For my advanced analysis I have decided to pick the scene from Silence of the Lambs Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lector first meet.

The establishing shot tracks around the corner to display Hannibal Lector standing in his cell communicating the full figure of the character, emphasizing his power in the process as he stands strong and confident. Further it displays his confined environment. Through this the viewers are able to get a good idea of the filmic space. This near-full shot is filmed from Clarice POV through two vertical steel beams creating strong vertical lines, leading the audience’s attention within this frame within a frame to Hannibal. From here the filmic space is clear and audience knows that the scene will continue to be a back and forth dialogue through the glass.

Often in drama two characters walk into a room, each wants something from the other bringing about the question of the scene ‘who gets what they want?’. This is one of those scenes. Through cinematography Demme creates a power struggle between the two characters. Firstly, they both look right into the lens examining each other This is displayed with close ups with a shallow depth of field and the characters in focus ensuring the viewers pay attention to their analytical stares. Furthermore this framing shows Hannibal and Clarice as equals, cutting back and forth on the same eye line. The two characters eye-lines are a major signifier of the power shift throughout the scene.

Although once Hannibal lands the first blow the camera moves over the shoulder as each characters builds up a defence. The OSS’ further set up the position of each person and further immerse the audience into the characters point of view. Once Hannibal tells Clarice to sit he gets his first close up signifying his power victory. From then one the camera always looks slightly down on Clarice and slightly up on Hannibal because he has the power in the scene. Demme cuts between close ups of the two as the dialouge progresses in which Hannibal looks the lens in the eye but Clarice looks off camera, putting the audience in her head. Jonathon Demme reenforce this by having the camera look where Clarice is looking with a combonation of pans and tilts, only to bring us back to Lector.

Clarices aim in this scene is to get Hannibal to look at a survey and every time she is to obvious about this the camera frames Hannibal with a stand-offish angle, displaying a certain degree of aggressiveness.

As Hannibal becomes more curious we move inside his point of view. So now Clarice looks the lens in the eye and Hannibal looks slightly off-screen. It also leads the audience to believe Clarice is winning. The close up of the survey emphasises its important. Once Lecture becomes more aggressive and serious the camera dollys closer towards him and frames him perfectly before cutting to wider shot looking down Clarice making her look powerless and off-balance.

From then on the camera captures both characters looking slightly off-screen signifying they aren’t looking eye to eye anymore. Soon Hannibal is framed in a mid shot as he turns his back and walks away from Clarice signaling he isn’t interested in the conversation anymore. This is mirrored in the next shot when Clarice does the same, walking directly away from the camera. The medium long shot is framed so the audience can see the detail in the old ghastly looking prison. This cuts to a profile shot of her detailing the intensity on her face. She turns to the right slightly and the camera cuts to take her point of view, looking at Migs through the bars. The viewer knows its her point of view because she turns her head and then it suddenly cuts. After Mig’s disgusting act the camera quickly pushes towards a prisoners through the bars face as he yells, creating chaos. Demme cuts between the various prisoners and midshots of Clarice being frantic, displaying intense fear for the first time. The viewer is then presented with the first two shot of the entire scene. With both characters together in the same frame, the camera looks up and pushes forward displaying their faces close together, divided only by glass. Through doing this, Demmes’ establishes an on-going relationship between the two characters for the rest of the film.

The découpage of this scene is incredible to me. The shots have been peiced together perfectly to present a back and forth power struggle which is primarily expressed through eyelines, camera angle and position. This is supported by strong performances, good low key lighting creating eery shadows and mostly silent soundtrack focusing the vewiers on the words being exchanged.

By writing this scene analysis I’ve started to think more about the importance of eyelines and camera angles in terms of establishing filmic space and representing the power in which a character may have over another.

Over and out,

Luke Egan

In filmmaking we hear people talk about the 180 degree rule or refer to not crossing the line. So what does it mean to cross the line?

The red line pictured above represents the line of action. In this case  there are two actors talking to each other. As a rule all coverage of this should be shot from one side or the other of this imaginary line. Therefore the audience can form their mental map of where the actors are located in the scene and from the master they will know Jennifer is on the left and John is on the right. If we cross the line and go to a close up of Mary it will appear as if she has suddenly jumped to the other side. This can be quite distracting and can momentarily take the audience out of the story as they attempt to restablish where everyone is located. We saw this  our class excercise featuring the two ladies at the bar where Rob crossed the line and disturbed our spatial awareness of the scene. As a filmmaker you want to avoid anything that draws the audience out of the scene, this is why the 180 degree rule exists.

To elaborate, if we depict an actor walking down the street from left to right and then we cross the line and shoot them from the otherside they will be walking right to left.  It would then look like the actor had suddenly decided to walk back to where they came from. You could cross the line however if you displayed a shot of the actor walking around a corner.

It gets more difficult when you have a circle of actors sitting around a table. The ‘line’ will change as the dynamics of the converastion progresses. The director will have carefully plan the coverage so the audience can understand the layout of where everyone is sitting.

Decoupage is done on paper, planned out before production. It’s crazy to think that a whole film can be contained on sheets of paper including exact length of shots. Although we know from personal experience that decoupage can easily evolve on set.

Bunnel talks of decoupage as the ‘cinematic embryo’ on film. By this he means it’s the element that brings film to life. As Robin said you may have a good script and good actors but without decoupage you are left with theatre, not film. Its intriuging that avant-garde filmmakers in France have proved that opposite can be true. That a film with no performers, based entirely on objects and made with simple photographic techniques, can turn out to be a good film.

