The Cinematography Discussion #1 (1 Viewer)

[JohnRice]

Rain,

I thought I had the first shot you were mentioning on my computer and was going to post it for others to see. Unfortunately, I seem to have tossed it. Maybe if Patrick wants to send it to me again, I can get it in the thread.

 

[JohnRice]

Here is the shot Rain was talking about at the start of his last post. Thanks Patrick.
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[PatrickL]

Again, the way the whole sequence plays out emphasizes the objectification of Bree, as if to suggest that going to the "audition" is not much different from prostituting herself.

Exactly. It depicts Bree looking for work as a model as a degrading selling of self, and Willis' compositon drives the point home. It's natural that we'd expect the scenes of her literally prostituting herself to have the same tone, to further the same point. But it's one of the things that I love about this film that, as Lizzie Borden put it, Bree feels "empowered rather than degraded" working as a hooker.

John, thanks for adding that shot. I think it's a striking image and I like how Rain described it.

 

[Mike Broadman]

I know that Fonda's performance conveys that, but can you elaborate on how the shot does that? I'm not entirely sure which shot in this sequence you mean, so I'd like to know more of how you saw this.

The image I'm thinking of is Fonda and Goldfarb, Jr in the doorway- Fonda on the right, Goldfarb on the left. He is leaning into her personal space. The camera is outside the office looking in. Edith Bunker is on the inside watching them dissapprovingly. She is the visual focus of the scene, so our reaction to the other two characters are mirrored through her. The visual portrays everyone being bothered by the situation: secretary, Godlfarb, and audience- but not Bree.

 

[Rain]

The final kick to the scene is that the next batch of models being led in are all ladies of color.

Wow, I didn't even notice that. Thanks for pointing it out.

And thanks for the screenshot (I don't have the technology at my disposal :b ).

 

[JohnRice]

Well folks, it's about time to move on, so I'm going to open discussion to general Cinematography subjects as well as to anyone who wants to revisit The Man in the Moon with any comments they have come up with.

On Monday we will be continuing on to Out of Sight with Seth's analysis.

This week Agee sent me a link to a very interesting article about Gregg Toland and Citizen Kane, which I accidentally tossed. Maybe he can post it in this thread so we can all see it.

 

[David Tolsky]

Hi guys, for those that don't know me, I'm a member of The International Cinematographer's Guild, Local 600 I.A.T.S.E.

Hollywood, currently working as a First Assistant Cameraman in television (with DP Tony Askins, A.S.C.) I am really liking what I'm reading in this thread so I thought I'd throw this out there: If you guys ever want to do a live chat with a prominent cinematograper, let me know and I'll see what I can do. I always wanted to do a thread like this but didn't know how popular it would be. Cinematography is such a fascinating, yet integral part of the storytelling process of filmmaking. For those of you who are interested in learning, I'd be willing to make an effort to make some things happen. Obviously, it will be easier for me to get West Coast DP's than East Coast DP's.

 

[JohnRice]

David,

Thanks for the response. I sent you an email. Of course, I for one would be interested in anything you could arrange. I think it would be particularly valuable to get feedback from a DP on common interaction between Directors and DPs and how much say a DP really does commonly have in shots, composition, etc. I'm sure Parker and Ron would be willing to set up an online discussion if a DP was willing to do one.

Great way to start a Friday.

BTW, Folks. Even though I opened up discussion for the next couple days, feel free to continue to discuss Klute as well as any aspects of cinematography yyou might to add until Monday.

 

[PatrickL]

David, what a pleasure, and thanks for posting. I'm sure a lot of people reading or posting in this thread would be delighted to see a chat happen. I also look forward to reading any comments you'd like to offer in this thread as it continues on under John's leadership.
Before we move far away from Klute I wanted to touch on the shot Mike mentioned.

The camera is outside the office looking in. She is the visual focus of the scene, so our reaction to the other two characters are mirrored through her.

