I recently watched a film called Portrait of a Lady on Fire directed by Celine Sciamma, 2019. The film is set in France in 1770 and is about a painter who is commissioned to paint a portrait of a woman who is unaware that she has been commissioned to paint it. She refused to be painted by her last painter, so the new painter, and the main character, has been told not to let her know that’s why she was hired and she was hired to take her on walks.

A scene that I thought was interesting was two characters having quite an important conversation. Although something I found a bit less conventional about it is that the camera wasn’t completely motivated by movement. I remember reading in high school, not exactly where, but I remember reading that if you’re filming a conversation should be facing whoever is talking even if that may take a second or two. The reading said it should be like you are standing in the middle of the two characters and that the camera should act like your eyes if you were to be looking back and forth at who is talking, so it might lag slightly as you won’t be sure as to who is going to talk next and when. I found this very interesting and from what I can tell, this is used a lot. Although I was watching a scene in this film, where the main character is talking to quite a minor character and the camera favours the main character to show her reaction even though the minor character had quite a few lines. Although it did slightly fall back into the more ‘traditional’ way of showing each character when they are talking. But I did like the way that this film slightly left from that idea and changed it a bit.

Completely unrelated, here is two screenshots from the film. I love the angle of this shot.

This shot lasted about 30 seconds and I think it was really beautiful! It is a silent shot and all you can hear is wind and the sea. The lady with the brown hair is trying to memorise her face so that she is able to paint her. So she keeps looks back and forth until they share eye contact. I really like how it was shot at this perspective and was so still and let the audience somewhat breath and take in what the characters were taking in. It very much felt like you were there with them.