The Cinematography Discussion #1 (1 Viewer)

[Seth Paxton]

Right Dome (I have that book). That is a long focal length. You are basically zoomed in from farther away so that the subject takes up the same amount of frame as if you were closer, and the effect is to really flatten out the picture.
As I say, once you pick up on it (like those Dr. Strangelove shots), you will see it everywhere in Kubrick films.
Another great example from one of his film is in Barry Lyndon. He takes these long groups of men marching and smashes them all together with long focal length lenses, so that the back row seems right behind the front row.
Yet another time, in Lolita when James Mason is sitting in the bathtub about midway through the film. And so on.
When you talk about Kubrick style, this is one of those things you see that tells you "this is Kubrick", though it's much less obvious than his following shots and the "tunnel" shot (which he usually combined). Tunnel shots coming by using wide angle lenses (which curve the lines on the edge of the frame more noticeably) and shooting settings that have very clear framing lines on all 4 sides (like hallways, or the trench in Paths of Glory).
Of course equating what those visual motifs meant to Kubrick beyond just liking them is a complex discussion to say the least.
But I find the look absolutely amazing. I generally think it stems from his beginnings as a NYC photographer and what looked good to his eye in those settings. Whatever it was, it sure gave him the touch for enchanting visuals without being terribly overt about it.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

When you talk about Kubrick style, this is one of those things you see that tells you "this is Kubrick", though it's much less obvious than his following shots and the "tunnel" shot (which he usually combined).

I've always noticed that Kubrick had a certain style when it came to cinematography. I wasn't able to put my finger on it, but your words (among others as well) are making it much clearer to me now.
Personally, if I ever did a film, I'd "steal" a bit from Kubrick. It would consist of a side-tracking shot of a girl as she's walking down the street. It would elevate from her feet to her head. Clearly, I'm checking out a girl from head to toe, but the artistic answer would be I'm conveying to the audience to admire the female form.
Seriously, this has been an enlightening discussion. Unfortunately, I'm too lightweight of a film fan to make any hardcore contributions. I would've love to talk about something contemporary like Glory or Se7en.

 

[JohnRice]

Ideally, only on a lens that is supposed to. What you are talking about is called "barrel distortion" and with modern designs, should really only noticeably happen with lenses that are designed to do so, or are basically cheap. Watch La Femme Nikita (the movie) some time. It is fairly apparant they did not have the greatest lenses. Look particularly at the scenes when Nikita is getting out of the training complex. There are super wide shots with very noticeable barrel distortion. There are plenty of lenses which can reproduce that wide an angle without distortion.

On the subject of combination movements. I finally saw Panic Room today, and with all the talk about the camera movement, the shot I liked the best was the very last one of the film, in the park. It is a very slow combination crane, zoom, and I think track. I enjoyed the effect, even if it maybe was a little obvious. What I wonder on things like that is if it isn't so obvious to most people. They just enjoy the mood of it.

 

[Rob Tomlin]

Martin Scorsese is well known for his camera "movement", and he uses it to very good effect, in my opinion.
Take, for example, the scene in Cape Fear when De Niro is hanging upside down, doing a type of "pull up". The camera slowly tracks down his body (so the tattoos can be clearly seen) and eventually to his face. The camera then pauses at his slightly distorted face (from hanging upside down) and then, the camera rotates 180 degrees! We now see De Niro's character talking on the phone, his face still distorted (like the character) from being upside down, but now we are looking at him as though he were sitting upright. This results in a very unique looking Robert De Niro (hair standing straight up, etc)! He then proceeds to tell the Juliette Lewis character that he is "The Do Right Man"!
Anyone care to take a stab at what this type of shot would be classified as? Tracking? If so, it isnt a normal tracking shot, because the camera is "tracking" vertically instead of horizontally. Rotating???
Anyway, I think it is a very cool shot!

 

[Seth Paxton]

I finally saw Panic Room today

And speaking of Panic Room and Kubrick, anyone familiar with The Killing noted the tribute to that film used for the ending of Panic Room. (well, before the park)

 

[Seth Paxton]

John, a subtle move that often works well for me is the very slow track or zoom in/out. I just watched The Good Girl and this movement showed up a couple of times. It's almost unnoticeable except that you can see just a bit of the picture slowly being eclipsed or revealed.

But the effect is a static shot that feels just a bit more "thoughtful" or introspective for the character.

I bet a good grad degree film thesis would be to catalog the variety of shots/movements used and correlate those to a general theme that each conveys, such that the various shots really do become a language.

I already notice many "standard" shots that are used time and again by various directors to convey a very similar feeling. Not that these things are written out explicitly in some "how to" book, but rather that as these filmmakers study their craft they learn how to "speak" by "listening" to others.

