Cinematography

• Look of a film and its relation to the story depend on the collaboration between the director and the cinematographer
• Storyboarding – individual frame drawings of how things will look
• Style of photography should be geared towards story, theme, and mood of the film
  • Low-key lighting styles portray evil and secrecy ala. The Godfather

Shots

• Directors have different preferences in shot length and structure
• Shots aren’t necessarily determined by length/distance
  • Some lenses distort distance
    • A telephoto lens can produce close ups when its far away
  • Extremely long shots are often called establishing shots
  • Full shot – head at top of frame; feet at bottom of the frame (full body)
  • Long shots – kind of like the distance between an audience and the actors in a live theatre performance
  • Medium shots:
    • Two shot – contains 2 figures from waist up
    • Three shot – 3 figures; any more and it tends to become a full shot, unless there’s other figures in the background
    • Over the shoulder – 2 figures, one with the back of his/her shoulder showing, the other facing the camera
    • Close up – focuses on a relatively small object – e.g. a face of a person
      • Close up elucidates importance
    • Extreme close up – e.g. shows only mouth or eyes

Wide angle lens

• Shows something up close, then goes out of focus to show something of greater distance (that was out of focus before)
  • Amelie – when she is in the theatre – she is in focus while the background is out of focus – she tells us that she likes to look at peoples faces when they are watching movies and a wide angle lens is used to put her background in focus and Amelie out of focus.
  • the show 24 does this a lot
  • easier for audiences eyes to shift this way

Angles

• Angle is determined by where the camera is placed – not from where the subject is placed
• Most filmmakers film scenes at eye level – 1½ metres off the ground
  • e.g. view of an observer (eye level)
  • Realist tries to make viewer forget the camera is there
  • Formalist constantly brings attention to the camera
• Angles are often manipulative – thus, some filmmakers tend to avoid them

Five Basic Angles

1. Birds eye view – overhead shot
2. High angle – usually include floor/ground as background; establishes setting
3. Eye level – allow users to make up their own minds about how they see things
4. Low angle – low angles give opposite effect of high angles – increased height of a person = sense of power
5. Oblique angle – tilt of camera
   • e.g. All about my mother – perspective of someone getting hit by a car – he is on his side – we see from his POV

Light & Dark

• Spotlights are highly selective in focus and intensity – they can guide the viewers eyes to any area
• High key – bright; few shadows
• Realist favours available light (sunlight) but often uses lamps & reflectors
• Overexposure – flood of light over entire surface of the picture

Colour

• Colour is sometimes expressionistic (conveys meaning)

Lenses, Filters, Stocks & Opticals

• Telephoto (aka. Long lens) – gets close ups at extreme distances
  • E.g. if you are at a zoo, you wouldn’t want to go up close to a lion and film it
• Rack focusing/selective focusing – adjusting focal distance of long lenses while shooting
• Wide Angle lenses (short lenses) – short focal length and wide angles of view
• Lenses & Filters – can make an actor look taller, slimmer, younger, or older
• Soft Focus – often used for close ups – eliminate small facial wrinkles & blemishes
• Fast stocks – highly sensitive to light & can register images with no illumination
• Slow stocks – insensitive to light; require as much as 10x more illumination than fast stocks