Texts, contexts and culture: camera work
Objectives:
- To look at the importance and function of camerawork
- To look at basic elements of camerawork
- To look at creative uses of camera work.
Camera work is the primary grammar of visual story telling. The shot is the mise-en-scene/meaning and the editing is the narrative structure.
Basic elements of camera work
The shot- this affects the emotional and psychological relationship with the character and setting through the composition and the speed (how fast the characters move in the frame)
Movement- this affects the emotional and psychological relationship with the character and the setting, through changes in the in visual space and action.
Basic shots
Wide Shot (WS)- the establishing shot (A common mistake in documentary making especially the first one is that there aren't enough establishing shots/general views)
Medium shot (MS)- the character dominates the frame
Close-up (CU)- the face or a specific object dominates the frame
Extreme close-up (ECU)- selected part or object fills the frame (these should be used rarely and artfully)
(One reason to use this shot in a documentary can be to show extreme emotion, however it can be seen as manipulative)
"Size of image is important to the emotion, particularly when you're using that image to have the audience identify with"- Hitchcock
Classical framing and composition
Rule of thirds- the subject in the scene is placed somewhere with aesthetic interest for the audience.
"Never use a shot without it having a clear dramatic purpose"- Hitchcock
Angle and speed
High Angle-the objective of a high angle shot is to alienate the character, it puts them in isolation.
Low Angle-this angle has the objective of emphasising dominance, it's often used for a hero shots or menace/bad intentions.
Dutch/tilt angle- disorientates and creates a psychological tension.
Expressionism
Angled shots are common features of expressionism particularly classic German expressionism films between the 20s and the 30s. It presents the world purely from a subjective perspective, disorientating it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists sought to express the meaning of an emotional experience rather then physical reality.
Speed
Slow and fast motion, these effects alter the audience's perceptual or emotional response to dramatic action.
Motion and Emotion
Why do we move the camera?
- To heighten action or emotion
- To convey objective or subjective viewpoints
- To refocus the audience's attention within the scene
- To explore or change setting/environment
"I believe in using camera movement when it helps tell the story more effectively...I think one of the first essentials of moving the camera is that the eye should not be aware of it"- Hitchcock
Hitchcock's "Frenzy" 1972 Following a murder narrative
Hitchcock's use of a reverse crane and tracking shot is an example of alienation (he is emotionally and psychically removing the audience from what is going to happen). Alienation is the extent to which someone has a critical distance from a production, the more immersive a piece the greater the extent we are drawn into the narrative, however by alienating the audience they are able to be critical and objective of the production.
Breaking the 4th wall
Camera moving techniques:
- Pan, Tilt or Zoom
- Handheld and Steadicam
- Dolly and Crane
Halloween 1978 Following a murder narrative: Subjective Point of View (POV)
Use of movement in Halloween
- Heightens action and emotion through a subjective POV
- Switches between a subjective (steadicam) and an objective (crane) viewpoint, it makes the audience complicit in what the character has done and the alienates them.
- Refocuses the audience's attention within the scene
- Explore the character's relation to the environment
Elements of visual style (Bordwell)
- Denotative- directing attention
- Expressive- bringing out or magnifying meaningful qualities
- Decorative- flourishes or stylistic patterns that are independent or semi-independent of narrative design
- Symbolic functions- invoking abstract concepts
Use of handheld filming in documentaries
- Heightens action and emotion- conveys urgency
- Dynamics of transitions- moving from one location to another
- Places character in the context of the documentary
- Authenticity
Overall how does the camera serve the filmmaker and the audience
Camera movements and angles can provide a narrative through visual story telling, help the aesthetics of the production (framing the mise-en-scene), it gives the audience and insight and can help them identify with a character and also helps them to interpret the plot through subjective or objective points of view.
Texts, context, culture: editing
Objectives:
- To understand what editing is and how it serves the narrative
- Explore different schools and theories of editing
- To look at the use of editing in cinema, television and documentary
What is editing?
- Editing is the process of putting visual material and sound in a sequence
- It constructs either a linear or non-linear narrative
- It manipulates time (condenses, lengthens, flashbacks/flash forwards)
- It juxtaposes ideas and concepts
Long take continuous narratives
An example of a continuous narrative can be Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope" 1948, Hitchcock uses multiple wipes in order to hide the edits in his famous long takes.
