Tag: camera movement

A1: Further research – Camera techniques

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Having looked at the cultural meaning of forests, I decided to ask myself the question: how do I represent the darker side of the forest more successfully within my moving images?

I think there are three elements to this:

  1. Through carefully crafted storytelling.
  2. By considering the cultural meaning of forests.
  3. By applying specific camera techniques.

Cultural meaning – the forest as:

  • an enchanted place
  • a sanctuary
  • an expression of the mind
  • a place of darkness
  • a place of disorientation
  • a place of transformation
  • a dream world

Camera techniques – the smallest camera moves can have the greatest effect.

For example: by moving a POV shot through an empty space to make the viewer worry that something is about to happen or appear; or by creating fear and tension by showing nothing.

Christopher Kenworthy (2012) describes several ways of building suspense through the use of creeping shots or creating a sense of shock horror:

  • Subtle dolly
  • Push on nothing
  • The unseen
  • Fearing a place

Subtle Dolly

The ‘Subtle Dolly’ is a camera move that is ‘so slight that the audience won’t notice the camera moving, but will feel uneasy’ (Kenworthy, 2012:60).

It’s a camera movement that can be used when characters are moving through a dangerous space. As the actor moves slowly towards the camera, the camera moves back very slightly, giving the audience the feeling they are backing into dangerous territory.

The technique:

The camera is set up pointing toward the actor, and she/he is moving toward the camera. The actor looks off to the side or above, but their movement should be directly toward the camera. The camera should move back a short distance and the actor come to rest close to the camera.

Push on Nothing

This is a technique that was used to great effect by Stanley Kubrick in The Shining (1980). When a character moves through an unpleasant place, tension can be created by letting the audience see things exactly as the character would see them, by moving the camera through empty space.

The power of this effect rests in the fact that in film, ‘when you push in (or move toward) something, it can signify a thousand different things, but it nearly always means something has changed. To push through empty space means you echo the human experience of walking through a frightening place, while also using a cinematic signifier of change’ (Kenworthy, 2012:66).

The technique:

Set up at eye level with the actor, the camera moves slowly backward at the same pace as the actor moves through the corridor. Turn the camera round and shoot the same scene from the actor’s point of view.

The Unseen

In films, the things that are not seen are more frightening than the things that are seen. As a technique, this works well within the context of an ongoing, protracted chase. Juxtaposing a static close up shot of an actor with a handheld POV shot will unsettle the audience because they don’t know what is happening, creating fear.

The technique:

The camera is set up with a close up on the actor looking afraid. The camera should be static and quite still. The POV shot should be handheld and at an unexpected angle (e.g. in a city, the character could be looking up at street signs; outdoors, the character could be looking up at the tops of trees).

Fearing a Place

‘The fear of a place is one of the most powerful ways to convey a character’s unease’ (Kenworthy, 2012:126). The aim here is to capture a moment in which the character is literally and metaphorically backed up against the wall in a relatively open space.

The technique:

Place the actor against a wall or object, and position the camera as close to the wall as possible. Frame the actor so that she is to one side of the screen, revealing the dark space behind her. Then reverse the camera and shoot a POV shot, showing the empty space she is looking at.

 

I think each of these camera techniques have the potential of creating similar effects within a forest setting.

References

Kenworthy, C. 2012 Master Shots 2nd edition Studio City, CA: Michael Weise

The moving camera

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For me, the moving camera is what makes the moving image what it is. Not only does the moving camera within a film change the feel and meaning of a shot or sequence, but it also constitutes the very essence of what a moving image is as an art form.

As one of the main conceptual tools of cinematography, camera movements such as pans, tilts, tracks, cranes and zooms, serve a dynamic storytelling function within a moving image.

Blain Brown rightly suggests that camera movement can be used to ‘enhance the scene and add a layer of meaning beyond the shots themselves’ and ‘add a sense of energy, joy, sadness,or any other emotional overlay’ (Brown 2012: 210).

Capable of altering the feel and meaning of a sequence, camera movement is generally used to:

  • to create atmosphere
  • suggest a character’s state of mind
  • represent a specific pov
  • enhance a dramatic moment

The following examples illustrate some of the ways in which camera movement affects the feel and meaning of a scene.

