While a product of the fertile Hong Kong filmmaking community of the '90s, writer/director Wong Kar-Wai did not traffic in the over-the-top action blowouts favored by the likes of John Woo and Tsui Hark. Instead, his films took their inspiration from the seminal work of Jean-Luc Godard and the French New Wave, painting idiosyncratic and romantic tales of the young and disenfranchised uniquely representative of the myriad cultural influences which distinguish his native land. Essentially, Wong restructured a sector of the entertainment genre that thrives on action in a way that would allow him to use its traditional themes in order to make art films, proving himself to be a rarity within the genre. Equally unique is Wong's bold style, which thrives on pixilated slow motion action scenes, distorted close-ups, and fight sequences shot from several disoriented angles. Far from being alienated within the film community, Wong has become a favorite among both critics and the Honk Kong acting circuit. Drawn to his fascination with mood and texture over a more straightforward narrative approach, action favorites including Maggie Cheung,Tony Leung Kar-Fai, and Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia have enjoyed working with Wong, claiming that it gave them a rare opportunity to play meatier, less conventional roles. Born in Shanghai in 1958, Wong studied graphic design at Hong Kong Polytechnic. Fostering an interest in photography, in particular the work of Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Richard Avedon, Wong enrolled in a TV drama training program sponsored by Hong Kong Television Broadcasts Ltd shortly after his graduation in 1980. After being recognized for his initial work as a production assistant on a number of serials, he quickly progressed to scriptwriting, most notably for the popular soap opera Don't Look Now. After exiting HKTVB's ranks in 1982, Wong became a noted screenwriter, scripting close to a dozen films over the course of the following five years. While working on Patrick Tam's 1986 feature The Final Victory, Wong conceived his directorial debut, the gangster picture As Tears Go By; released two years later, the film was a sensation on the festival circuit, winning raves for its gritty portrayal of the mean streets of Hong Kong. 1991's Days of Being Wild cemented his reputation as a talent to watch, garnering a number of international awards. In 1992, Wong mounted Ashes of Time, an ambitious martial arts epic filmed with an all-star cast. During a break in the picture's lengthy editing process, Wong began working on another project dubbed Chungking Express, writing the screenplay in a Holiday Inn coffee shop by day and shooting each night wherever there was enough light. Debuting in 1994, the quirky romantic thriller emerged as the director's international breakthrough when it was selected by rabid fan Quentin Tarantino as the first product of his Rolling Thunder distribution company, becoming the first of Wong's features to receive proper American release. After resurfacing in 1995 with Fallen Angels, two years later Wong premiered Happy Together at the Cannes Film Festival, going home with the jury's Best Director award. Wong followed its success with the well-regarded In the Mood for Love in 2000. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi
His latest film----The Grandmaster---
THE WORK OF WONG KAR WAI AND HIS DP CHRISTOPHER DOYLE:
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE
HAPPY TOGETHER
2046
Christopher Doyle
H.K.S.C. (Director of Photography)
Christopher Doyle has shot some of the most memorable recent films of world cinema.
Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, Mr. Doyle’s love of Asian cultures developed in his youth, through extensive reading of Japanese literature. When he turned 18, he joined the merchant navy and sailed the world for two years. He landed in Israel and then moved on to India, where he became an oil driller. Eventually, he landed in Taiwan, to study Chinese. Despite not having a credit to his name, director Edward Yang trusted him enough to shoot That Day on the Beach. Following that experience and a Best Cinematography award at the 1983 Asia-Pacific Film Festival, Mr. Doyle was now a professional cinematographer.
Since then, he has been director of photography on over 50 films. His longtime collaboration with director Wong Kar-wai has brought Mr. Doyle three Hong Kong Film Awards, for Days of Being Wild, Ashes of Time, and Fallen Angels; and three Golden Horse Awards, for Ashes of Time, Happy Together, and In the Mood for Love. The latter also earned Best Cinematography honors from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. The duo has also teamed on Chungking Express; the short film The Hand; and 2046, the latter of which won the Best Cinematography prize from the New York Film Critics Circle.
Mr. Doyle’s other features include Kei Shu’s Soul, which brought him his first Hong Kong Film Award; Claire Devers’ Noir et blanc; Chen Kaige’s Temptress Moon; Gus Van Sant’s Psycho; Barry Levinson’s Liberty Heights; Phillip Noyce’s Rabbit-Proof Fence and The Quiet American; and Zhang Yimou’s Hero, which won the Best Cinematography award from the New York Film Critics Circle.
More recently, his work on Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park brought Mr. Doyle the Best Cinematography award from the Boston Society of Film Critics.
