One of my big goals with our last short film was to the use the camera movement and the
camera placement in a way that supported the story.
So what does that actually mean, how can we use cinematography in a creative way?
For this project I thought it’d be cool to try and show the relationship between the
characters through the camera placement. For example, in this scene the dealer is kind
of looking out for Mark. There isn’t any conflict between them, so I thought I could
show that by having them both stand at an equal distance from the camera, a two-shot
so they are sharing the frame. Whereas in this scene, it's a relationship of aggressive
confrontation, so I decided to cover the whole scene in singles - so the characters are separated,
opposite each other, rather than equal and sharing the same frame. When we see two brothers talking,
they share the frame, whereas when there’s conflict between two characters, we cover
it with singles so they’re separated. In theory, the audience might subconsciously
recognise this visual pattern, and therefore have a better understanding of the relationship
between the characters. So it’s only natural that for the beginning of the final scene,
we had them in opposition since Mark is going to take revenge. But when he kills the wrong
person, that changes something. By the end of the scene, Mark and Connor are for the
very first time standing on the same plane. Now both of them have killed, they share the
frame - they have something in common. And for me, that links in with message of the
film, about what revenge really achieves. Now I should say that this idea of using two-shots
for equality and singles when there's conflict is not really an established rule. It's not
a cinematic convention, it was literally just an idea that I thought could work well for
this particular film. And really, that’s all you can do, if you feel like the best
way to cover your film is with just tons of extreme close ups, then you absolutely
go for that. But what about camera movement? Some people see it just as a way to add ‘visual
interest’ or to help ‘keep the audience's attention’. But I personally feel like that's
buying a pair of running shoes and expecting them to run a marathon for you. If your film
is boring, then it's gonna take more than just a couple of crane shot to make it interesting
for the audience. So for this short, I decided to only use camera movement when the main
character is moving towards his goal. In scene 1 we’re on sticks - because Mark is yet
to find his goal. Scene 2 doesn’t have our main character in it, so it’s still. Plus
I felt like at this point Connor has complete control of the situation, and a rock solid
camera helps to show that. In scene 3, the camera does moves with Mark, but only after
he's heard a vital piece of information that points him towards his goal of getting revenge.
In scene 4, he is confronting Connor directly, which is moving towards his goal, so the camera
moves too, following with him as he pushes Connor against the wall. But it doesn’t
take long for Connor to take control and to start threatening him, so from that point
onwards the camera stays relatively still - Mark is no longer making progress. Then
on set, JP our cinematographer suggested that we shoot this scene handheld, which I thought
was a great idea since this is the one time that Mark visibly expresses his anger, and
we felt like a less stable camera helps show that wild energy that’s there in the early
stages of revenge. For the second last scene, we go back to a static camera, until we find
out that he’s buying a gun, at which point the camera very slowly starts to dolly in,
but it’s basically unnoticeable. But this time the camera is steady, since Mark appears
to have cooled off from the previous scene. Now following the theme, it makes sense that
we start the final scene with a moving camera, since we’re following Mark as he literally
moves towards his revenge goal, and it’s smooth which reflects how he’s totally focused,
numb even. But by the end of the scene we realise that he’s failed his goal, once
again Connor is in control and so the camera stays completely still. Now this is just one
way that you can approach cinematography, of course there are absolutely no rules. But
I guess my main point is that camera movement can do so much more than just spice up your
film with some cool looking shots. So I do believe that camera angles and movement can
help us to communicate ideas and emotions in our films . But if there’s just one thing
I’ve learned from making this short film, it’s that yes, it's great to have all of
these ideas about storytelling through cinematography, but that’s just one aspect of storytelling.
For my next short film, I want to have a deeper understanding of the who the characters are,
and how they would feel in these different situations. But most of all how to get the
audience to empathise with them. And there’s no chance that comes from the cinematography
alone. My name’s Simon Cade this has been DSLRguide and i’ll see you next week.