There are three certain scenes that I find particularly evocative and I hope to let inform the work I’ll be doing in the following week.
The first scene is from ‘Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans’ (1927, Murnau).
I have talked quite about how I want to explore the relationship between Cinematography and Humanity, and I think this scene especially helps me consolidate what kind of Cinematography work I love and what it is I’m trying to achieve. Here Cinematographers Charles Rosher and Karl Struss, do not let the camera remain a dormant frame to shape the action happening but actively becomes a character within the scene as it takes the form of a sly beast preying on the Man as he goes to meet his mistress. Here the camera really embodies a seediness that is being conveyed as it moves through the location in its incredibly sly manner.
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The second is the opening from the film ’12 Years a Slave’ (McQueen, 2013), which very much like ‘Sunrise’, uses a tracking shot which makes its way through the reeds of the plantation finally landing on a scene of slaves working in the fields. Similarly, this very quite slow movement shapes the scene unfolding in the insidious light with which the actual events are remembered are.
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Lastly, is another tracking shot from the show ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’. The scene is from the episode ‘The Body’, where Buffy discovers the dead body of her mother. Unlike the previous tracking shots which move in a very sinister way, here the camera frantically darts around the room following Buffy as she tries to make sense of what is happening. Here it is not solely Sarah Michelle Gellar’s performance that conveys this sense of freneticism, but the volatile movement of the camera as well. Something I also really love is when Buffy open the door and the shot becomes quite over exposed. This decision paired with the work of the make-up team, really effectively display Buffy in a kind of sickly manner helping convey the overwhelming rush of emotion she is experiencing.
So, how will these scenes inform my work next week? I would like to film a scene as I original intended, with no focus on sound, production design or dialogue. The scene will depict a woman moving around a room. I will film it with two types of coverage, the first will try to convey an heir of uneasiness or malevolent and the second will convey a sense of desperation and freneticism. The key to the activity is to keep the action of the actress exactly the same so I can be sure that these things are being expressed via the cinematography alone.