He continues to make his own still and moving images for gallery exposition; and collaborated with a number of artists over the last few years on works for the Venice and Sydney Bienalles. He has published several books on his personal and professional approach to the moving image and visual context.
He previously collaborated with Jim Jarmusch on the music video for The Raconteurs’ “Steady as She Goes.”
Mr. Doyle was director, co-writer, and cinematographer on the feature Away with Words, which world-premiered at the 1999 Cannes International Film Festival.
The French New Wave was a group of trailblazing directors who exploded onto the film scene in the late 1950s; revolutionising cinematic conventions by marrying the rapid cuts of Hollywood with philosophical trends. Lindsay Parnell explores how this group of young directors reshaped cinema.
With an emphasis on there-invigoration of cinematic narrative, French New Wave Cinema rejected traditional linear tropes of storytelling and created a new language of film. Inspired by both depictions of the common, lower class workers of Italian Neorealism and Hollywood’s beloved ‘Golden Age’, the French New Wave became a vibrant influence on international cinema which is still being felt today. Originating from the artistic philosophy of ‘auteur theory’; a concept that acknowledges film as a product of the director’s absolute imaginative and inspired aesthetic vision, New Wave filmmakers inspired the cult of the director as artistic icon on a par with writers and painters. Through their films, these screenwriters and directors also illustrated philosophical concepts of absurdity, existentialism and the human condition which were indebted to French literary and philosophical traditions. Technically, French New Wave Cinema was a brilliantly innovative experimentation with not only storytelling, but the process of filmmaking. New methods of editing and shooting films broke through limitations in the way in which narrative was created in the cinema.
The philosophical importance of the French New Wave, and their role in the development of a theory of film, was in large part due to one of the movement’s most influential and pivotal creators, André Bazin. Bazin, a theorist of cinema and renowned film critic, was the founding father of the French movie magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. Its initial publication in 1951 marked a crucial moment in the lives of many acclaimed French screenwriters and directors. In his belief in film as a highly intellectual art, Bazin was a meticulous academic of film who believed that cinema was far more than popular entertainment. Bazin’s emphasis on the crucial role of a director, the artistic creator who implements his or her own aesthetic and narrative vision to the screen was debated, interrogated and explored in various articles of Cahiers du Cinéma, specifically in an essay published in 1954 by François Truffaut titled, A Certain Tendency in French Cinema.
François Truffaut
A cinephile from childhood, François Truffaut’s passion for film shaped his life entirely. Working intimately with close friend and fellow film philosopher Bazin, François Truffaut was a critical presence in Cahiers du Cinéma. Truffaut worked tirelessly as a ruthless film critic and academic before embarking on filmmaking himself. He was also greatly influenced by Hollywood film, specifically the work of Alfred Hitchcock, whom he revered. Truffaut’s full length feature debut The 400 Blows (Les Quatre Cents Coups), released in 1959 and one of his most stirring films, tells the story of a neglected Parisian boy who experiences the hardships of life at a very young age. This deeply autobiographical film set the tone for much of Truffaut’s later work and established him as a deeply humanistic and elegiac director. One of his most successful films was Day for Night (La Nuit Américaine) which won the award for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards in 1974. In Day for Night Truffaut chronicles the disastrous, seductive, destructive and awe-inspiring antics that take place on a film set during production of fictional film Je Vous Presente Pamela. Truffaut’s canon features a wide range of cinematic endeavors including a film adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s novelFahrenheit 451, Truffaut’s only English language film.
Éric Rohmer
A favorite among international film festivals and a former editor of Cahiers du Cinéma,Éric Rohmer (born Maurice Henri Joseph Schérer) was a truly gifted storyteller whose talent transcended form and led to successful careers in academia, journalism and fiction writing in addition to his critically acclaimed films. Rohmer’s films are known for their postmodern illumination of the narrative process. Rohmer’s early career of film shorts eventually led to his directorial debut (which earned him a Best Foreign Film Academy Award Nomination) 1969’s My Night at Maud’s (Ma Nuit Chez Maud), the story of a pious Catholic whose spiritual and personal life are greatly altered after moving to a small town. Claire’s Knee followed in 1970, a story of seduction, sex, love and one man’s passionate urge to touch the knee of a young woman. Rohmer is also responsible for two series of films, Six Moral Tales andComedy and Proverbs, all of which have become modern classics of French cinema.
