I found this scene ages ago. I wrote this piece ages ago, it inspired my investigation with walks and with tracks.
Walking on camera is an area that I have spent little time thinking about. I’ve never filmed someone walking on camera – I think if I did it, it would look boring. Somehow, sometimes, actors, editors, directors, DOP’s manage to make walking look interesting, they manage to communicate a character through a walk. Intent, purpose, space all come together. Showing an entire journey from one place to another will generally result in a loss of interest. There has to be an ellipsis somewhere – the decision of what to include and exclude is so very vital in shaping the way we understand what we are watching and the emotion that is communicated.
I had been finding it very difficult to choose scenes to analyse but when I started noticing the villian (Burke)’s walk in Blow Out as he goes to the bathroom to kill the prostitute it really stuck in my mind as something that whilst it may seem understated, would have been extremely difficult to craft; to direct, to act and to edit, to pull it together in a way that communicates the emotion and the intensity of the movement is a difficult task that, in this case, I feel has been well executed.
- Cuts
- Angles
- Movement
- Ellipsis
- How does he fill the frame
- Lighting
- Music
There is a large array of shots here and of movement of the camera around the action and the movement of the camera in the frame.
We also get this shot (below) of Burke in the foreground and the couple in the background. This shot seems unreal – yet it is effective. I think that it feels a little too inauthentic in comparison to the other shots in the sequence (but no in comparison to the ridiculous montage at the end of the film…). The red lighting that sits between Burke and ‘the couple’ acts as a totally surreal divide between the two. It makes the shot look almost like Burke’s thought bubble.
Burke’s movements are so very purposeful and captivating. His shadow is strong and aside from the more surreal layering of the shot pictured above, the whole sequence (whilst perhaps a tad dramatic) is quite realistic.