................................................................90 Other issues in continuity ..................................................................90 Introductions .......................................................................................... 96 98 Other editorial issues in shooting ................................................... Jump cuts.................................................................................... 98 The six types of cuts .................................... ...................................... 99

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exposure ............................................................................................... 103

Light as energy ....................................................................................104 Flstop...................................................................................................... 104 Exposure. I50 and lighting relationships...................................104 Inverse square law and cosine law................................... 105 IS0 speeds .............................................................................105 Light and film ....................................................................................... 106 Densitometry...........................................................................109 Brightness perception ..........................................................113 Contrast .....................................................................................113 Determining exposure ..................................................................... 116 The tools .............................................................................................. 117 The Zone System .............................................................................. 118 The grey scale ..................................................................................121 Place and fall ............................................................................124 Exposure and the camera....................................................125

color theory ......................................................................................127

The nature of light..............................................................................128 Color perception...................................................................129 The color wheel...........................................................................131 Hue, chroma and value........................................................133 .. Color mlxlng............................................................................. 135 Complementary .....................................................................135 Advancing and retreating color ........................................135 Film and video colorspace .............................................................. 135 Color harmonies &the interaction of color .............................. 135 Color models .................................................................................. 138 Additive colors ........................................................................138 Subtractivecolors ..................................................................138 The CIE color system .............................................................139 Digital and electronic color ........................................................ 140

the tools of lighting .......................................................

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HMI .......................................................................................................... 142 Xenons.................................................................................................... 145 Carbon arcs...........................................................................................146 Tungsten fresnels ...............................................................................147 PARS......................................................................................................... 149 HMI PARS............................................................................................. 151

CINEMATICTECHNIQUE

1.1. (preyious page) The Lody From Pictures, 1948). Shonghor (Columb~a 1.2. (top) Scene from an early silent film (QuoVodis, 1909) - literally a filmed play on a stage set.

When the motion picture camera was invented in the latc nincteentli century. the first efforts were st~a~ghtfonvardpresentations of simple events: a man sneezing, workers leaving the factory, a train pullmg into the station. When the filmmakers turned to dramatic presenlations, they conceived of them as "filmed plays" -they positioned the camera as if it were a member of the audiencc scated in the auditorium. In this type offilm, you can never get away from the feeling you are looking at the scene from this detached, impersonal point of view. It IS an easy analogy to say that this proscenium approach to shooting is much like filming a play (Figures 1.2 and 1.3), but therc are important differences: when viewing a play you are still sceing three-dimensional objects, alhett at a distance and more importantly. the actors (aside from mimes) speak. Fairly early on. filmmakers began to realize that thc flatness of the screen and its other limitations demanded more. Their first response was to break the action up into shots and sequences of shots; t h ~ sis soinetimes called separation. As soon as the idea of shots is introduced it is clear that a logical and expressive arrangement of the shots and sequences is essential. Shots are "fragments of reality." It is the filmmaker who decides which fragments and in what order the audience will bec the overall reality. It is the filmmaker who decides that this piece and are what the audience sees and in what order thev see -- that ...-.rniece - - - - --them. It is not unlike the old parable of the three blind men touching an elephant to understand what it is like. Since each one touches a different nart of the elenhant. each one has a com~letelvdifferent idea of what the wholc a h a 1 is like. Filmmaking k a litilc like the idea of someone guiding the three men: first this part. ignore that part. then touch this part, and so on. In this way, all three blind men will have the same idea of what the whole elephant is likc. But it will bc the idea that the guide wants them to havc. and it won't necessarily be the "true" picture of what an elephant is really Like. More i~nportantlyhe can change that point of view as he wishes: given the same elephant. dozens of different points of view are possible. This is the essence of cinema. The set with th!: props and actors on it is a three-dm~ensionalreality. It is what it is. By choosing what pieces of this rcality the audience sees and arranging them in a certain order, the filmmaker introduces a point of view. Imagine ifthe filmmaker has a little viewer made of cardboard. It sort of like a truncated. four sided pyramid (Figure 1.5) which is reminiscent of the "perspectival apparatus" used by artists as shown in this scene from Peter Greenaway's Tlw Drurrglftsniuni. Contract (Figure 1.4). The audience will always see what is at the small end of the box. ~