Claude Chabrol
Much like his fellow New Wave members, especially Rohmer, Claude Chabrolestablished himself as a respected philosophical film academic before embarking on a filmmaking career. Chabrol experienced great commercial success in films that proved to be accessible to a mainstream audience without sacrificing narratives of great intellectual weight. Often noted as the group’s most abundantly productive member (directing, writing or producing at least one film, if not multiples, each year of his 50-year career), Chabrol’s formal directorial debut 1958’s The Handsome Serge (Le Beau Serge— the story of an unexpected homecoming and two friends who struggle to accept the harsh emotional circumstances of their adult lives) introduced its director as not only a devout disciple of Alfred Hitchcock, but an innovative filmmaker whose true craftsmanship is displayed in each and every frame of his films. A decade later Chabrol released in quick succession three of his most acclaimed thrillers, Les Biches (1968), La Femme infidèle(1969) (The original version of Adrian Lynne’s Unfaithful) and Le Boucher (1970). Chabrol’s canon today remains synonymous with highly intellectual depictions of genre narratives.
Jacques Rivette
Although he dismissed Truffaut and Bazin’s notions of ‘auteur theory’ in the later years of his esteemed career, Jacques Rivette was greatly inspired by his fellow writers and directors in the New Wave movement. Known for films featuring free flowing narratives, Jacques Rivette is a legend of modern French cinema. His debut, 1961’s mystery Paris Belongs to Us (Paris nous Appartient), was initially dismissed, although it is now considered a critical success in its depiction of a group of strangers who convene under peculiar circumstances at a party inParis. Rivette continued his cinematic preoccupations with twisting mysteries in 1974’sCeline and Julie Go Boating (Céline et Julie vont en Bateau). Rivette’s most celebrated film, both critically and commercially, was The Beautiful Troublemaker (La Belle Noiseuse), first released in 1991. La belle Noiseuse is an erotic thriller that tells the story of a French painter and his wife who welcome his young apprentice and his girlfriend to their country home. As the couples intertwine in their creative processes, limits and boundaries are destroyed.
Jean-Luc Godard
Perhaps the French New Wave’s most notable international figure is Jean-Luc Godard, a visionary of film both in France and abroad. In addition to being an accomplished screenwriter and director, Godard was also a highly respected critic of film. Admired for his inventive experimentation with both technical and thematic aspects of film (a passionate rejection of ‘traditional’ French cinema’s stories of the aristocracy), Godard’s film career started with his involvement with Cahiers du Cinéma as one of the publication’s first and most celebrated contributing writers. His full-length feature debut came with 1960’sÀ Bout de Soufflé (Breathless); a pop-culture inspired narrative told in a truly revolutionary style. Breathless is a metropolitan romance (between a recent murderer on the run with a girl) set within the urban landscape of Parisian streets. The feature film introduced Godard as a truly innovative force within film. His films emphasize the presentation of story, more than the story itself, much like Bazin’s notes on audience perception of a film. 1964’s Band of Outsiders (Bande à Part), a mischievous and flirtatious turn for Godard, is the story of a trio of hopeless crooks planning a heist. Weekend, released in 1967, features the often bizarre occurrences that plague a married couple in what they thought would be a peaceful weekend to the countryside. Godard’s most recent release, 2010’s Film Socialisme, is a cinematic orchestra of sorts, featuring various characters, narrative strands and themes beautifully interwoven in a story interrogating equality and intimacy of the human condition.
The works of all the French New Wave directors remain fresh and potent today, displaying a postmodern playfulness, and a surfeit of ideas which other filmmakers still struggle to replicate. Although there had been many classic French films made before the New Wave, it was these directors who established France as the centre for cinematic innovation and art house film, something which remains true even today.
This section explores some of the elements at play in the construction of a shot. As the critics at Cahiers du cinéma maintained, the "how" is as important as the "what" in the cinema. The look of an image, its balance of dark and light, the depth of the space in focus, the relation of background and foreground, etc. all affect the reception of the image. For instance, the optical qualities of grainy black and white in Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Maarakat madinat al Jazaer, Algeria, 1965) seem to guarantee its authenticity. On the other hand, the shimmering Technicolor of a musical such as Singin' in the Rain (Stanley Donen, 1952) suggests an out-of-this-world glamor and excitement.
COLOR
Early films were shot in black and white but the cinema soon included color images. These images were initially painted or stencilled onto the film but by the 1930s filmmakers were able to include color sequences in their films. Apart from the added realism or glamor that a color image could provide, color is also used to create aesthetic patterns and to establish character or emotion in narrative cinema.
In Federico Fellini's extravagant Juliet of the Spirits (Giulietta degli Spiriti, 1965) colors separate the bourgeois reality and the fantasy daydreamings of the title character, who partyhops between black and white and reds and purples.