I took a quick look at the sequence again. You're right - it is an especially effective shot. First it's another example of what you were talking about, with the foreground a little blurry and the background in sharper focus. And like you said, because "Edith" is the visual focus of the shot, the action between Bree and Goldfarb, Jr. is defined by Edith's cynical attitude about it. Another thing that's interesting about it is that it's near the finale, and Willis' scheme of depicting Bree as confined reaches a climax here. Bree's personal space is almost nil in this shot.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Sorry guys, working on it now.

 

[Agee Bassett]

Quote:



Originally posted by JohnRice:
This week Agee sent me a link to a very interesting article about Gregg Toland and Citizen Kane, which I accidentally tossed. Maybe he can post it in this thread so we can all see it.





Sorry, I've been away. Due to personal issues, I have been unable to as yet participate in this thread. However, John has been very gracious, and has let the offer to contribute my piece remain open for a little while, until I can hopefully tackle such an undertaking. Many thanks, John.

Kudos to John & Patrick for their superb analyses of the films profiled.

Here is the Toland article, courtesy of http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/...rs/toland.html. Perhaps this can be a stimulus for discussion until Seth is finished with his piece.


Quote:





Gregg Toland - Sharp Practice

The Innovators 1940-1950

If 'Citizen Kane' is regarded today as cinema's premiere masterpiece, its visual artistry is mostly down to Gregg Toland, the king of deep focus.

By George Turner

Cinematography is the heartbeat of cinema. It's the one achievement of science, art and craft without which motion pictures could never have progressed beyond such parlour amusements as the zoetrope and praxinoscope. Earlier this year the American Film Institute conducted a poll to determine the 100 best movies of all time. Citizen Kane – made almost 60 years ago – won by a wide margin. American Cinematographer quickly followed with a poll to determine the 100 "best-shot" pictures of the century, and once again the overwhelming favourite was Kane. It also, of course, routinely wins the S&S world critics poll conducted every ten years (due again in 2002). An obvious reason for the astonishing audience response to this film is its look, the most remarkable aspect of which is the extraordinary sharpness of every element in every scene. This visual style, achieved in defiance of what was considered possible with the technology available, reflected the skill and taste of three men: producer/director/co-writer Orson Welles, director of photography Gregg Toland and unit art director Perry Ferguson.

Shallow focus, in which one part of the screen is in focus and the rest blurred, thus directing the viewer's attention to the key element of the action, had been the mainstay of cinematography since the coming of sound. The deep-focus technique perfected by Toland in Citizen Kane rendered all the elements – background, middle ground and foreground – in sharp focus, an effect admired by critic André Bazin on the grounds that: 1) it brings the viewer into closer contact with the scene than that which she would experience in reality; 2) it requires more mental participation on the viewer's part; and 3) it allows more ambiguity because the viewer's attention is not guided. Take the scenes in Citizen Kane where Kane and his wife are sitting at either end of a long dining table in his huge dream home Xanadu, the overbearing Kane looming monstrous and distorted in the foreground, his bored wife listless and diminishing in the distance, but both presented in sharp detail.

Technical and artistic innovations by cameramen have always been a major factor in the development of the movies, and their requirements have been met at every turn by the manufacturers of cameras, filmstocks, lighting equipment and other necessities of the trade. Toland was always in the forefront of those anxious to try the new and adapt it to their needs, and he introduced lens and lighting modifications that strongly influenced his colleagues. Born in 1904 in Charleston, Illinois, he became an office boy at Fox Film when he was 15. A year later he was made assistant cameraman on Al St. John's two-reel comedies. In the mid-20s he was second cameraman to Arthur Edeson on several films including The Bat (1926), which contains some early examples of deep-focus photography. In 1926 he became assistant cameraman to George Barnes at Samuel Goldwyn Studios. Barnes saw great potential in his assistant, not only for his surprisingly mature grasp of motion-picture technique but because of the incredible speed at which he worked. In an unprecedented move in the days when screen credit was extended to only a few, Barnes asked Goldwyn to give Toland equal billing as co-cinematographer on The Trespasser (1929) and eight subsequent productions. His first solo credit was for the Eddie Cantor musical Palmy Days (1931).