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She uses the knife to cut his bandages. He looks at the sunsct and he can see. He kisses her. ,Quite a little story: happiness, sadhess, love, sus ense, fear and loathing. then finallv cotnplete iov and again love. in seven shots. ' ~ h r o w i na shot of dog ind you've got: belluva picture. This kind of turning expectations on their head is oRen used in its most obvious form% horror films: Close on: a girl looks around nervously, fearfully. Closc on: a hand grabs her shoulder. Close on: shc screams in terror! Wide shot: both ofthem. It's her boyfriend. What inakes this different than if we had just done it as one static wide shol? What technique of cinema have we used here? Suppose we had done it all as just one wide shot? Even thoughshe is looking l . l l . ~ h e basicscene can be v,ewed around and it's dark, the whole time we see this bigfhendly looking fromanearlyinfinitevarietyofpoints guy standing behind her, smiling. Sure he grabs her shoulder and of view and lens lengths. she's startled, but clearly it's non-dangerous and innocent. So what if she looks a little nervous, what could she be concerned about that's any worse than maybe she thinks she saw a rat? It's a completely different scene: no questions, no expectations and certainly no reversal of expectattons. Now we're ready for the next technique. The next step is cmcial, as is an analogy for the next significant imovation in film technique. Let's take our collection of viewers and walk around anywhere we want in the scenc. Not only can we isolate pieces and show them in any order we want; we can ITOW see each isolated,piece from a differcnt angle. Wc can also move higher or lower (F~gure1.1 I). We can start with a close view of something and move to another close view. We can start with a close view and move back to see a wider view. We can tilt the viewer so that what the audience sees is off-kilter or disorienting. The possibilities are limitless. There arc two more important elements to add before we move on. We have to add something to our viewer analogy. It is no longer a cardboard box - now it's real optics. This means that as the box gets longer and narrower, the perception of depth gets shallower things seen1 compressed, closer together (we'll talk about why in the chapter oa Qp11e.s).Not only docs the perception compression of space get greater, but even if two things are fairly close together (one behind !be other) one ofthem is in focus and the other isn't. As we shall see, focus is an important storytelling tool. As the box gets wider and shorter, the opposite happens: the perceptlon of the depth of the view expands. Two things, one behind the other, even if they are closc together in reality, will now seem to be separated b agreat dtstance, but both of them will still be in focus. Let's take tgese little cardboard viewers as our analogy and review what wc can do with them. Change the position from which we see the scene. Isolate certain parts of the scene. Move from one isolated part to another. Move the view higher or lower. Change the perception of depth.

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FILMSPACE

Let's give it a name - this method of separating the three-dimensional reality into pieces and showing - them LO the audience in an arranged order. Lci's call it filmspace. Filmspace is a different way of viewing a real scene. In fact it is a whole collection of ways of viewing a real three-dimensional scene. And don't forget that we can tell thc little eye to close while we change to a different viewcr or move it to a different place. This

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OTS A variation of the close-up is the over-the-shoulder or OTS (Figure 1.27), looking over the shoulder of one actor to a medium or CU of the other. The over-the-shoulder is a variant of a connectiag shot. It ties the two characters together and helps put us in the position of' the person being addressed. As it is very engaging and involving in this way, the OTS is a major part of the vocabulary of narrative filmmaking. Even when we are in close shot of the person talking. tlie OTS keeps the other actor in the scene. 1.27. An over-theshoulder;one of the most fundamental shots in the CUTAWAY camera vocabulary. A cutaway is any shot of some person or thing in the scene other than the main characters we arc covering hut that is still related to the scene. An example would he a cutaway to the clock on the wall or to the cat sleeping on the floor. Cutaways may emghasize some action in the scene, provide additional information or e someth~ng that the character looks at or points to. An important use of cutaways is as safeties for the editor. If the editor is somehow having trouble cutting the scene, a cutaway to something else can he used to solve the problem. A good rule of thumb is if there is any uncertainty about the coverage of a sccne: always shoot some sort of cutaways s a f e t y first! REACTION SHOT A specific type of cutaway is the reaction shot. Something happens or a character says something and we cut to another person in another part of the room reacting to what happened or what was said. This is different from coverage within the master. A reaction shot is a good way to get a safety cutaway for the editor. The more a cutaway is directly related to the scene, the better it will cut into die flow. Sometimes the term just refers to the other side of the dialog. Some reaction shots do involve the main characters in the sccne. Say we have a medium shot side view of the detective looking out the window with binoculars, then we cut to a shot of what he sees 1.28.(below)An example ofa practi- through the binoculars - thegang boss he has under surveillance. If cal insert from High Noon. we want to come around to the front and see his eyes widen at what 1.29. (bopom)An "afmosphere,"cutlie sees. then we say we want to grab his reaction shot. away - ~tconveys ilnle or no informatton specific to the story but it This kind of close-up of his facial expression demands to he shot reinforces and adds to the mood and from front on and w ~ t hhim facing the direction he was looking tone of the scene and possibly also through the binoculars. Anything else just won't work as wcll. In the rhythm of the cunlng.Th~sone is from Nine ond 1/2 Weeks (MGMI this particular case, it would probably call for cheating him back Warner Brothers.1986);En lish direc- from the window because otherwise there is probably no place to tors jn particular seem to ;lave a real put the camera unless we have a fire escape or a crane. It is unlikely affinltyfor cutawa s of cats and use to be worth it to move the entire camera rig and crew out onto thc them with great efkctiveness. firc escape or onto a crane for just one shot. If it is part of a series of shots needed from that vantage point. that's a different matter. o r course. Except in rare cases, just having the actor step back from thc window three feet to fit the camera in makes for a completely unnoticeable cheat. On the other hand, ashot that includes the glass in the foreground call be useful - it is not unusual to fly in a set piece of a matching window just for this effect. It's quick, cheap and effective; it's just up to the DP to create a matching lighting ambiance to sell it. INSERT An insen is an isolated, self-contained piece of a larger scene. Example: she is reading a book. We could just shoot the book ovcr lier shoulder, but it is usually hard to read from that distance. Inserts tend to fit into a fcw general categories: Practical inserts. The clock on the wall, as in Figure 1.28. is a practical insert. as 1s tlie headlines on tlic newspaper or cinematography 14

