In this report, I will focus on scenes in melodrama films. The aim of this research project is to discuss and analyse decoupage of films, especially Pedro Almodovar’s. The reason why I choose this topic is that compared to other genre films it has less technical matters in regards to the post production process.This means that while it requires less sophisticated equipment or editing processes, it is more experimental and advanced in decoupage in terms of the filming process. So this report will explore how the filmmaker gathers the actor’s performance, space and the story together through the lens, and how each of these work individually or collaboratively comes together.

In Pedro Almodovar’s “High Heels’ (1991), there is a fight scene between Rebeca and Becky, and it is a good example of how actors move in a space and how the lens chooses to introduce and stage characters to develop the story. In this scene, space is very important, Almodovar uses it to create distance between actors, using space to maximize the structure and components of the whole scene, as a play on stage would. This creates a more organised, realistic and smooth flow of images. If you have a good depth of field on the screen, there will be a lot more information and the audience can choose where to look, the space thus becomes a part of the film, not just the background. Almodovar chose to use a handheld camera for this scene as the cameraman can follow the actors’ movements easily. A handheld camera also makes framing, the lens size and angle more flexible. More importantly, this technique allows the audience to more visually sense the tension of their argument. 

This is an interior scene, the camera tracks Rebeca’s walking, and because of the short focal length it shows a plenty of space of background, in which Becky later comes in through that door in the background. The focus shifts to Becky, showing the distance between Rebeca and Becky. Rebeca then walks away from the camera, leaving only Becky in the frame walking towards her. When Becky opens the door, Rebeca is gradually out of focus, that focus is shifting on Becky and the environment, then Becky starts talking and moving, eventually Rebeca walks away from the lens. This is an unequal relationship, Rebeca always admires her mother, Becky, while Becky had always been busy with her own life. This scene signifies that Becky is always in a higher position, the use of space represents their broken relationship. Using a wide space as a background makes the distance visually distinctive. There are so many ways of how to shoot an argument scene, and it can be back and forth over the shoulder shot, or a medium shot of two actors facing each other, etc. The approach to this scene and many other Almodovar’s films considers the use of space to explain the character’s relationships and the story itself.

In Pedro Almodovar 1993’s film, “Kika”, a very stylistic piece of work, in a balcony scene it shows the spatio-temporal relations in one single take that hold together the narrative rhythm, spatial relations, and camera movement. 

Kika walks out from the room to the balcony, looking up as she was thinking of Nicholas who lives upstairs. When she hears a voice coming from upstairs, she looks up and the camera follows her vision upwards to Nicholas’ balcony. The camera then shows Nicholas’ balcony and focuses on a naked woman who was singing. She then turns towards the room, seemingly singing to Nicholas. Camera is still when she is singing, and follows her movement into the room. At this point the framing changes, focusing on Nicholas, the camera moves while the woman walks into center Nicholas’ position.Nicholas lights the cigarette for the woman, and it cuts back to Kika being curious about what is happening upstairs. There is so much noise from upstairs, and Kika’s reaction and facial expression can be seen as a hint for the audience to what is happening upstairs. This scene was able to be shot as it was shot in the studio using a dolly-crane. The dolly crane is able to smoothly show the transition from downstairs to upstairs. The variety of multiple scenes in one single take once again shows Almodovar’s understanding of spatio-temporal relations, creating a realistic yet surreal visual storytelling art. 

Another scene that I chose is when Kika and Juana leave their home, walking to the street to hail a taxi. I choose this scene to discuss the power of decoupage, specifically in terms of how the camera moves to change the framing of the scene. In the beginning, the focus is on Kika who was waiting on the street. This focus changes to Juana as Juana comes out from the gate. Juana walks to Kika, and the camera puts both of them in focus. They start to walk across the street, the focal length adjusts to create bokeh, using the blur of the streets and lights as the background, visually alienating them from the streets. At this point, instead of zooming in, the cameraman is moving closer to them, turning the mid-shot to a close-up. The way the cameraman moves here is very tricky. The camera was still until they started to walk, and when they were walking, the cameraman walked with them at the same pace until a certain point when he slowed his pace. As they walk closer to him, the shot changes from waist-up to chest-up. The whole process is smooth, extraordinarily fluent, and Almodovar changes to point-of-view angle when Kika got into the taxi while she was talking to Juana. At the end of this scene, it is a wide shot of a taxi driving away while Juana alone carries two luggages while walking on the street till she gets smaller. The short lens gives the audience a feeling of being farther apart and the great depth of field isolates the protagonist from the screen, enhancing the feeling of emptiness and complication. 

 In melodrama, especially in Pedro Almodovr’s films, it does not rely on editing to achieve the visual effects. They are able to achieve this via well-designed decoupage when shooting. On the other hand, Almodovar respects the spatio-temporal relations, as a play on stage would, thus creating a more organised, realistic and smooth flow of images that some refer to as invisible editing or invisible camera.