Juliet of the Spirits was the first Fellini film in color, and he intended to make full use of it. In order to further enhance the contrast with his previous work, he cast his favorite actress and wife Giulietta Massina, the protagonist of Fellini's earlier successes such as Nights of Cabiria (Le Notti di Cabiria, 1957) in which she plays a destitute hooker in a grim suburban environment. Now Fellini has the same actress play a rich housewife in luscious technicolor, obviously signaling a clear turning point from his early Neorealism-inspired films.
Contrary to popular belief (and Goethe), colors do not necessarily carry exclusive meanings. Compare the use of red in Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers (Viskingar Och Rop, 1972),
and Zhang Yimou's Ju Dou (1990), for example.
While Zhang exploits red as a cliched signifier of unrestrained passion, Bergman associates the color with stagnation and contaminated blood.
CONTRAST
The ratio of dark to light in an image. If the difference between the light and dark areas is large, the image is said to be "high contrast". If the difference is small, it is referred to as "low contrast" Most films use low contrast to achieve a more naturalistic lighting. High contrast is usually associated with the low key lighting of dark scenes in genres such as the horror film and the film noir. A common cliche is to use contrast between light and dark to distinguish between good and evil. The use of contrast in a scene may draw on racist or sexist connotations.
For instance, this shot from Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958) employs high contrast to further emphasize racial differences between a blonde American woman and a menacing Mexican man.
DEEP FOCUS
Like deep space, deep focus involves staging an event on film such that significant elements occupy widely separated planes in the image. Unlike deep space, deep focus requires that elements at very different depths of the image both be in focus. In these two shots from Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958) Besieged (L'Assedio, Bernardo Bertolucci,1998) all of the different planes of the image are given equal importance through deep focus, not only to the characters (like the man peeking at the window in the first image), but also to the spaces (Shanduray's basement room in the second).
While deep focus may be used occasionally, some auteurs use it consistently for they believe it achieves a truer representation of space. Directors like Jean Renoir, Orson Welles, Hou Hsao-Hsien, or Abbas Kiarostami all use deep focus as an essential part of their signature style.
SHALLOW FOCUS
A restricted depth of field, which keeps only one plane in sharp focus; the opposite of deep focus. Used to direct the viewer's attention to one element of a scene. Shallow focus is very common in close-up, as in these two shots from Central Station (Central do Brasil, Walter Selles, Brazil, 1998).
Shallow focus suggests psychological introspection, since a character appears as oblivious to the world around her/him. It is therefore commonly employed in genres such as the melodrama, where the actions and thoughts of an individual prevail over everything else.
DEPTH OF FIELD
The distance through which elements in an image are in sharp focus. Bright light and a narrow lens aperture tend to produce a larger depth of field, as does using a wide-angle rather than a long lens. A shallow depth of field is often used as a technique to focus audience attention on the most significant aspect of a scene without having to use an analytic cut-in.
Depth of field is directly connected, but not to be confused, with focus. Focus is the quality (the "sharpness" of an object as it is registered in the image) and depth of field refers to the extent to which the space represented is in focus. For a given lens aperture and level of lighting, the longer the focal distance (the distance between the lens and the object that is in focus) the greater the focal depth. For a given focal distance, the greater the level of lighting or the narrower the aperture, the greater the focal depth. For that reason, close-up shooting and shooting in low light conditions often results in images with very shallow depth of field. An image with shallow depth of field, as this frame from Peking Opera Blues (Do Ma Daan, Tsui Hark , 1986), has some elements in focus, but others are not.
EXPOSURE
A camera lens has an aperture that controls how much light passes through the lens and onto the film. If the aperture is widened, more light comes through and the resultant image will become more exposed. If an image is so pale that the detail begins to disappear, it can be described as "overexposed". Conversely, a narrow aperture that allows through less light will produce a darker image than normal, known as "underexposed". Exposure can be manipulated to guide an audience's response to a scene.
In his film Traffic (2000), Steven Soderbergh decided to shot all of the sequences in the Northern Mexico desert overexposed. The resulting images give an impression of a barren, desolated land being mercilessly burnt by the sun, a no-man's land over which police and customs have no control.
RACKING FOCUS
Racking focus refers to the practice of changing the focus of a lens such that an element in one plane of the image goes out of focus and an element at another plane in the image comes into focus. This technique is an even more overt way of steering audience attention through the scene, as well as of linking two spaces or objects. For instance in this scene from Peking Opera Blues (Do Ma Daan, Tsui Hark, Honk Kong, 1986), a connection is made between an activist in hiding and a police officer who is pursuing him.
