Throughout the blog posts I wish to investigate the writings of a filmmaker who has theorised, or written in depth, on their craft; and consider the actual relationship between their writing and their filmmaking. To understand the concepts of scene coverage properly I have put aside a couple of days to read through readings and comment on them towards this methodology of working. This also goes back to my interest in research The first reading is ‘Decoupage’ by Timothy Barnard.

Decoupage is a way of reproducing and creating through a simple yet complex form, and it cuts up the script to create a detailed plan for shooting. It involves the camera directions, stage directions, actor directions, and where the cuts will be between shots. Decoupage is the name given for the choice of shots, through the camera angles and movements. Andre Bazin suggests that decoupage is seen as a composition and camera movement, and an example of this is that the shots change when the camera changes position. Mise-en-scene is seen through the decoupage, as there are plans of the shots that conceive a certain kind of editing. Within this reading, Barnard suggests that each set-up of the camera indicates an attitude in the viewer’s mind. And this is true, because wen we see a specific shot, depending on the coverage it has, it creates expectations within the audience that we receive from the cues within the frame. He states that the camera position is a word that “combines the sense of creating spatial disposition and physical relations between things on the one hand and of adopting a mental attitude towards them on the other”.