The initial aim of my investigation project was to demonstrate the metamorphosing power of cinematography/editing – to create three unique scenes by changing only the coverage style. But the investigation ultimately veered into other areas as well.
The process that I went through was the following: analyse seven filmmaking teams’ signature coverage styles; choose three to apply to two pages of the script from Hunger (2008); plan and shoot and edit these scenes; show them to an audience and interview the audience members about what they took from each scene.
Reminder of my screener:
Media 5 Exhibition Reel from Ella Thompson on Vimeo.
My project was inspired by the idea of script versus visuals as well as script versus cinema as a whole. It was in reaction to the constant stream of severe phrases that you hear as an early filmmaker about the script being king, which is a shamefully blind and deaf way to consider movies. But, as a naive student and aspiring filmmaker, it kind of begins to brainwash you. The idea that perhaps this wasn’t the case was planted by Robin early on in the semester, who passionately believed that this was shortsighted crap. I wanted to remind myself that this outrageously common viewpoint is a plague within/beyond the filmmaking industry. I wanted to remind myself that movies are not determined by a singular pre-production element. That the script is a completely separate thing from the film. That a film is a multitude of individually honed elements being collected and interweaved to form something new. The script is not the film.
So, I applied three filmmakers’ signature coverage styles to a single script, aiming to transform this script into three unique scenes. My driving question: To what extent can visuals, say, ‘rewrite’ a script and transfigure a scene?
The three coverage styles that I selected:
- Wes Anderson / Robert Yeoman style – geometric, flat, symmetrical, exaggerated.
- Darren Aronofsky / Matthew Libatique style – interspersed quick-cut ECU montages
- Emmanuel Lubezki style – long-take tracking shot
The other styles that I looked at:
- One particular scene in Luc Besson’s Leon: The Professional (1994) that used a coverage style of close-up concealment.
- Danny Boyle / Anthony Dod Mantle style of subtle concealment.
- Baz Luhrmann / Donald McAlpine / Jill Bilcock style of dramatic disregard for continuity.
- Split screens and triptychs (again inspired by Boyle and Dod Mantle’s work in 127 Hours (2010)).
I would have loved to have looked at even more filmmaking teams and their signature coverage styles, but there are only so many hours in a day and days in a semester.
My scenes turned out alright – there are some parts that I love and there are some parts that I don’t love. But what’s most interesting about how these scenes turned out is how they deviated from the signature styles that they were based on. This isn’t just in terms of technical finesse, even though that of course played a large part in rendering these scenes not ‘Lubezki style’ or ‘Wes Anderson style’, but Lubezki-inspired and Anderson/Yeoman-inspired and Aronofsky/Libatique-inspired scenes. What occurred to me was that I was also venturing into Alex’s area of investigation: the “mistakist” approach to filmmaking. Because of the technical constraints and my limited skill/knowledge, there were plenty of accidents during shooting that forced me to tailor the styles to the material I had. The Anderson-Yeoman scene was imperfect and grittier than the inspiring style. The Lubezki scene was not smooth and floaty, it was rough and shaky and gritty. The Aronofsky-Libatique style experimented with merging the signature whacky sound effects of actions during the ECU montages with overlaying dialogue, thus trying to find a middle-ground with the pacing of fast visual actions and slower dialogue. I think that some of these deviations could have worked well, had they been done with greater commitment and in a more polished way. However, the ultimate aim of this investigation wasn’t to create three polished scenes.
In regards to the audience response, I asked showed some family members and friends (only about four people) individually and got them to discuss the scenes. I also showed them the script. I asked them to think about how the scenes differed. To describe how they felt different. To describe what they noticed about each scene. Even just to describe the scene in a single word. And then to say which scene worked best for the script in their opinion. What was interesting (and validating for my original intention) was how each audience member described the scenes as if each was pulled out of a unique film. These are some of their responses.
Thoughts on the Anderson-Yeoman scene:
- Seems like it relies a lot on the actors’ skills.
- Feels like it’s suited to comedy, sort of because of the way it lingers longer allowing for the unexpected to happen and encouraging kind of a physiological response associated with this awkward lingering.
- Theatrical. Comedic. Bizarre. Makes it interesting to watch.
- Least memorable of the three for half of the viewers (might have been partly because it screened first each time).
- Perhaps was the least suited to the particular content of the script.
- One person thought that this scene worked best for the script, but in a different way from the way that the Aronofsky-Libatique scene worked best for the script. They ultimately chose the Aronofsky-Libatique version as best for the script, and this version as a close second. But they stressed that both worked well for the script in different ways, bringing out different elements and moods that were arguably implied in the script.
