{Form Research

Shona Traynor & Xavier Vale

Katz, Steven D., Film Directing: Shot by Shot, Michael Wise Productions, 1991

A close-up shot has connotes an image of vulnerability, intimacy or an intrusion of the character’s privacy.

The objects can be positioned dead-centre, which would connote an image of importance to the film, or off-centre, displaying more of the background in the shot.

The use of off-centre shots are more conventional in films, as the take advantage of the wide screens.

The Close Up

The medium shot works well if there are between one to five characters in a frame. Any more than this, however, requires a full shot.

The camera shot is used mainly in dialogue scenes, capturing both the actor’s facial expressions and clear gestures.

The Medium Shot

The long shot has not been used as much in recent years, ‘relegated to the function of an establishing shot’.

These are used to establish both a character and a specific location in the same frame, but needs dialogue to work effectively.

A positive of having a long shot is that the audience can see the full body language of the actor.

The Long Shot

These shots are useful for dialogue scenes between two people. These are places ‘just inside…the line of sight of the subjects.’

They also enable a different perspective to be given, allowing the mis-en-scene to be shown in a slightly different angle.

Over the Shoulder Shots

The position of lighting can greatly influence the connotations a certain shot has.

For example, the villain in an action movie would have shadows constantly on him, highlighting his dark and evil personality.

Lighting

To film dialogue, there are several different ways of composing it.

Face-to-Face

This allows for the juxtaposition of characters, to be squared off against one another.

Over the Shoulder

These can vary from low level shots, capturing the majority of the actor’s body, and tight OTS, resulting in the isolation of the character’s face. The closer it zooms in, the more intimate the shot becomes to the audience.

Filming Dialogue

Shoulder-to-Shoulder

This enables the actors to ‘be seen in full face or in profile’ within a single shot., allowing the audience to see the relationship between the two or more characters in the shot.

Filming Dialogue

For interior scenes, there are only three positions the camera can be in, and conventionally, only the middle ground and background shots are used.

MIDDLE GROUND: The camera is placed out of the action, but is positioned in such a way that all the actors have a different depth. This reduces the amount of cutting needed.

BACKGROUND: More cutting would be applicable for this camera shot, as the majority of actors in the frame have approximately the same depth of field.

Depth of a Frame

This is constantly in films, as the subjects are positioned very carefully to portray a specific message to the audience.

It brings the audience into the circle of action, used in this way to create a certain level of intimacy.

CLOSED: In this situation, it is closed framing because we cannot see both character’s expressions.

Open Framing

This gives an even higher level of intimacy to the audience. CLOSED: In this situation, where you can see both of the character’s expressions clearly.

Closed Framing

First-person POV

These have been awkward in narrative-based films because we are deprived of the actor’s facial features and expression.

Omniscient POV

This only works if we have some insight into the character, eg. VoiceoverPoint of View

The Pan shot is used to:

Include a wider range of space not available through a fixed frame

Follow the action/subject as it moves.

Connect two or more points of interest to the audience.

It is also used to signify the emphasize the depth of a specific shot.

The Pan

FOLLOWING IS A SUMMARY OF THINGS WE WILL TAKE FORWARD IN OUR PRODUCTION

Depth of a Frame

The positioning of the cameras will be important, especially in the bedroom scene.

Open and Closed Framing

We could use this in a bedroom scene – the female character lying in bed - the other side is empty. This could connote her loneliness.

The Pan

It could take in the surroundings as she goes to post the letter in the post-box.

Over-the-Shoulder

This could be used in our preliminary tasks as there might not be a lot of conversation in our final production.

Summary