Toland was also heavily influenced by art director William Cameron Menzies, who had designed The Bat. The several deep-focus scenes in Bulldog Drummond (1929), on which Toland and Barnes collaborated, are clearly shown in Menzies' continuity sketches. Deep-focus photography demands highly sensitive film and a heavy increase in lighting, but the filmstocks available 70 years ago were extremely slow. Somehow the shots were achieved, however, and both cinematographers used the technique to a limited extent in future pictures, as did Ray June in The Bat Whispers (1930), James Wong Howe in Fox's shipboard mystery Transatlantic (1931) and Edeson in parts of Frankenstein (1931). The deep-focus photography of these and other pictures received enthusiastic comment, but none stirred the furore that would attend Citizen Kane.

During the mid-30s Toland continued to work for Goldwyn – with whom he signed a contract – as well as for MGM and several other studios. In most of his films one can see evidence of experimentation. His work on Rouben Mamoulian's We Live Again (1934) and King Vidor's The Wedding Night (1935) gives us soft, impressionistic images worthy of Von Sternberg. He received an Academy nomination for Richard Boleslavsky's Les Miserables (1935), in which constant danger is signified by black shadows and menacing foreground objects, and another for Dead End (1937), for which a claustrophobic East River neighbourhood was captured photographically on the Goldwyn backlot. And he won an Oscar for Wuthering Heights (1939), a masterwork of shifting moods ranging from romantic frolics in the heather to dark doings in a hellish mansion and ghosts abroad in a bitter snowstorm. On loan to 20th Century Fox he created the starkly realistic dustbowl images of John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath (1940).

"During recent years a great deal has been said and written about the new technical and artistic possibilities offered by such developments as coated lenses, super-fast films and the use of lower-proportioned and partially ceiled sets," Toland wrote in American Cinematographer in February 1941. "Some cinematographers have had, as I did in one or two productions filmed during the past year, opportunities to make a few cautious, tentative experiments with utilizing these technical innovations to produce improved photo-dramatic results. Those of us who have, as I did, have felt that they were on the track of something significant, and wished that instead of using them conservatively for a scene here or there, they could experiment free-handedly with them throughout an entire production." Such an opportunity came to Toland when he teamed up with Orson Welles later that year for Citizen Kane.

But first he was to explore most of the photographic ideas that would distinguish Kane in John Ford's The Long Voyage Home (1940), a sombre story about merchant seamen caught up in the opening days of World War II. Toland told Ford of his desire to achieve a quality of realism that was lacking in the prevailing styles of cinematography; very deep, sharply limned images, he believed, would more nearly approximate what the eye sees in real life than the shallower, shifting focus normally used. And he explained that the lighting of interiors would be more realistic if it were done mostly from the floor instead of from the rafters high above where ceilings should be. The sets therefore should have full ceilings. It was customary at the time to use matte paintings when it was necessary to show ceilings, with the lighting coming with seeming impossibility from higher up. Toland's ceilings were made of muslin so they wouldn't interfere with sound recording and the microphones were boomed above the ceilings, which allowed them to be placed closer to the actors for better dialogue reproduction and avoided the danger of mike shadows getting into camera range. The Long Voyage Home was too downbeat to be popular with the public, but lovers of photography were enchanted.

Toland sought out Welles after the 23-year-old "boy wonder" arrived at RKO Radio. Welles' contributions to stage drama and radio were well known, but as he told Toland at their first meeting, "I know nothing at all about film-making." Toland replied, "That's why I want to work with you. That's the only way to learn anything – from somebody who doesn't know anything." So Welles persuaded RKO to let him borrow Toland for Kane, despite the fact that the studio had a full complement of excellent directors of photography under contract.

