“Cinematography* does not function as the embellishment of a story. It isn’t a
means of breathing life into a script. It isn’t the application of coloured pencils to an
already satisfactory line drawing. It is the story. The meaning of a work is
embedded and implicit in its form.”

In class we touched on the idea of how the cinema experience holds more importance than the story itself. After watching the film Good Morning (1959) directed by Yasujiro Ozu I have a better understand of what it means to become engrossed in an experience and feeling rather than a dynamic narrative. Ozu is all about being present in the moment. He is famous, or maybe infamous for having people wonder ‘umm is something going to happen..?’ during his films. But that is the point he is trying to make; when nothing happens, plenty is happening. In Good Morning we get a close look at a suburb of Tokyo where two boys begin a silence strike to press their parents into buying them a television set, hence the lingering feeling that we are waiting for something to happen. While not much occurs dramatically, we get a snapshot at a world at the crux of change.

The lighthearted comedy explores inter-generational family tensions, post-war Western influences on Japan and observations of human behavior. Ozu is famous for stubbornly doing things his way without too much regard for what might be more ‘popular.’ His films are about capturing the essence of the Japanese lifestyle, in his own uniquely quirky and charming style. As an audience we have to work to stay focused and lull ourselves into a more accepting mindset to become fully engrossed in his slice of life films.

His framing is delightful but doesn’t have to symbolize anything imperative to the plot. A few times in the film we see people walking across the hill through the narrow gaps of the suburban sprawl. It gives us a picturesque feel of the whole town and the people just look so tiny and cute. I had a thought that it would be so fun to live there and wave at my friends from afar as I see them walking home from school. Ozu’s pleasing cinematography appeals to our ability to be content as a welcomed observer.

A polar opposite to this would be Hitchcock, who creates tension by holding the audiences attention with suspense. We constantly think, “what could happen next!?”

The form is the Story

In the film, nothing seems to be happening, but the world is changing. Women were starting to work, the popularity of TVs were threatening the big screen and the younger generation were starting to question the formalities their culture. The phrase and title of the film, “Good Morning” refers to the small talk and maddening politeness demonstrated by the older generation.

The themes of big and small, binary and balance are reflected in the way that the film is constructed. The boys are lined up to show their comical difference in size, framing is neat and organised (like their homes and culture).

Sometimes when a directors’ vision is strong, the ingredients needed to create the envisioned scene might not be there and the crew is just told to, “make it work.” It’s an awkward situation because the crew is not in any position to refuse the director while they’re in their God complex. The point of the exercise was to see how blocking affects the whole crew.

In the scene two girls with a camera watching and waiting for a thief to strike.

The plan was to begin with a wide shot from behind the girls and have the light coming from the window they were facing to form their silhouettes. Then move to a mid shot for further dialogue, and finally another wide shot revealing a full front view of their camera set up.

The scene we were trying to shoot looked like this:

2.  3.

There were concerns that jumping in front in shot 3 might be too disruptive, but our director Robin said that you just know until you try it.

I was put in the camera crew for the task. Since the scene contained a prop camera which was the same model that we were using to film the scene, there was some confusion over what camera was for what purpose. Our team also made the mistake of not formatting the card and it made everyone have to wait. On a real set this might be enough to make someone storm out.

An unexpected problem we faced was not being able to line up the camera with our two main characters in a way that seemed balanced but still showed us clear outlines of each figure. With everything in the dark, we had to muster every bit of detail we could from the shapes of the two girls and the prop camera. Just before shooting I noticed that the camera was directly in line with our actor from our camera’s perspective, meaning that our actor had completely blocked out the silhouette of the prop camera.

Sometimes nice surprises can occur on set. Like the view through the window we were filming happened to have a group of students making colorful paper decorations which added a nice pop of colour to the shot. This is something you can’t plan with a low budget. Different people were also walking in and out of the area a lot, which suited our script well as our main characters were keeping their eyes peeled for a pickpocket-er.

http://www.mediafactory.org.au/vanessa-wong/2018/08/09/tsic-exercise-5/

Pacing: why rush?

wk 3: Focus Pulling and the Directors Role

When working out how to cover a scene, we are often much too concerned with the types of shots and coverage we are after. As visual people, it is easy to forget what makes us hold our breath as an audience, and keeps us engaged; pacing. To me, pacing dictates the rhythm of a scene, which in turn communicates the entire feel of it.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) directed by Woody Allen has a dinner scene that does this very well. In this scene (I’ll be referring to 0 to 2:22), two girlfriends, Vicky and Cristina notice a man sitting at a back table who they recognize to be a painter from a gallery they just visited. He approaches them and introduces himself.