hands as the clock is being set. The camera swings up as the culprit looks down the street to see if anyone is coming. pulls back as the man runs to the right, and follows his shadow along a building wall to a convertible parked behind the building. This anonymous man puts the bomb in the trunk of the convertible and runs away as a man and a woman emerge from the back door of a nightclub and climb Into the vehicle. Pulling away from camera, the car circles behind the building as the camera moves to a high angle to show it pulling out on the far side and turning right onto the street. The camera then racespast and ahead of the car. cranin down to eye level and panning back as the car moves toward the ens. Newlyweds Vargas (Charlton Heston) and b s wife (Janet Leigh) cross the street in front of the car, and the camera moves close to follow them as they walk ahead of the auto. 1 1 e camera again moves ahead, to the American side of the checkpomt. The y a r d and the driver chat with Vargas, congratulating him for nabbing a local crime boss while the female passenger complains that she hears a ticking sound. After the auto passes them, the camera moves in close and picks up the conversation hctween Vargas and his new bride, "Do you realize I haven't k~ssedyou in over an hour'? As they draw close, a temfic explosion occurs off-screen leA. Only then is there a cut. to thc Vargas' view of the exploding con\cniblc. Wc can bc sure there were big smiles and lots ufbackslan~inn .. - after they had a "buy" take on that one. This brings us to the question: what IS the cinematic purpose of this elaborate and difficult shot? The answer is surprisingly s~mple: for the entire three and a half minutes, during all the introductions. the discussion, the business and incidental didog-there is a bomb ticking! Notice that in the first frame (Figure 1.43) the timcr of the bomb m set in tight close-up. The entire se uence is paid off by the first cut awav from the shot as the car exnlo es nearbv. .(Figure - 1.46).. By not cutting away, by not employing'any elliptical cuts or transitions. not even a simple close-up t o introduce~acharacter - the scene never lets us go. There is no subconscious escape hatch for the viewer, no possibility of trickery. not unlike the magician saying "nothing up my sleeve." We know that bomb is ticking and we clearly saw that the timer was set for just a few minutes. Thus Welles employs the long take (or plan scene method) as a technique of building and maintaining dramatic tension in the most direci and engag& way: all the while serving all of the various other story purposcs we have mentioned.

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HITCHCOCK'S RULE The scene also contains an excellent example of what we will call "Hitchcock's Rule." so called because it was Alfred Hitchcock who first dclincated it in his discussions wtth Francois Truffaut in -~ book Hicchcock/TiifJbt~~ The rule is: The sizc of an object in the frame should equal its impor tance in the story at that moment. Here. as Quinlan takes out the gun, the entire tone of the scene changes (Figure 1.47). Grandi has thought he was a co-conspirator with Quinlan; it is at this moment that he realizes he is to be the victim. The low wide angle with the camera placed just beside QuinIan emphasizes the gun, but shows the victim in the same shot. Welles had used the same method in an earlier film. The Ladv Frmr Shanghai. where he is the victim rather than the aggressor (Figure 1.48). In that scene, the gun is also crucial. He is to fire the gun to draw attention and get himself arrested for a murder that did nut occur. He seerns to realize he is the victim of a cruel plot, but he fires the gun anyway. ~~

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