Toland would work only with his own equipment, which he had customised to his needs, and with his regular crew. So it was necessary for RKO also to borrow his operator Bert Shipman, assistant cameraman Eddie Garvin, gaffer W. J. McClellan and grip Ralph Hoge, and to rent his Mitchell BNC camera, Cooke and Astro lenses ranging from a 24mm wide angle to a six-inch tele, three camera motors, tripods, panheads, and a mass of mattes, filters and other accessories. Toland used the 24mm lens throughout much of the picture to impart a greater depth of field than was obtainable with the more common longer lenses. The field could be further deepened by using a smaller aperture. To this end he employed the fastest film available at the time, Kodak Super XX. His lenses were treated with Vard Opticoat to reduce glare and increase light transmission. Large arc lights which had been designed for Technicolor photography were installed because their penetrating power is greater than that of incandescent lighting. Arc broads and incandescent spots were used together to light some of the larger sets. Lens apertures employed on most productions were usually within the f:2.3 to f:3.5 range; Toland shot his scenes at between f:8 and f:16. The wider-angle lenses became "for all intents and purposes, universal-focus lenses," Toland reported.

It was fascinating to watch Toland at work. He was a veritable dynamo – the fastest, most energetic worker on any set. He conferred quietly with Welles, usually alone. Welles said later that Toland was advising him on camera placement and lighting effects secretly so the young director would not be embarrassed in front of the highly experienced crew. The strategy worked – as veteran optical-effects cinematographer Linwood G. Dunn noted, "None of us who worked on that picture had the slightest doubt that Welles was in charge and that he knew exactly what he was doing." So impressed was Welles that he followed Ford's example of having Toland share his directorial credit title. Toland's appearance hardly hinted at his energy and enthusiasm – he was thin and pale, with hollowed eyes and cheeks, and walked with a slight stoop that made him appear older than his then 36 years. He had a drinking problem, and often seemed rather morose except when he was talking about or practising his art.



Toland found that extra means were needed to maintain sharpness in certain extremely deep shots. Split-focus lenses and carefully controlled double exposures sometimes turned the trick, but were difficult to set up. One example is in the sequence in which Kane's wife attempts suicide: a glass, spoon and medicine bottle in sharp focus dominate the foreground; the bed is in the middle ground; and figures enter the door in the background. Here the foreground was lighted and photographed first, with the rest of the scene in darkness. Then the foreground was silhouetted and the background was lighted and shot in focus on the same film.

Linwood Dunn was another important contributor to Kane's pictorial virtuosity. "Once I showed Welles what could be done on the optical-effects printer, he used the printer the way an artist uses a brush," Dunn said. Toland was opposed to Dunn's suggestion of using opticals, stating coldly, "I don't want dupes in my picture." This feeling was shared by most cinematographers because the duping stocks of that time tended to produce markedly inferior images to those on the camera negative. Nevertheless, Toland had to capitulate to Welles in many instances because the director had ideas that couldn't have been realised without opticals. Camera-effects chief Vernon L. Walker's back-projection technique was also used for a picnic in the everglades where the background throughout is a miniature jungle vista by Willis O'Brien from The Son of Kong (1933), with animated model birds flying among weirdly shaped trees.

Principal photography was completed on 23 October. Toland remained for about three weeks, filming retakes, pick-ups and extra shots. He had to leave in mid-November because Goldwyn had promised to lend him to Howard Hughes for The Outlaw. To assure a continuity of style in the added scenes he left his crew with Welles for two more weeks under the supervision of Harry Wild, an RKO cinematographer familiar with Toland's methods. During those last weeks Welles gave Dunn and Walker a workout they would never forget. Walker said long ago that, "Citizen Kane was heavier in special effects than any RKO picture since King Kong."

Strange as it may seem today, Citizen Kane required a lot of getting used to. If those greatest-film polls had been conducted in 1941 it would have ranked well below the top 100. Audiences in general hated it at the time because it looked and sounded "freakish" (this writer remembers more walkouts and demands for refunds at the theatre he was involved with during Kane's brief first run than with any other picture as patrons expressed their irritation with the long takes, wide-angle-lens distortion in some close-ups, unusual editing and the sudden intrusions of startling sound effects). Many cinematographers found it offensive too, not for its innovations but because it resurrected techniques that had long been considered outmoded.

A few critics became champions of the picture. Surprisingly, it was named Best Picture of the year by the New York Film Critics. At the Academy Awards it received a clutch of nominations – each announcement greeted with boos from the audience. Its only win was for Best Original Screenplay by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Welles.