Racking focus is usually done quite quickly; in a way, the technique tries to mimick a brief, fleeting glance that can be used to quicken the tempo or increase suspense.
RATE
A typical sound film is shot at a frame rate of 24 frames per second. If the number of frames exposed in each second is increased, the action will seem to move more slowly than normal when it is played back. Conversely, the fewer the number of frames exposed each second, the more rapid the resulting action appears to be. The extreme case of frame rate manipulation is stop-motion, when the camera takes only one frame then the subject is manipulated or allowed to change before taking another frame.
In this clip from Vertov's Man with the Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom, USSR, 1929) stop motion is used to give the impression than the chairs open up by themselves.
In Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai, Japan, 1954), slow motion is used to contrast the emotional rescue of a child with the death of the man who kidnapped him.
TELEPHOTO SHOT
An image shot with an extremely long lens is called a telephoto shot. The effect of using a long lens is to compress the apparent depth of an image, so that elements that are relatively close or far away from the camera seem to lie at approximately the same distance. In this first shot from Payback (Brian Helgeland, 1999), we can clearly see there is a considerable distance beteen the fallen body and the red car.
Yet, when a telephoto lens is used for a close-up of Mel Gibson, his face looks like it is pressed against the car! Here a telephoto lens create a shallow space, which combines with extreme canted framing to suggest the physical and psychological disarray of a man who has been betrayed, shot, and left for dead.
ZOOM SHOT
The zoom shot uses a lens with several elements that allows the filmmaker to change the focal length of the lens (see telephoto shot) while the shot is in progress. We seem to move toward or away from the subject, while the quality of the image changes from that of a shorter to a longer lens, or vice versa. The change in apparent distance from the subject is similar to the crane or tracking shots, but changes in depth of field and apparent size is quite different. Zooms are commonly used at the beginning of a scene, or even a film, to introduce an object or character by focusing on it. In the initial sequence of The Stendhal Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Dario Argento, Italy, 1996), the camera zooms from a medium long shot of people cueing up at a museum's entrance to amedium close-up of the female protagonist.
Few cinematic techniques are used in isolation. Notice how the woman "helps" the zoom to achieve its purpose of singling her out by moving around.
In another clip from the same film, a zooms is used to offer a more detailed view of an object. Furthermore, as we move closer and closer to the painting (Caravaggio's Head of Medusa, 1590-1600) , both our attention and tension are increased.
Section 2 - Framing
In one sense, cinema is an art of selection. The edges of the image create a "frame" that includes or excludes aspects of what occurs in front of the camera -- the "profilmic event". The expressive qualities of framing include the angle of the camera to the object, the aspect ratio of the projected image, the relationship between camera and object, and the association of camera with character. InCruel Story of Youth (Seishun zankoku monogatari, Oshima Nagisa, 1960) the radical decentering of the character in relation to the frame marks their failed struggle to find a place in their world.
ANGLE OF FRAMING
Many films are shot with a camera that appears to be at approximately the same height as its subject. However, it is possible to film from a position that is significantly lower or higher than the dominant element of the shot. In that case, the image is described as low angle or high angle respectively. Angle of framing can be used to indicate the relation between a character and the camera's point of view. Or can simply be used to create striking visual compositions.
Camera angle is often used to suggest either vulnerability or power. In The Color of Paradise (Rang-e Khoda,1999) the father, who rules absolute over his family, is often portrayed from a low angle, therefore aggrandizing his figure.
On the other hand, his blind son Mohammad and his elderly grandmother are often shot from a high angle, emphasizing their dependence and smallness. These interpretations are not exclusive, however. The relation between camera and subject can be rendered ironic, or it may suggest more the subject of perception than to the state of the object. The father in this film is so busy smiling at his fiancee that he falls off his horse, while Mohammed and her granny seen from above may also indicate that God is watching over them, and keeping them under protection.
ASPECT RATIO
The ratio of the horizontal to the vertical sides of an image. Until the 1950s almost all film was shot in a 4:3 or 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Some filmmakers used multiple projectors to create a wider aspect ratio whereas others claimed that the screen should be square, not rectangular. Widescreen formats became more popular in the 1950s and now films are made in a variety of aspect ratios -- some of the most common being 1.66:1, 1.76:1, 1.85:1, and 2.35:1 (cinemascope).