 

Goodfellas (1990) – Tracking Shot

The tracking shot in which Henry Hill brings his new girlfriend Karen on a date to the Copacabana night club is a masterful single shot, tracking their progress from the street, across the road and down into the club via the back corridors and kitchens. The viewer follows the couple as they cross the road and are let into the back door, descend the steps, walk along corridors, through kitchens and into the night club.

The use of a steadicam in this tracking shot gives it a continuous fluid movement. It’s as though Henry is also leading Karen into the depths of the criminal world. A descent into Hades, as though they are moving along the River Styx. There’s only one way, and it’s down. Nothing can stop them.

  

The shot begins with a Close Up (CU) on the car keys, as Henry hands them to the valet. It then  moves into a Wide Shot (WS) on the couple as they cross the street towards the night club. The camera tracks them in a Two Shot as they descend the steps into the club and walk along a series of red walled corridors. They are framed once again in a Wide Shot as they walk through the kitchens and into the club.

Once inside the club, a couple of pans are introduced into the final stages of the camera movement. First, the camera pans across the room to and follows a man carrying a table with a white table cloth over it. The camera movement pauses as the table is set down and laid with cutlery. It then slowly pushes in as the couple sits down. This is followed by a second, fairly quick pan to an adjacent table and back again, before the sequence finishes on a tightly framed two shot of the couple sitting at the table.

 

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) – Dual Push In

This is a particularly interesting camera movement, which appears to break the rules of camera movement motivation.

The ‘dual push in’ is a very subtle camera movement comprised of two adjacent shots, in which the camera creeps in very slightly on the character or group of characters in each shot.

Blain Brown (2012) suggests that camera movements are motivated in one of two ways: either ‘the action itself motivates the move’ or ‘the movement itself may have a purpose’ (Brown 2012: 210). Although the Dual Push In in this example from The Assassination of Jesse James appears to have no motivation behind it, I don’t think it actually is an unmotivated movement. The camera is not re-framing. It is moving for a much more subtle purpose. It is asking the viewer to look harder at something below the surface of the visible action, implying these shots are more important than static shots.

 

This example comes at the beginning of the film, where Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) walks through woods towards a group of men sitting at a camp fire.

The first shot is a Close Up (CU) on Robert Ford standing gazing at the men in the woods. It slowly pushes in, suggesting there is something going on inside this character’s head.

The second shot is a Wide Shot (WS) on three men sitting at the camp fire. The slow push in here suggests this is more than just a group of three men. The framing and push in within this shot also places an emphasis upon the man sitting in the middle.

The two shots are connected together in meaning. There is no dialogue and no exposition, just the subtle camera movement presenting a connected moment between the man with the gaze and the object of his gaze.

 

The Passenger (1975) – Pan

Another interesting and apparently unmotivated camera movement appears in Antonioni’s The Passenger, in which the camera appears to wander away from the main object within the frame.

The Passenger is about a disillusioned television journalist, David Locke (Jack Nicholson), who assumes the identity of a dead businessman while filming a documentary in Chad.

 

This example of an apparently unmotivated panning camera movement occurs towards the beginning of the film, when Locke is in the Sahara desert hoping to meet with and interview some rebel fighters involved in the Chadian civil war. However, his search for rebels to interview is frustrated when the Land Rover he is driving gets stuck in a sand dune.

Having failed to dig the front wheel free, he sinks to the ground in despair. At which point, the camera pans for no apparent reason to the right. There is no character’s look, for instance, to motivate the movement. Instead, the camera wanders away from Locke and looks out into the desert, showing the viewer the vast expanse of featureless sand.

This is not an invisible technique. As we have nothing to fix our gaze upon, we become aware of the very technique being used, the panning camera. It’s as if the camera is wandering of its own accord, looking at the sand, and leaving the viewer to interpret the scene for themselves. Which, I think, results in a lonely, empty, detached view.

 

The Shining (1980) – Tracking Shot

The long steadicam tracking shot of a small boy pedalling a Big Wheel through the empty corridors of a hotel at the start of The Shining is quite different to the long tracking shot in Goodfellas. Not only is it stylistically different, but the feel and meaning of the sequence in which it appears has quite a different effect on the viewer.