Gregg Toland achieved enviable goals in a life that was much too short. He had changed the prevailing image of film for all time, had become the most famous and controversial cinematographer in the world and was a source of inspiration to countless colleagues by the time he completed Samuel Goldwyn's romantic drama Enchantment in 1948. He was slated to begin Roseanna McCoy when on 28 September he died suddenly of a coronary thrombosis. He was only 44 and we can only wonder what future triumphs might have lain ahead.

 

[JohnRice]

Well, We've run into multiple snags for the moment. I hope folks can appreciate that there is quite a bit of time and work put into these posts and when things go wrong it makes it difficult to keeps things flowing. We're not going away, but it will be a few more days before the next film is posted. In the meantime, if anyone has anything to say on the general topic of Cinematography, the Toland article or any of the previous films, go right ahead.

 

[Seth Paxton]

Sorry from me as well. First I lost a VCR that I was running coax over to the CPU with, then I lost (basically) the ATI video card in the CPU. An IC has died or has a noise problem which is now introducing a high frequency into the picture and creating horrible pink bands on the video.

So I am looking for an alternate to that method to get my caps right now.

 

[JohnRice]

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[c]Today Is A Big Day![/c]
I am genuinely excited! I don't get very excited any more, but today I am. It still may be a week before we can get this thread moving on track again, so in the meantime, I would like to suggest everyone find a way to watch the DVD of The Man Who Wasn't There and then watch the 45 minute interview with Roger Deakins.
The interview is a little haphazard, but it gives some great insights into how much involvement a DP really can have in the making of a film. There are quite a number of technical terms tossed around which I would like to address if anyone has specific questions about them. I also want to point out the section discussing digital imaging at about 34 minutes into the interview. Deakins' reaction to the question is priceless, but his answers are true to the core. I'll give an abbreviated version of his answer. Basically, it is still about storytelling. A camera is just a lens and some sort of recording device. While digital allows things to be done which were previously impossible or very difficult to do, it also opens the door to new and more abuses and avenues to laziness. Like most revolutions, it is both good and bad. Unfortunately, most of the truly good to come from it will probably not be seen for some time, until the fascination with its newness has worn off.
Please see this film and contribute to some discussion while we get ready for the next film.

 

[PatrickL]

I was surprised by some of the information in the interview. For one thing, I didn't realize that the film wasn't shot on black and white stock. I thought I could tell the difference, but not this time. (And if I understand this correctly, there is, or is going to be, a color version released to foreign markets?)

 

[JohnRice]

Yeah,

It seems the money people at least wanted to keep the option open for a color video version overseas. I wonder if in the end, now that it has been seen in B&W, they will still release it that way.

It sounds like Deakins actually supports the idea of shooting it on color stock, or maybe he was just justifying what he had to do anyway. It sounds to me like it may have been the woman at the lab who did the magic to make the film look so convincing.

So what did you think of it?

 

[PatrickL]

Quote:

I liked the movie a lot, John. As for the cinematography, I was overwhelmed by it: it's excellent in every respect. I'd guess that a number of D.P.'s could have lit and shot it to look "noir" and done a fine job, but without the attention to detail that Deakins put into it. I got such a rush of pleasure over so many of the details - like the way the inside of the car was lit when the car door opened, or the way some of the shots of hair were framed.

 

[Seth Paxton]

While I stall for time, please also take the time to look at Rashomon's extras (Criterion) for an example of how much the cinematographer's efforts can reach beyond just lighting.

 

[Marc Colella]

I have to agree about The Man Who Wasn't There, it really is an excellent film in all regards.
I watched the DVD last night and the the cinematography really is incredible.
Roger Deakins gave the film a gorgeous look while maintaining the film's authentic 1940's B&W feel.
Someone has to capture some pictures from the DVD and post 'em here.

 

[JohnRice]

Thanks for the suggestion, Marc. Here is a 20 image gallery of shots from The Man Who Wasn't There. I'm not making any comments about them right now, but if anyone would like to chime in before we move on to another film, go ahead. As always, images are clickable to larger ones.
I think this film makes a tie for my favorite film of 2001, and it is certainly the best looking. Way to go Roger Deakins!
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