An isolated shot means hardly anything. What makes a shot special is its spatial and temporal relationship with other shots that build the scene. This film ‘rhythm’ and decoupage are seen as one in the same.

Its interesting that Bunuel attempts to establish an approximate notion of cinematic art through a simple formula.

Cinematic Art  = lens + decoupage + photography + shot

He describes the lens as an indiscrimate eye without predujice but comanded by man, the filmmaker. Resulting in ‘the puriest expression of our time’.

Luis Bunuel

‘What is a shot, anyway?’ 2009 in Reilly, Tom, The big picture : filmmaking lessons from a life on the set, Thomas Dunne Books: St. Martin’s Press, New York, pp. 16-18.

‘Blocking is overlooked and undervalued’ 2009 in Reilly, Tom, The big picture : filmmaking lessons from a life on the set, Thomas Dunne Books: St. Martin’s Press, New York, pp. 93-97.

 

A directors decides how he will cover a scene by first determing where the actors will be and what they will be doing. They director and DP will then decide where the camera will be placed for the first shot aka. the master shot. Generally all other shots are derived from the master.

A scene could be covered with a single shot or contructed by a series of shots. A director may choose to cover a scene with a series of several shots quickly intercut to build energy. Contrastingly they could cover the scene in one long extended shot which may for example feature complex  choreography and camera movements.

Blocking is the precise staging of actors in order to facilitate the performance of a film. How a scene is blocked has a dramatic effect on the final outcome of the film. Its all about choreographing the scene, deciding where actors will sit/stand and move amongst the scene. A line thats delivered by an actor directly in front of another will imply a different relationship to the same line if its delivered from the other corner of the room.  The blocking should be planned by the director, many however bring the cast on set to see what feels right and try different things. The reading talks about this techniques as being flawed as it undermines the directors role in controling the scene. Woody’s approach however involves deciding on the shot with the DP then laying out the scene with stand-ins. When he is happy with the action, camera movement and composition he will hand it over the set the lighting crew. This way the actors have no or little input into the scene which means its entirely his vision. As a director, this is what a film should be, your vision of the film. A director should block each scene on how it will connect to the next and how it all comes together in the context of the whole film, not on what an actor feels in natural. This can all be summed up in the last line of the reading ‘actors should act, directors should block scenes’.

We watched a clip from the movie Margaret in which shows the lead up to a bus crash. As a class we discussed the coverage of the Scene.

It was commented that the shots were quite intimate with the close up shots. The use of the reflective surface of the shop windows was interesting. She was looking at her self in a self-absorbed way and that’s how she spotted the bus driver was wearing a cowboy hat. There are a lot of implications/associations in the scene. For instance you don’t actually see that she sees the bus drivers cowboy hat through the reflection of the glass but its assumed.

We also watched a scene from the TV series Mad Men which features two people at a bar. The coverage of the scene was quite simple. It started with a tracking shot to establish the bar and to follow the characters into position at the bar. The rest of the scene was covered with two shot MS/MCU in which both characters are featured in each. This scene would have used two cameras. We know this because the continuity in the acting and lighting is perfect. Furthermore, it would be the most practical way to shoot the scene.

Afterwards we viewed another bar scene from the TV show Gossip Girl. The opening shot tilts down to establish the bar. The two actors aren’t even in this shot but the sound edit leads us to assume they are. The perspective in this scene is noticeably different from the Mad Men scene and more intimate. A lot of the shots are over the shoulder or dirty shots, jumping around from MS, MCU and CU shots for variation. This scene was probably shot with around 5 different camera setups. A lot more effort seems to have gone into this scene then the similar scene from Mad Men.

We watched a bar scene from another film  which was a lot more complex and varied. It features more camera setups and more camera movement such as a tracking dolly shot in at the beginning. The angles are varied and covers the scene from many different perspectives and not just shooting from one side of the bar for example. Furthermore the extras seemed to be used to motivate camera movements and to connect shots together. The scene has a total of 18 shots but only 7-9 camera setups. Which means they were adventurous and creative with their shots.

Today was our first class of The Scene in Cinema. It was good to see Robin again and lug out the ol’ Sony EX3. We started by going through the basics of camera operations. Firstly by setting up the tripod and camera, practicing panning and tilting and then adjusting the focal length, aperture and focus.

Later on we watched a student video which displayed some great creative coverage. I found it compelling not because of what happens within the film but how it goes about capturing it. The shots are quite lengthy but they are made interesting with various dramatic techniques for instance the use of perspective within the film. An example of is a shot where there are a triangle of people all looking at one of each other and switches to each of their perspectives. It’s a fantastic effort that this film was created in one day by students like us.

Clockwork orange displays a lot of locked off wide shots with everything in focus. The wide angle lens reduces the amount of shots they need to cover the scenes. There is so much detail and information in a single shot that it isn’t necessary to quickly cut between various angles etc.

We compared this to a similar scene in ‘A Lucky Man’ where basically the same thing is happening but the coverage is very different. There are a lot more shots, many which are tighter and have a shallower depth of field to direct our focus. Furthermore, the shots aren’t all locked off, there is some camera movement and zoom.

Both of these films depict a similar scene in a very different way. Both are incredibly interesting in their own way. Comparing them reminds me about how the same topic in film can take so many different forms which results in a totally different piece of media.