Thoughts on the Aronofsky-Libatique scene:
- Captivating – felt like something could happen ay any moment. Felt like it was an important conversation.
- Thriller genre. Dark.
- Cut in a way that builds suspense more than the others. Makes it really interesting. Also was shot in an interesting way.
- My brother liked this one best. Reminded him of Fight Club (1999).
- Someone didn’t like the overdramatising of the cigarette lighting shots with the crazy sounds. Thinks it didn’t work. Sounds didn’t work. Didn’t match. Kind of happened too slowly. Felt like it should be sped up.
- Captured detail of the conversation and dramatised it enough to be interesting.
- Three out of four of the audience members thought this scene worked best for the script.
Thoughts on the Lubezki scene:
- Hard to follow – constant moving distracted from conversation. Sometimes didn’t flow with the conversation. Felt like it did a figure 8 or whatever too fast and didn’t sync up with the ebbs and flows of the conversation. Might have been easier to follow if the camera was smoother.
- Rhythm of dialogue and camera movement keeps it interesting. The aspect of real time is cool. Camera keeps you very aware of ‘the moment’.
- Needs intense preparation for this style of filming to be successful. Needs to be incredibly well timed for it to be effective. Can see what the scene is trying to do though. There are just moments where it’s not coordinated that well – even though I know it would take a ton of rehearsing and preparation to get to that level of coordination.
- Compelling how the action and the camera kind of merge. Like the part where he leans in to get the cigarette lit and the camera goes with him. There are areas where the action and camera separate again, but it’s absorbing when it’s in sync.
- Felt like I was in the space with the characters, and that’s rare to feel.
- One person thought that this scene worked best for the script.
I think that studying these filmmaking teams’ signature styles and trying to recreate them / apply them to another work took me so much further in terms of both technical skill and, well, imagination skill. If this course extended through to next semester, I would have tried out other filmmakers’ coverage styles as well. Why I think that practicing these coverage styles is valuable for me as a filmmaker is that – on a very basic level – these styles are part of my taste, which inspired my desire to make movies in the first place. So, I think it’s important to hang onto this early inspiration – to nurture it and hone it; to try to reproduce the styles and extend them and take them to new places. I also have the view that versatility is integral as a filmmaker. I don’t just want to make the same movies all the time. I want to train myself to think about coverage in a multitude of different ways and to develop the technical skills to carry through and make these imaginings. I want the ability to be a chameleon filmmaker. To adapt. To invent. What better way is there to develop these skills than filling the mind with different types of filmmaking. And, in doing so, inspiring further invention. Which is eventually the level of creativity (and technical skill / successfully applied creativity) that I want to get to.
I was curious after shooting and editing my scenes to watch how the scene was done in the actual film. Originally, I’d chosen the script from Hunger because I hadn’t seen the film, freeing me from preconceived ideas about how to scene ‘should’ look. The first thing that I noticed about the actual scene was the grand difference in pacing in comparison with my scenes. The dialogue in the scene just seems to continuously spill out to the point that it’s hard to keep up. This is in comparison with my scenes where I made dialogue delivery quite measured and slow, and exaggerated pauses for supposed ‘drama’. The other drastic difference between my scenes and the actual scene is the 18-minute long-take. The shot remains wide on the side profiles of the characters sitting at the table. Pacing is hence dictated by movement within the frame and by sound. It’s an interesting coverage choice to make, specifically for this sort of scene which is so heavy with dialogue. Perhaps it has to be looked at in the context of the rest of the film, which I’m told has little/no dialogue. The other thing that I noticed were the slight changes in order of actions and dialogue than what I read on the script. On the script, the discussion about it being a “bit of a break from smoking the Bible” comes before they actually light the cigarettes and start smoking. But obviously they changed that so that it occurred during the lighting and smoking. I always thought it was oddly ordered on the script, and I found that section a bit awkward to direct and edit together. Clearly Steve McQueen and/or the screenwriters anticipated this awkwardness and changed it to work better. What I love about the actual scene is the lighting. The smoke is illuminated and the characters are softly silhouetted. This is similar to the look that I was aiming for in my Aronofsky/Libatique-inspired scene (and also considered for the Lubezki scene).