Widescreen films are often trimmed for television or video release, effectively altering the original compositions. Some DVD's have the option of showing the film in its original format and in a reduced ratio that fits the TV screen. Compare the same frame from Bertolucci's Besieged (L'Assedio, 1998). Objects appear much more cramped with the reduced aspect ratio, giving an impression of physical (and psychological) space different from the theatrical release.
LEVEL OF FRAMING
Not only the angle from which a camera films but the height can also be a significant element in a film. A low-level camera is placed close to the ground whereas a high-level camera would be placed above the typical perspective shown in the cinema. Camera level is used to signify sympathy for characters who occupy particular levels in the image, or just to create pleasurable compositions. Camera level is obviously used to a greater advantage when the difference in height bewteen objects or characters is greater. In The Color of Paradise (Rang-e Khoda, Iran, 1999) Majid Majidi uses different camera height to emphasize the difference between Mohammad and his father.
In the first image, the camera concentrates on Mohammad as he recognizes his father's hand, after patiently waiting for him for hours. The father is almost absent from the scene; only the part of him that Mohammad touches is visible, therefore increasing our empathy with the blind boy. On the second image, camera level is adjusted to the father's size, making Mohammed a puny, defenceless figure in a world that overcomes him. The first shot is on Mohammad's School for the Blind, while the second is on a shop in Tehran. Through different camera levels, the director makes clear where Mohammad's fits and where he does not.
CANTED FRAMING
Canted Framing is a view in which the frame is not level; either the right or left side is lower than the other, causing objects in the scene to appear slanted out of an upright positon.Canted framings are used to create an impression of chaos and instability. They are therefore associated with the frantic rhythms of action films, music videos and animation.
Many Hong Kong films of the 80s and 90s blend elements of the genres mentioned above, for instance Tsui Hark's Peking Opera Blues (Do Ma Daan, 1986). These films employ unconventional framings to achieve their signature dizzing, freewheeling style. Canted framings are also common when shooting with a Steadycam.
FOLLOWING SHOT
A shot with framing that shifts to keep a moving figure onscreen. A following shot combines a camera movement, like panning, tracking, tilting or craning, with the specific function of directing our attention to a character or object as he/she/it moves inside the frame. In this shot from Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999) the camera pans slightly to accompany a couple into the ballroom floor.
REFRAMING
Short panning or tilting movements to adjust for the figures' movements, keeping them onscreen or centered. An important technique of continuity editing, thanks to its unobstrusive nature. The characters' actions take precedence over the camera movements, as in this dancing scene from Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
POINT-OF-VIEW SHOT
A shot taken with the camera placed approximately where the character's eyes would be, showing what the character would see; usually cut in before or after a shot of the character looking. Horror films and thrillers often use POV shots to suggest a menacing and unseen presence in the scene. Films that use many point-of-view shots tend toward dynamic and non-naturalistic style. In this clip from Peking Opera Blues (Do Ma Daan, Tsui Hark, Hong Kong, 1986) the female impersonator's fear of the soldier who attempts to procure him for his general is rendered comic by the cut to POV and wide angle.
POV is one of the means by which audiences are encouraged to identify with characters. However, it is actually a relatively rare technique: identificatory mechanisms rely more on sympathetic character and the flow of narrative information than on simple optical affiliation.
WIDE ANGLE LENS
A lens of short focal length that affects a scene's perspective by distorting straight lines near the edges of the frame and by exaggerating the distance between foreground and background planes. In doing so it allows for more space to enter the frame (hence the name "wide"), which makes it more convenient for shooting in a closed location, for instance a real room, rather than a three-wall studio room. In addition, a wider lens allows for a bigger depth of field. In 35mm filming, a wide angle lens is 30mm or less. See also telephoto lens.
Since a wide angle lens distorts the edges of an image, as in this frame from Yi Yi (Edward Yang, Taiwan, 2000), extreme wide lenses are avoided in naturalistic styles, or they are used in unrestrained or open spaces, with no converging lines around the edges of the frame.
Section 3 - Scale
If the same object were filmed at different shot scales it would often signify quite differently. Shot scale can foster intimacy with a character, or conversely, it can swallow the character in its environment.Orson Welles exploited divergent shot scales in Citizen Kane (1941) to demonstrate the changing power relationship between Charles Foster Kane and his lawyer. As a boy, his figure is lost in the snow at the back of the shot as the lawyer arranges for his adoption. As a young man he rebels against Bernstein's oversight, rising in the frame as he asserts himself.
EXTREME LONG SHOT
A framing in which the scale of the object shown is very small; a building, landscape, or crowd of people will fill the screen. Usually the first or last shots of a sequence, that can also function asestablishing shots.. The following examples of framing from Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999) and A Summer Tale (Conte d'Été, Eric Rohmer, 1996) well illustrate the range of uses for this particular shot scale.