Sure you can create a new word or use a word in some new way, just as in language, but in the end you are going to have to spend most of the 100+ minutes talking "normally".

At least that has been my observation on the subject.

 

[Paul_D]

I finally saw Panic Room today

I've yet to see this on DVD (my copy is crossing the Atlantic as we speak), but I saw it twice in the theater, and (particularly the second time) I think it features some of the most spectacular lighting I've ever come across. Though Fincher undoubtedly works with some world-class cinematographers, he always seems to bring the best out of their work.
[c]http://www.geocities.com/holiday_photos/signatures/panicroom/panicroom1.txt[/c]
[c]Cinematography by
Conrad W. Hall
Darius Khondji[/c]
CG shots are combined with standard photography seamlessly, and the amount of detail and atmosphere they've extracted from almost pitch black shots is magnificent. Is it particularly grueling to shoot night-time scenes compared with daytime. Was day for night used on this film, or did they have a sealed set? And if so, how did they achieve the murky look? I've got my Panic Room issue of American Cinematographer lying around somewhere, but have yet to check it out. :b
I've very limited knowledge about the names of camera moves and the type of shots, but I know what I like , and this is it.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

The Panic Room eh? How is that film btw?

 

[JohnRice]

One I have seen that I think is remarkably effective is combining those, essentially creating a "Vertigo" effect, but doing it very slowly and slightly. It is great for watching the reaction of someone who is listening to someone else (outside the frame) talking about something that is emotionally powerful.

 

[Paul_D]

I thought it was OK. Probably about Fincher's weakest so far.

I thought so too, at first. Pleasingly a second viewing really improved it for me. The first time I was so hyped to see it, that I was somewhat disappointed at its fairly generic narrative. But the second time, I went-in to for the images and sounds, and not the story. I totalled immersed myself in the world they created (it does benefit from seeing it in a theater). It's claustrophobic, and extremely tense. It doesn't have the extra dimensions that Fight Club and Se7en have, but it is expertly made, air-tight filmmaking, and I like it more and more with every thought.

 

[Nick Sievers]

I haven't participated in this thread yet, but I have been reading this since it started. The information that has come out has been extrememly valuable to me, because a have an interest in Cinematography but I only know a little. So I find it better to just sit back and let you guys discuss. Thanks for all the explanations for the various elements of cinematography, it has helped me gain more knowledge in this area, its a great thread .

 

[Seth Paxton]

essentially creating a "Vertigo" effect,

How about the odd use of an extended version of this for the Jude Law introduction in Road to Perdition.
At first I thought the message was that he was drunk, but I then realized it was an indicator that he was deranged (discomfortingly odd shot makes you feel unease about the character or the moment). But they either faked something here, or were using lenses with much greater range, because the effect still went fairly quickly and lasted for a long time (unlike in Vertigo, for example).
Of course, this isn't what you were describing John, just made me think of it. I do agree with you on the use of the technique you mention. At least that seems to be the most common usage.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

I finally saw The Panic Room. I'll agree with Paul Dalmaine's statements in that the cinematography blended extraordinarily well with the CG special effects editing.

 

[JohnRice]

Nick, I want to encourage you and others to say things and ask questions. Dome has shown that doing this can be helpful for everyone with his recent definitions request.

Seth, I haven't seen Perdition yet. Maybe I'll catch it at the $2 theater.

Dome & Paul, while I agree the CGI was nicely done and well incorporated, I am still somewhat turned off by such heavy use. That is also probably the reason I wasn't all that impressed with the Cinematography in Fellowship of the Ring. There is a film I want to recommend everyone see right away as a good example of extreme photography with, as far as I can tell, no CGI. It is the next film in my "Guess That Movie" contest, so I'll wait until next week.

 

[Andy Olivera]

I haven't seen Road To Perdition, but from your description, I think I know of another occurence. In Invaders From Mars(Tobe Hooper's version) at 34:00 there's a very long shot(at least it's the longest I've seen; just under thirty seconds) during a conversation between the teacher and the kid's parents. The camera slowly moves in on all three characters(also works very well as a widescreen demo). BTW, I believe the technical term for this type of shot is "contra-zoom"...
Really enjoying the discussion here, guys(though I've only read the first page and this one; I'll get to the rest later). Bravo!

 

[Adam_S]

I've finally gotten a computer with a dvd player and took some screen caps of my favorite movie (with some stunning cinematography as well), Empire of the Sun to test out PowerDVD, since I thought you all would enjoy it, I'll post them here as well.

