In today's deep dive,
we're going to take a close look at a well-known scene
from Alfonso Cuarón's dystopian thriller "Children of Men."
"- Back up. Back up now!
- Jesus!"
The entire sequence appears to be one shot,
and in fact, most of it is.
This shot which runs four minutes and seven seconds
is one of the longest in the film
and it's utterly breathtaking.
We're going to discuss it from three angles.
Strategic.
Why did they do it?
Technical.
How did they do it?
And Tactical.
A focus on some of the creative choices within the shot.
"Hands on the steering wheel! Calm down. Tell me what happened!"
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Let's dive into "Children of Men."
"Children of Men" is set in a horrible future.
It may be a sci-fi film
but it's supposed to feel unsettlingly close to our reality.
"Children of Men" is shot in a very gritty true-to-life way.
It almost has the feel of a war documentary
with eye-level handheld shots.
Cuarón is creating a world
that is visceral and real.
It's in that context that we get our shot.
"- Where are we?
- Canterbury. We're close."
The camera is placed at the center of the car.
We're in the middle of the action.
And it's about to get very intense.
"Go,go."
But let's pause here for a moment to talk about the technical.
How did they do it?
They started with an Arri 235.
They mounted it on a two-axis remote-operated head,
called The Sparrow.
They put the Sparrow on a series of powerslide tracks.
They put all of that in a rig on top of a fiat
with a place in front where a stunt driver could sit.
With this configuration,
Cuarón and Lubezki wants us to feel
that this is immediate and real.
So they make sure that camera movement
is motivated throughout the entire scene.
"God save us, save us."
So, let's look at the Tactical.
How did they do it?
In this scene, almost every camera move is a pan.
Pan left or pan right.
The pans follow an object in frame.
These are called motivated pans.
Miriam points and we turn to see what she's pointing at.
"- We`re gonna make it. Come on. We`re gonna make it.
- No, I`m not gonna make it. I`m not gonna make it!"
The thing that motivates a camera move can enter frame, too.
Here the driver leans into frame.
He gives the camera what to latch on to.
Now the attackers motivate the camera move.
Until Miriam enters frame
and becomes the center of our attention.
The camera doesn't leave one motivating element.
Now the motorcycle becomes the camera`s motivating element.
Then watch this.
"- Christ, Jesus!
- He`s got a gun! - Cover Kee!
- Get down!"
The gunshot provides us with a strong movement from right to left to frame,
ending with Julian's head jerking back.
That's when Kee on the left lunges towards Julian.
That lunge to the right of frame
sends a spinning right again.
The motorcycle becomes the cameras motivator once more.
It leads us to something new for the camera to follow.
The crack in the windshield.
That motivates a pan to the right to the driver,
but it's never out of frame.
This allows the crack to draw our attention back
in time for the window to shatter.
"- Shit! Julian.
- What`s happening? Are they coming back? - I don`t know. Just go faster!"
Finally, tracking back to a wide shot of the car
gives us a chance to reorient ourselves
after a frantic few minutes.
But we don't get much of a breather.
We push back into focus on the arriving cops,
which become our camera`s movement motivators.
Notice Miriam's ID card,
it`s placement in the center frame is not accidental.
As soon as she pulls her hand back,
we have enough motivation for the final pan right of the sequence.
And here we get our first and only invisible cut,
masked as a wipe.
As the camera follows Theo out of the car.
"- Why did you do that?
- Get in the fucking car!"
- Get back it now. Quickly. We gotta get of the road. Get in!"
Whoo.
That's a whole lot to pack into a 04:07 scene.
But it's a great lesson in motivated camera movement.
By motivating every camera move,
Cuarón and Lebensky managed to keep the camera invisible
to the audience.
If you're using the sequence
as motivation for your own camera movement challenge,
make sure you use StudioBinder
when you're ready to turn your vision into a shot list.
StudioBinder is a great production management tool, also.
It's great for scheduling scenes, breakdowns, calendars, call sheets
and a lot of really important pre-production stuff
that brings a project together.
If you haven't had a chance to yet,
don't forget to like it and subscribe to our channel.
We've got a lot more great stuff coming and I'd hate for you to miss it.
Until next time. Break a lens.
[Music]