Narration
Last week Robin showed us some various examples of narration emphasising that they are not a cop out and can be used as interesting storytelling devices or merely as a practical device to quickly feed the audience information they need to know to understand the film. A really cool example of this, one that we didn’t watch, is in ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’ where Wes Anderson briefly but effectively runs through each characters back story in order to give context to there current inner pains and demons. Not only does the narration do this, but it also introduces us to the significance of the place where the film is set and the characters reside, when watching the film each place that action occurs is not a strange place, but a place the audience has seen before and understands the significance of.
Robin suggested to me that I could give the audience some context to what I shot by using narration right at the start and though I didn’t take this advice on board-maybe I should have, I will use narration in a different way- in a similar nature to the clip of clockwork orange that we saw where the audience is granted access to the lead characters thoughts and feelings.
*Note: I did end up starting with narration, but it only gave context to the place, not the characters.
In my script ‘Man 2’ was initially supposed to express her feelings to Man 1, but after seeing these clips, I thought it would be much more interesting for Man 2 too have her feelings only in her head and not have the ability to communicate what she wants to say. This more explicitly presents the underlying sadness to the whole film emphasising the pain and frustration that brews within the characters due to their inability to communicate and express their feelings. Man 2 wouldn’t be lonely if she could articulate how she feels-but she cant. I also (as an audience member) find it interesting when I’m kept at a distance from a particular character and then all of a sudden through narration or even the character talking directly to the camera they specifically and unsubtly talk about how they feel, as if the wall that’s stopped the audience from truly knowing them has been broken. An example of this is in an episode of ‘Mad Men’ called ‘Signal 30’ where a particular antagonist Pete Campbell breaks down and says ‘I have nothing, Don’. The camera frames him directly in the middle of the shot as the actor, Vincent Kartheiser, looks directly into the camera as he says this line. This aesthetic decision was done to emphasise that the line wasnt merely a secret confined to ‘Don’ but it was a statement directed at the audience, a plea for the audience to truly understand him and feel sympathy.
In my film with Man 2 I’ll try and do a similar thing, I intend to build up the character as one of stoicism and lack of emotion and surprise the audience with an emotive, out of the blue, inner monologue (conveyed through narration) that flips the audiences idea of the character on its head-teaching them to not judge a character based on his/her appearance and/or reactions, that even though a person doesn’t look particular ‘deep’ or emotive, they often are.
Depth Of Field
10mm
– Greater Depth of Field. Depth of field is the distance, in front and behind the thing I’m focused on. So a greater depth of field would make the shot deeper, and potentially make the audience feel further away from the object than if it was shot on a larger lens.
– The part of the picture on focus will be greater the shorter the lense.
– The more of the world we see
– F16 Aperture
100mm
– Narrow View
– Long
– The part of the picture will be shallower the larger the lense
– Less of the world we see
– Wider the aperture the shallower the depth of field
Calculating the Depth of Field
3 feet depth of field set lense too 9 feet, focus factors into this. Depth is 1/3 in front, 2/3 back. If something is in focus 1/3 is in front of the image, 2/3 is behind it. If it is at 9 feet for example you can see from 11-8 feet.
Short lense, say 8mm, the person in the shot appears further away, exaggerating the distance.
Long ones make people seem closer.
The speed of movement is altered by the focal length, someone running may appear slow.
Look through the camera and as you close the Iris down, the more you close the Iris the greater the depth of field.
(I have some more questions too ask here)