These two extreme long shots are also establishing shots. However, their primary function is different. Whereas Rohmer give us a standard establishing shot that introduces the locale where the main characters are about to meet, Kubrick uses the ballroom shot mainly as a brief transition between two more important scenes. While the two shots above have similar sizes, some extreme long shots can be significantly larger, particularly if shot from the air with the help of cranes or helicopters. This kind of extreme long shot is also called bird's eye view shot, since it gives an aerial perspective of the scene.
LONG SHOT
A framing in which the scale of the object shown is small; a standing human figure would appear nearly the height of the screen. It makes for a relatively stable shot that can accomodate movement without reframing. It is therefore commonly used in genres where a full body action is to be seen in its entirety, for instance Hollywood Musicals or 1970s Martial Arts films.
Another advantage of the long shot is that it allows to show a character and her/his surroundings in a single frame, as in these two images from Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999) and A Summer Tale (Conte d'Été, Eric Rohmer, 1996).
MEDIUM LONG SHOT
Framing such than an object four or five feet high would fill most of the screen vertically. Also called plain américain, given its recurrence in the Western genre, where it was important to keep a cowboy's weapon in the image.
Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
A Summer Tale (Conte d'Été) France Eric Rohmer, 1996
MEDIUM CLOSE-UP
A framing in which the scale of the object shown is fairly large; a human figure seen from the chest up would fill most of the screen. Another common shot scale.
Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
A Summer Tale (Conte d'Été, Eric Rohmer, 1996)
CLOSE-UP
A framing in which the scale of the object shown is relatively large. In a close-up a person's head, or some other similarly sized object, would fill the frame. Framing scales are not universal, but rather established in relationship with other frames from the same film. These two shots from Eyes Wide Shut and A Summer Tale can be described as close-ups, even if one starts at the neck and the second at the upper chest..
Framing scales are usually drawn in relationship to the human figure but this can be misleading since a frame need not include people. Accordingly, this shot from The Color of Paradise (Rang-e Khoda, Majid Majidi, Iran,1999) is also a close-up.
EXTREME CLOSE-UP
A framing in which the scale of the object shown is very large; most commonly, a small object or a part of the body usually shot with a zoom lens. Again, faces are the most recurrent images in extreme close-ups, as these images from The Color of Paradise (Rang-e Khoda,Majid Majidi, 1999),
The Stendhal Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Dario Argento, 1996),
and My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari No Totoro, Miyazaki Hayao, 1988) demonstrate. With regard to the latter, it should be noted that while all of these film terms equally applies to animation, the technical procedure to achieve a particular effect can be very different. For instance this last frame is a drawing of Totoro's teeth, not a zoom on his face, as it would have been the case in a live-action film.
Section 4 - Movement
There are many ways to move a camera: in fluid long takes, rapid and confusing motions, etc. that establish the rhythm and point of view of a scene.A film such as Man with the Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom, Dziga Vertov, USSR, 1929) features a full catalog of the creative possibilities open to the film camera. In one famous sequence, we get to see the cinematographer using a car as a mobile support for a tracking shot. Furthermore, one soon realizes that the whole process is probably being mirrored by a second car, in order to film the first one.
Scenes taken from both cameras are playfully incorporated into the film. Was this image of the car passing by taken by the first or the second car/camera unit?
CRANE SHOT
A shot with a change in framing rendered by having the camera above the ground and moving through the air in any direction. It is accomplished by placing the camera on a crane (basically, a large cantilevered arm) or similar device. Crane shots are often long or extreme long shots: they lend the camera a sense of mobility and often give the viewer a feeling of omniscience over the characters.
Crane shots can also be used to achieve a flowing rhythm, particularly in a long take, as in this clip from The Player (Altman, 1992)
HANDHELD CAMERA, STEADYCAM
The use of the camera operator's body as a camera support, either holding it by hand or using a gyroscopic stabilizer and a harness. Newsreel and wartime camera operators favored smaller cameras such as the Eclair that were quickly adopted by documentarist and avant-garde filmmakers, notably the cinéma verité movement of the 1950s and 1960s. They were also used by young filmmakers since they were cheap and lent the images a greater feeling of sponteneity. At the time this challenge to prevailing standards was perceived as anti-cinematic but eventually it came to be accepted as a style. Whereas hand held cameras give a film an unstable, jerky feel, they also allows for a greater degree of movement and flexibility than bulkier standard cameras --at a fraction of the cost. Filmmakers now are experimenting with digital video in a similar way. Gyroscopically stabilized "steadicams" were invented in the 1970s and made it possible to create smooth "tracking" shots without cumbersome equipment. More recently, they are extensively used in music videos and in the films of the Dogme movement, such as Lars Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark (Denmark, 2000)
Ironically, while today's steadicams allow for a fairly stable image, Lars Von Trier and his accolites prefer to exacerbate the jerkiness and unstability traditionally associated with these cameras as a marker of visceral autorial intervention. In fact, combining steadicam shooting with aggressive reframings and jump cuts , or even by shooting on low definition formats, Dogme and other radical filmmaking movements attempt to create a new cinematic look as further away as possible from mainstream Hollywood.