While the tracking shot in Goodfellas incorporates several different shot sizes within the same movement, the tracking shot in The Shining remains fairly constant throughout: the Big Wheel is remains at the centre of the shot, creating a symmetrical frame. There are a few subtle changes as the camera follows the boy through the corridors, from Wide Shot to Long Shot and back to Wide Shot, for instance. But these are only momentary re-frames, which highlight the speed at which the boy is travelling through the empty corridors.

The tracking shot begins in motion, with a view of the boy on the Big Wheel from behind, and ends with a static shot of the boy’s face in profile. The symmetry of this shot is particularly emotive when the boy stops pedalling and turns to look up at door number 237. Faced with the symmetry of two rows of closed brown doors diminishing into the vanishing point of the frame, the viewer is left in no doubt there is something uneasy about the hotel and this room in particular.

 

Groundhog Day (1993) – Tilt

The simplicity of the tilting shot of Phil Connors (Bill Murray) stepping into the frozen puddle matches the simplicity of the gag portrayed.

 

This tilting shot could easily have been made in two separate static shots. But instead, we have a tilt that lifts from a frame on the foot in the frozen puddle up to a frame with the contrasting expressions on the two characters faces at the same time, all within the same camera movement.

Starting on a Medium Close Up (MCU) on Connor’s foot stepping into the frozen puddle, the camera’s tilt up results a new frame, a combination of a Medium Close shot of Phil Connor in the foreground and a Medium Full shot of the second character laughing in the background.

A variation on the man slipping on a banana skin and falling flat on his face gag, this shot is perfectly suited to the film’s comedy genre.

 

Slumdog Millionaire (2008) – Handheld (Pan & Tracking)

Handheld camera movements are particularly effective in chase sequences. Two handheld shots from the same sequence towards the beginning of Slumdog Millionaire illustrate this quite well.

A group of a boys are caught playing on an airfield by two policemen and make their escape through the slums of Mumbai. It’s a fast moving sequence, in which you get the feeling the camera is ‘running’ with the boys across the rooftops and through alleyways of the slums.

 

The first example, from part way through the chase sequence, occurs on a rooftop. The camera movement starts briefly on a Wide Shot of an empty rooftop. It then pans quickly to the right, revealing the boys running along the roof towards the camera. At which point the camera pans quickly back to the left with the boys as they run.

 

In the second example, a few moments later in the same chase sequence, the camera movement is a low angle tracking shot that captures the viewpoint from within an alleyway. The dark, high walls give the feeling of being confined in a tight, claustrophobic space. Sunlight from above flares into the lens as the camera tracks backwards, looking up at the boys as they run through the alleyway.

Intercut among many other static and moving shots of the boys running, these two camera movements are brief, but very effective in getting both the boy’s perspective of the chase and the raw energy of the scene across to the viewer.

 

Festen (1995) – Handheld (Panning)

At times, the camera work in Festen seems like its all over the place. It’s as if the camera ‘eye’ is struggling to keep up with the action unfolding in front of it. Which, of course, is the impression the filmmaker wants to give.

  

The film opens with a long handheld shot through the windscreen of a car travelling through open countryside. A figure walking along the side of the road is visible in the distance. As the car approaches the figure, the driver realises it is his brother. As the car passes the man in the road, the driver, arguing with his wife, turns to look through the back window.

The handheld shot begins on a wide shot of the landscape through the windscreen. It then pans left and frames on a Close Up of the driver’s face, before panning further left and re-framing on a Medium Close Up of the wife and children in the back of the car.

The quick, uneasy handheld camera movements match the mood of the scene: a husband and wife shouting violently at each other, while the car in which they are traveling is moving at speed.

 

References

Brown, B. (2012) Cinematography: Theory and Practice New York: Focal Press

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) Directed by Andrew Dominic

Festen (1995) Directed by Thomas Vinterberg

Goodfellas (1990) Directed by Martin Scorsese

Groundhog Day (1993) Directed by Harold Ramis

The Passenger (1975) Directed by Michaelangelo Antonioni

The Shining (1980) Directed by Stanley Kubrik

Slumdog Millionaire (2008) Directed by Danny Boyle