The tracking shot glides left into a mid-shot of the two women talking at the table and eases us into the dinner setting. As we hear her speak, she enters the left of the frame Her well timed appearance into the shot gives us the sense that they have been talking for a short while already.  As Vicky responds, the camera hovers subtlety instead of just coming to a complete halt, still lulling us into the low-key ambiance of the restaurant.

“Who are you looking at?”

“Isn’t that the painter we just saw at the gallery?”

These two lines of dialogue come together in a slow pan from one woman to the other. The slow movement onto Cristina mimics the slyness she has in peering over at Doug.

The real kicker with this scene is the way that Doug takes his sweet time strolling over to their table. The red of her wine, which she sips after saying this, visually links to the burgundy of Doug’s shirt. This makes him pop out from among the others at the distant table. This long-shot of Doug also sets up the next shot by establishing the distance between his table and theirs.

Another notable thing that is done so beautifully, is the attention to eye lines, which is particularly important to this scene as it involves sneaky glances.

When Doug gets up to talk to Vicky and Cristina he strolls over, taking his sweet time. The shot captures his entire journey over, each of his steps seem more dramatic than the last. The sounds of his steps are like a metronome for the scene, drowning out the background and slowing the pace down even more. Each step is literally longer than the last. When he finally reaches the table its as if the whole restaurant is silent and waiting to hear what he is about to say.

In this scene our group had the task of interpreting a script with unlimited shots and only one line of dialogue. This made me realize that sometimes having no limitations can be even more creatively limiting than having constraints.

The aim of this CU shot was to isolate and establish these two characters as important. This alignment of their faces also emphasizes their closeness in proximity, which highlights their difference in facial expression and general awkwardness of the situation.

Pulling focus for this shot was difficult because I didn’t know how long the shot was meant to be and how I was supposed to sync up focus with camera movement, I realized this about a second after “ACTION.” As a result I ended up repeatedly pulling in and out between the two faces to give our editor some options within the take. This ended up being fine because the final cut had very fast cuts.

For next time: 1. Make sure everyone on camera has a clear idea of the purpose of the shot as well as length.

Improvising for the Space 

After reading the script and noting the part where onlookers gave judgmental looks to our main characters, we tried to create a busy, closed space to draw attention to the lack of privacy in the scene. To do this we placed Tyler and Jesslyn in as dancing extras. Working with a limited amount of people meant we had to be particularly strategic about blocking in to make the most of the two people we had. At the last minute I thought it would be good to include the tile column in order to fake a smaller space.

Our focus on trying to create full busy shots while switching roles under a strict time limit made us forget about continuity. We forget to keep our two dancers in the same spot, this caused a strange jumping around effect when everything was put together.

In our studio we are moving pretty fast and its very exciting!

We did an exercise in class where we mapped out and choreographed a scene. Our subject came towards us and had 4 marked points to stop. I got to be the focus puller for the first round. This activity helped me understand the attention to detail and FOCUS needed to successfully PULL off this kind of scene. Not only was I watching our subject move, but I was checking the facial expressions and monitoring the level of anxiety of my camera operator.

One thing I have take out of this is that before ACTION we should check in with each other. If we had have done this, we would have realised that the tripod was locked in position, which was the reason why our camera man had such a difficult time tracking Ayu.

After our first class activity of creating a full film crew, I’ve been excited to learn more about the complexities of how everyone with such different roles fit together.  In our “role play” our task was to recreate a scene from the red shoes with 3 actors. At the last second I was thrown in as the “director” and my stomach flipped. I frantically tried to figure out what to do. Should I just yell at everyone? But then I realized that everyone was pretty much running themselves. So I strolled over to the table of actors and had a chat about how they felt about their lines.

Normally id think “well obviously the director’s role is to run the whole show!” But how can that be when everyone already knows what they’re doing? To me, the director’s job is to take a holistic approach and make difficult decisions based off the whole crew and the first AD is the one who makes it technically possible.

At the end of the class Robin explained the roles much better. One distinctive difference of the
directors role is that they are the only ones who should be communicating with the actors. If the cinematographer tried to tell Tom Cruise to lighten up they’d probably be fired.

Afterthought:

The beauty of it is that in film making everything is linked. Like focus pulling is linked to acting style. If an actor is well known for method acting, their position on set would be impossible to predict. This affects the whole job of the focus puller as they would be seriously sweating to keep them in focus.