Because of the nature of the script being a dialogue scene between two stationary characters seated at a table, my project also became an investigation into how to extend or escape or deviate from the classical filmmaking convention of shot-reverse-shot. I think there were few sequences of traditional shot-reverse-shot style in my final scenes. I tried to mutate the concept for each coverage style. For the Anderson-Yeoman inspired scene, whip-pans and the ‘square’ tracking shot are the attempted mutations. Even the front-on shots of each character is a slight deviation from the typical shot-reverse-shot. The Aronofsky-Libatique inspired scene included a sequence of low angle mid-shots of each character, but this was the only occurrence of the conventional shot-reverse-shot look. Otherwise, the mutation was in the ECU montages of actions during the dialogue – one example being ECU side profile mouth of each character exhaling smoke, or the lighting of each cigarette during the characters’ dialogue. I think the Lubezki-inspired scene explored and extended the shot-reverse-shot concept most though. Moments where we’d transition from an OTS of one character to the next occurred by attaching to character movement – like jumping forward (from Tom’s OTS of Bobby) when Tom puts his hand out to offer the cigarettes to Bobby, and then gradually floating around to Bobby’s OTS of Tom. So, a lot of it was about using characters’ physicality and dialogue as motivation to move. But it was also about making sure to eventually repeat a shot – if it’s a rudimentary/staple frame – for each character. For example, if we float around one character’s back during the dialogue, it’s sort of necessary for the balance of the scene to float around the other character’s back at some stage later on. Or if we inch in and rotate into a close up of one character’s face, we should try to then inch out and rotate to the other side and inch into a close up of the other character’s face for some symmetry. It’s a challenge to coordinate the timing of these movements though, because you don’t want to camera to look like it’s acting for itself. Anyway, it was really interesting to experiment with and to try to alter the shot-reverse-shot notion, particularly because it’s such a staple technique of classical filmmaking.
Another thing that struck me during the weeks of research, planning, implementation, and reflection was the unfathomable concept of how something comes to be ‘photogenic’. Why are certain things considered (almost) universally better and more aesthetically appealing than others to us? And then why are there a lot of things that polarise people into what is more aesthetically appealing? Why do people have different tastes in art? Is this inherent or is it learned? What are the biological workings of this? What prompts this strong feeling of ‘appreciation’ that we get when we view art that is in the realm of our taste? It’s an absolute mystery to me. There are certainly parts of my final scenes that I find extremely photogenic and parts that I find do nothing for me. And it’s kind of bizarre, because they’re all just made up of changing light and shade (if we’re talking about the images). The notion of something being photogenic and the associated ‘appreciation’ that comes with experiencing something aesthetically pleasing is, in my opinion, one of those unbelievable/magic/special elements of cinema. I’ll continue to think about this question as I keep making audiovisual content.
I really needed to get this investigation out of my system, actually. It’d been in the back of my head for so long. I just subconsciously always wanted the opportunity to experiment with a dialogue scene between two characters seated at a table, where there’s some underlying drama/tension in the scene. I was curious to look at this simple setup through a plethora of coverage styles, particularly those pertaining to signature styles of filmmakers that inspire me. Even the production design (which is very much my taste) – the gritty car park / basement / garage feel, the underdressed/dirty character, the serious/suited character, the smoking – was something that I wanted to look at through these coverage styles.
I absolutely loved this studio. It has been the ideal studio for me. I’ve gotten so much out of it. I was inspired by the classes, the other students’ thoughts and projects and creativity, and Robin’s contagious passion for filmmaking. I was enormously motivated by the self-directed, individualised learning approach. I loved it. That’s how I work. I’m not very good at working the conventional way with people breathing down your neck to get the work – which has to fulfil a fixed set of requirements – ‘done’. I also benefited from the removal of the concept of failure – which is usually the basis of my hesitancy towards practical work – in favour of an experimental approach in regards to these investigation projects. This revised way of learning has been so conducive to not only my technical/practical and creative/thoughtful abilities, but also on a level of igniting and fostering inspiration and passion and motivation. It has been by far my favourite subject in the entire course. As cheesy as all of this sounds, I’m genuinely so grateful to have had the opportunity. It was humbling to work alongside intelligent, creative, like-minded people. Let me risk myself sounding even cheesier but I’m seriously going to miss the classes. At least now I have the time and mental space to go back and watch some of the films that were mentioned in classes and to have a look at the filmmaking books (including a cinematography book, yay!) that I bought in a moment of nervous procrastination through online shopping. But this studio will most likely remain the highlight of my university career (for my Bachelor of Communication). The environment of such an impassioned teacher and like-minded creative/intelligent students is just a rare privilege that I was completely humbled by. So, thanks Paul and Robin for this studio.