This pair of images go really well together, they're the sort of iconic shot Jamie's parents that fixates in his mind. He associates his father with Dr. Rawlins and overlays the fingering of the lip onto the doctor. And we see Jamie's mother with a sad and very distant look--a look his surrogate mother, Mrs. Victor, will almost always embody. The film deals so very strongly with identity; how Jim identifies himself through his parents (and parent figures)--his teenage disillusionment and perhaps even oedipal tendancies emerge as his childhood--and macrocosmically--his entire world begin to crash down around him

The first image isn't all that good, a little blury, but the action was quick, and I did get the framing I wanted. The second shot is one of my favorite from the film, because it does so much so quickly. The first shot, just really embodies Jamie's innocence at this stage, at the same time establishing the motif of planes, and more importantly the motif of crashing planes (as seen on the one-sheet). The second shot is beautifully composed, moving from Jamie and his father in the foreground, with the midground pool dividing them from their espansive mansion. The mansion stretches across the entire frame, completely dominating it, and more than anything underscores their wealth in an extremely effective yet subtle way.

I wound up only taking shots from the first half hour or so of the film, so I'd like to put the first image of Jamie with the comic next to Jim's first meeting with Basie (surprising me, this is much much more time consuming than I'd expected). However the shot itself is still excellent, effectively isolating Jamie, the halo effect of the rear window creating a sort of angelic innocence (and this did just follow us hearing he has quite the angelic voice). The shot also focuses our attention on the picture on the cover of the comic, WINGS, which is almost exactly the way we'll be introduced to Jim's idolfigure, Basie. The shot of Jamie, is just simply a beautifully lit shot, with wonderful shadows playing across his face as he considers if God is dreams or tennis.

This is a camera move that is simply quite brilliant, the scene happens this way: Explosion and Jim flies back, Jims in shock on the floor, Jim's father bursts in and summons him away. Traditionally this would require three four or more quick cuts--Spielberg does it in a single camera move. Instead of panning to follow Jamie's fall, he pans horizontally level to the right to pick up Jamie's fall in the three panel mirror. The mirror then shows three reflections of Jamie (shot one), showing the fracturing of his world and foreshadowing the worse things to come. the camera holds on the mirror, a second explosion causes it to shift, so that the left panel is now reflecting the door, moments later, the reflected door opens and we see Jamie's father enter. It's a wonderfully concise and fluid way to tell many things at once in the space of no more than five seconds. The use of reflections to create reveals, is used extensively in Minority Report especially the opening attempted murder scene; which suggests to me, that things aren't what they seem, and we never know the real criminals, only see them through their crimes as reflected by the precogs
blast I forgot to get my caps of THE iconic shot from the movie, where Jamie's parents assume the LIFE magazine pose as they tuck him into bed, and the first surreal moment of what is memory and what is reality occurs.
Anyway I hope you enjoyed this. I'm having a little trouble with the screencaps though, they're coming out at 480 pixels tall, and look vertically stretched, I resized all the above to 400 pixels in photoshop, but this seems to be somewhat bulky. Do I have my monitor set up incorrectly (or POwerDVD), is there a calibration disc that will let me set up my monitor accurately? Also how do you accomplish the thumbnailing to larger res pictures? do you need some thumbnailing program that only uses the one hires image, or do you post both the high res and low res images and somehow set up the low res image as a link to the hires image?
thanks,
Adam

 

[JohnRice]

Adam, thanks for the contribution. I haven't been able to read it beginning to end but will be back to do so.
As far as the captures, it is probably because the software is giving you raw anamorphic images, which is also what my software does. What I do is capture the entire screen, with black bars and then horizontally stretch the image to give it a 16:9 ratio, which will make it correct with images from an anamorphic disc.
You do the thumbnails by creating small and large images and putting a link to the large image in the code of the image link. The instructions on how so do this is on the vB Code help page Here under "Adding Images."

 

[Chris Harvey]

Great thread. For another example of the "Vertigo" track/zoom shot, done extremely slowly, check out GOODFELLAS -- there's a scene of Ray Liotta and De Niro at a restaurent talking. Subtle but fantastic.

 

[JohnRice]

I think I remember that. It has been several years since I watched Goodfellas though. I may have to dust off the LD. Is that the scene late in the film when Henry (Liotta) figures Jimmy (DeNiro) is setting him up to be hit?

 

[Walter Kittel]

John, yes...
Jimmy is trying to convince Henry to accompany him to Miami for a job. Henry's voiceover is that right then he knew Jimmy was planning on killing him; that in the mob, the person who would kill you was someone you knew. I recall seeing this shot discussed by Scorsese somewhere (??) Perhaps on Visions of Light or a special presentation devoted to the films of Scorsese. ( I wish I could recall where. )
- Walter.