1 What is the role of the cinematographer in film making?

In technical terms, the cinematographer of DoP is there to control the camera, lighting, set design etc. crews on the film set. The job is to achieve an artistically crafted image, but modern day cinematographers find elusive meaning within the images that further the story or provide the audience with a deeper meaning. After the release of Orson Wells Citizen Kane, filmmakers realised how much of the story can be told through the images alone. Cinematographers can achieve these meanings through many things, including lighting choices, shot composition, colour and mise en scene. Whats important are the lights you dont turn on Allen Daviau.

Legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins said I feel every shot, every camera move, every frame, and the way you frame something and the choice of lens, I see all those things are really important on every shot. This shows how much emotion and connection he has to everything he creates, it seems to me that the key to being successful with cinematography is to have a pure passion for the frames you are creating, along with the sheer need to tell a certain story or convey certain messages.

Interestingly, with the birth of the Hollywood star, DoPs seemed to be quite restricted in the period of the early 30s, as the actors and actresses demanded to look perfect on every shot, no matter what the story. Some even dictating the camera angles to make them look beautiful or forcing the cinematographer to shoot them from their good side. This led to films of the early 30s being composed of a lot of close ups and medium shots.

2 Name two films which use colour in a very symbolic way, and describe what they suggest.

The Matrix (cinematography by Bill Pope) uses colour interestingly and originally, whilst the characters of the film are in the computer-generated world, the colours are masked by a green tint. When they are in the real world, the colours change into blue and light grey. This is simply to illustrate the fact that the green world is not reality, but a computer program. While watching the film, it is not that immediately obvious, but when stills are put side by side the great contrast is massive.

The use of the green and blue can be taken a few ways, firstly the green could be thought of as dull and somewhat sickly, whereas the blue is refreshing when put side by side to the green. This represents Neos life as when we are first introduced to him, he is living a dull life, but when he gets reborn he sees this new reality through the kind and cool blue. However another way of looking at this is the green is quite comforting, compared to the cold and harsh blue/grey of reality. This is illustrated perfectly in the scene where Cypher is in the Matrix making a deal to buy his way back inside the comforting false reality. Warm colours surround him, still the green tint but the scene portrays the comfort he desperately wants, then with the contrast to the next scene in the cold blue real world it becomes more apparent.

American Beauty (cinematography by Conrad L. Hall) is a film that uses colour in a symbolic way, especially when it comes to red. The red significantly comes in the form of roses more than once in the film, Carolyn Burnham is seen cutting bright red roses, this symbolises something else that the film sets up using colour, the American dream, using red, white and blue. However with her cutting the roses this symbolises that although suburbia is seen as the American dream, it cannot actually fulfil you in the ways that you need. Red, especially when it comes to Kevin Spaceys character Lester Burnham signifies his desires, particularly lust, and particularly when it comes to Angela. As when we see her she is lying on a bed of red roses, or bathing in a bath full of roses. This symbolises his lust for her and is reiterated throughout the film.

3 In the film Raging Bull why was the fight scene filmed at different speeds?

Slow motion is used a lot in Scorseses Raging Bull, both in and out of the ring. This is done to convey certain character traits of Jake La Motta, as he is a jealous, paranoid and self destructing character, we get to see the world through his eyes. Through slow motion we can get inside his head and feel what he feels. He is paranoid and is the type to take in every detail around him, so the use of slow motion at certain times also allows the audience to do this. (This also fits with the way it is used in the boxing ring.)

The fight scenes in raging bull varied from slow motion to standard 24fps, this was actually done to make the actually contact within the fight seem more intense and fast. As the brief moments where the protagonist is taking a breath or thinking etc. the shot will be in slow motion. Then as he enters into combat again it will speed up.