Another example is "Russian Ark" (2002), where the takes are one long continuous movement.
Creating visual meaning
Meaning can be made through mise-en-scene and cinematography, this allows implicit meaning within the shots an effect also achieved through editing.
Surrealist cinema
Surrealism is a modern approach to film, it's characterised by the rejection of dramatic psychology and the frequent use of shocking imagery. "Un Chien Andalou" (1929) directed by Luis Bunuel is a surrealist film that follows the characterisation of surrealism, shocking imagery.
Four key elements of editing
- Spatial= the relationship between different spaces and the editors manipulation of them
- Temporal= the manipulation of time within the film in relation to order, duration and frequency
- Rhythmic= the manipulation of how long the shot lasts: accents, beats and the tempo
- Graphic= the relationship between pictorial qualities of shots or scenes
Why is editing important?
- Creates a strong visual narrative from simple descriptions on a script or unedited rushes
- The most creative aspect of filmmaking
- A good editor can make a mediocre shot work/a mediocre editor can ruin a good shot
- Shooting ratios have an impact on editing (Film= 10:1, Documentary= 60-100:1)
Two schools of editing theory
- Classical Hollywood continuity= primarily used in mainstream cinema, TV drama and classical formal documentary. This kind of editing has a set of techniques used to create a cohesive sense of space and continuous time by maintaining consistent graphic, spatial and temporal relationships between shots.
- Soviet Montage= influences still felt in avantgarde documentary filmmaking, and independent/experimental cinema
180 degree rule
Scenes are constructed along an axis of action, there is then a 180 degree arc on one side of that line the camera is free to move within that arc with the assurance the characters will be in the correct places. This means eye lines are consistent and screen directions are consistent across the shots.
Eye line match shot
The first shot will have the character looking offscreen, the second shot then shows us what the character is looking at.
Shot-reverse shot
Alternates between two shots framed from reverse angles, often it's used to depict conversations.
Match on action
The action has already started in the first shot and completes in the second, this maintains continuous action across edits.
Soviet Montage
Soviet montage is a formal theory and a technique where editing serves an ideological purpose. There is no escapist drama through the continuity, instead it challenges the audience to think and take action through image montage.
Its key filmmakers and theorists were: Sergei Eisenstein, Lev Kuleshov, Dziga Vertov
Soviet montage ideology
- A set of opinions, beliefs and assumptions that you use to think about and relate to the world
- Ideology is not an objective truth but more a perceived truth
- It is common to conceive the ideology of being the only way of understanding the world
- Soviet filmmakers served a communist ideology
Eisenstein on montage
Eisenstein argues that montage (especially intellectual montage), is an alternative to continuity editing "Montage in conflict" where new ideas emerge from the collisions within the montage sequence.
Kuleshov effect
A mental phenomenon by which viewers find more meaning from the interaction of two sequential shot than from a single shot in isolation. Each single shot has its own intrinsic meaning and when it's put with another shot it has a new meaning.
Five principles of Soviet montage
- Metric= editing that follows a specific tempo, cutting to the next shot regardless of the action in the frame
- Rhythmic= similar to metric but allows for visual continuity from edit to edit
- Tonal= uses the emotional meaning of the shot
- Overtonal/Associative= a fusion of metric, rhythmic and tonal montage intended to have a more intense effect on the audience
- Intellectual= editing together shots which, when combined convey an intellectual or metaphorical meaning.
Modern documentary editing
- Evidentiary editing= explicit meaning of edits is reinforced by narration or dialogue. Shots are often illustrative, and usually maintain some visual continuity. In evidentiary editing, expositional images "...illustrate, illuminate, evoke, or act in counterpoint to what is said...[we] take our cue from the commentary and understand the images as evidence or demonstration..." Bill Nichols, Introduction to Documentary (2001)
- Dynamic editing= modern narrative style dominated by jump cuts and other elliptical edits that often ignores classical visual continuity. In dynamic editing concepts of matching and continuity rarely apply. Shots are ordered by meaning but not necessarily by their relationship to each other in time.
Overall from this double lecture I've reinforced previous understanding of shot types in film and TV as well as learning about how edits can change the meaning of a shot to suit what it is needed for. I enjoyed this lecture and found it really interesting.
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