PAN
A camera movement with the camera body turning to the right or left. On the screen, it produces a mobile framing which scans the space horizontally. A pan directly and immediately connects two places or characters, thus making us aware of their proximity. The speed at which a pan occurs can be expoited for different dramatic purposes. For instance, in a Mizoguchi or a Hou film, two characters may be having a conversation in a room, and after several minutes, the camera might pan and reveal a third person was also present, thus changing the whole implication of the scene. In a film like Traffic (Steven Soderbergh, 2000), on the other hand, pans are usually very quick, suggesting that characters have no time to waste, and that decisions must be taken fast, therefore contributing to the sense of imminent danger and moral urgency that the films tries to communicate.
In the clip above, the defense lawyer has just finished a long, clever speech, yet the judge has no second thoughts on his verdict, nor any pity for the (presumably guilty) accused and their rich legal cohorts. Lastly, a pan does not necessarily mean that the camera moves along an horizontal line. This clip from The Stendhal Syndrome (La Sindrome di Stendhal, Dario Argento,1996), illustrates what we could call a 360° pan.
TILT
A camera movement with the camera body swiveling upward or downward on a stationary support. It produces a mobile framing that scans the space vertically. Its function is similar to that of pansand tracking shots, albeit on a vertical axis. In this clip from Besieged (L'Assedio, Italy, 1998) Bernardo Bertolucci uses a tilt to establish the social (and even racial) distance between an African housemaid and her wealthy English employer.
A tilt usually also implies a change in the angle of framing; in this clip the camera starts with a high angle view of the woman and ends up on a low angle view of the man --which obviously reinforces the social inequality of their relationship. Lastly, a tilt is also a means of gradually uncovering offscreen space. This can be exploited for suspense, since a sense of anticipation grows in the viewer as the camera movement forces her/his attention in a precise direction, yet never knowing when it will stop, nor what will be found there.
TRACKING SHOT
A mobile framing that travels through space forward, backward, or laterally. See also crane shot, pan, and tilt. A tracking shot usually follows a character or object as it moves along the screen. Contrary to the pan, which mimicks a turning head, a tracking shot physically accompaniesthe entire range of movement. It therefore creates a closer affinity with the character or object moving, since the spectator is not just watching him/her moving, but moving with him/her. A standard tracking shot, as it was devised in the Classical Studio filmmaking, consisted in placing the camera on a wheeled support called a dolly, and moving it along rails or tracks to ensure the smoothness of movement associated with the continuity editing style. As cameras became lighter and steadier, tracking shots became more flexible and creative: bycicles, wheelchairs, roller skates, and many ingenious wheeled artifacts augmented the range of movement of tracking shots. In this clip from Central Station (Central do Brasil, Walter Salles, Brazil, 1998), one ininterrupted movement is rendered with two different tracking shots, linked by a match on action.
The first is a classic tracking shot, with the camera on rails sideways to the character that is moving, following the child as the trains departs. The second uses the train as a dolly, as it moves away from the running child. Indeed, tracking shots are one of the most suggestive and creative camera movements, one that can be accomplished in a number of clever ways. Not surprisingly, someauteurs like Max Ophuls or Orson Welles made virtuosistic tracking shots a staple of their films, often in conjuntion with long takes.
WHIP PAN
An extremely fast movement of the camera from side to side, which briefly causes the image to blur into a set of indistinct horizontal streaks. Often an imperceptible cut will join two whip pans to create a trick transition between scenes. As opposed to dissolves, action or graphic matches, and fades --the most common transitions of the continuity style-- whip pans always stand out, given their abrupt, brisk nature. Commonly used in flashy action genres such as kung-fu movies from the 70s, like Fists of Fury (Tang Shan Da Xiong, Wei Lo, Honk Kong, 1971).
Here's a video that can help better explain these cinematography concepts:
