FROM: http://courses.csusm.edu/fmst300bc/cintog2.html

Jack Nicholson as Jake Gittes in Chinatown.

"One way of understanding better what a film is trying to say is to know how it is saying it."-Andre Bazin, film critic

"The way a story is told is part of that story." --Herman C. Weinberg, film critic

The Bazin and Weinberg quotes above reflect cinema's relationship between form and content. Students know what a movie "says" not just by listening to dialog but by learning to read what the visual images say. We want to understand how the techniques of filmmakers inform the theories of critical viewers. Moreover, given the the current technological revolution that has made camcorders available to the average citizen, we need to know how our choices of light or angle or lens might help us speak the language of cinematography to an audience.

As we study the theories of cinematography, we should keep in mind the Heresy of Paraphrase, which says that any persuasive argument that evaluates an element of a work without keeping in mind the context of the entire context in which that element appears risks making a logical fallacy.

I) Fundamentals of Photography: "photography" literally means "writing with light."

A) Photographic Styles in Cinema:

1) realism: "art that conceals art"

2) formalism: uses medium to emphasize essence; sometimes called "expressionism"

3) classicism: vague term because it encompasses aspects of both realism and formalism. Essential "classicism" describes proven techniques that do not overtly detract from a narrative.

B) Types of Movies

1) Documentary: derives interest from fact

2) Fiction: derives interest from story

3) Avant-garde: derives interest from form

C) Shots

1) extreme long shot: a panoramic view of an exterior location, photographed from a great distance, often as far as a quarter-mile away

2) long shot: a broad view of objects or action of principal interest; similar to audience's view of stage.

3) full shot: frames the body from head to foot

4) medium shot: frames the body from approximately the waist up.

5) close-up: a shot comprised primarily of an actor's head and a little bit of background.

The close-up allows actor to dramatize a character's inner truth of the moment without projecting the emotion to the back row of a theater as an actor on stage would. Hungarian theorist Bela Balazas believed that the face isolated revealed "spiritual experience." Thus, filmmakers often the close-up of an actor's face to express a moment of spiritual, psychological or intellectual significance.

The close-up can also capture a character's psychology or other abstractions. "If you are interested in human beings, you must be interested in faces," said cinematographer Sven Nykvist who studied "the landscape of the human face" in such important films as Ingmar Bergman's Persona and Cries & Whispers. When a close-up works well, a character's face becomes a thin membrane between the audience and that character's soul.

6) extreme close-up: very tight shot that magnifies an object or feature of the face; sometimes called an "insert."

D) Angles

1) bird's-eye: photographed from directly overhead. The perspective of this angle is so unfamiliar to humans that it has been likened to the perspective of God or the gods (i.e. the killing of Arbogast in Psycho, the gull's havoc on Bodega Bay in The Birds, aftermath of the shooting Taxi Driver).

2) High: usually setup on a crane, a high shot reduces the height of the people and objects photographed. In this still from JAWS, Hooper is photographed roughly from Quint's POV. The angle literally shows how Quint looks down on Hooper's seamanship, which includes sailing in the America's Cup finals andTransPac. In this scene, Hooper says he's had enough of Quint's "working-class bullshit." Social class matters in this film, which Fidel Castro called a great critique of capitalism. Here the camera angle, set and character dialog work together to develop the themes of authority in JAWS.

3) Eye-level: camera placed at approximately the eye level of the actor photographed. Somewhat realistic.

4) Mid-level: somewhat realistic in films of Yasujiro Ozu wherein the mid-level shot approximates the POV a tradtional Japanese person would have while kneeling indoors. The mid-level shot can also work expressionisticly as it does in E.T. in which the frame cuts off the heads of several adult characters. Keys (Peter Coyote), for example, will not be shown on-the-level until he comes down into a two-shot with Eliot. Keys talks about when he was a boy

5) Low: a shot in which the subject is photographed from below. Can be used to show dominance of character or object photographed. In this still from JAWS, the low angle emphasizes Quint's authority over Brody.

6) Oblique: perspective of camera tilted laterally; also known as "canted" or "Dutch tilt."
In the still above from The Last Temptation, the camera tilts ninety-degrees to show Christ pointing away from the heavens as the audience would see them. He yells, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" The image seems to express Christ's consciousness out of alignment with God's.

E) Lighting:

1) Black & White: Although color has become important as film processing has advanced, black & white photography remains of interest to filmmakers because color film does not communicate shadows as clearly. Furthermore, because color is the interaction of pigmentation with light, and dreams have neither pigmentation nor a light source; a large percentage of the population dreams in black & white. Some directors think black & white with the range of shadows in between are the colors of dreams. Their theory appears to be true given the success of the nightmarish horror genre, mostly photographed in black & white.

2) Quality of Light:

a) artificial: electric lights.

b) available: In these shots from Days of Heaven below, you can see how cinematographers Nestor Almendros and Haskell Wexler used available or "natural" light to give the film a distinct look.

This look, however, took a lot of time because they shot almost exclusively during "the magic hour," a period of roughly thirty minutes after the sun has set but the sky still has light and colors are naturally saturated (see F.2.b.iv below).

3) designation: Three-Point Lighting and Beyond

a) key light: dominant light that creates most compelling contrast (degrees of light to dark).

b) fill light: reveals details that shadows would otherwise hide.

c) back light: separates the foreground figures from the setting.

By varying lights' DESIGNATIONS, a cinematographer can achieve subtle effects. To make an actor stand out, a cinematographer can call for "kicker" lights, which are set behind the actor and opposite the key light to "kick" out actor from other objects in the frame.

When the light behind the actor is stronger than the lights in front, the effect is called back lighting. By setting the light behind and above, a cinematographer can get "hair light," which has a halo effect.

d) eye light or catch light is usually set beside the camera to catch the light glinting in an actor's eye.

4) direction:

a) High key means highly lit: classic musicals would be at one extreme end of the lighting spectrum with high key banishing almost any shadow and ...

b) Low key films, such as horror or film noir would be at the other extreme end of the spectrum, using shadows and the dark; little fill light is used with little key lighting to create high contrast between light and shadow.

5) contrast: degrees of light to dark.

a) High contrast has sharply defined lines and appeared often in horror films and film noir.

b) Low contrast tends to blend.

c) Normal contrast records directional light but with diffused gradation.

6) intensity can be altered in at least four ways:

a) scrims: black gauze or steel mesh in front of light source to soften intensity

b) diffusion: frosted glass or mesh in front of lights or cameras

c) filters: heightened contrast by reducing light waves.

d) overexposure: by letting too much light through the camera's aperture, a cinematographer can blanch an image and give it a glaring quality.

F) Distortion of Light Waves

1) lenses

a) Wide Angle: deep focus; extreme wide angles exaggerate distances between depth planes (8-29 mm)

b) Standard: approximates reality (40-50mm)

c) Long: (85-180mm) "piles up" people on street shot, complimentary to faces

d) Telephoto: (180-2000mm), documentary or "spying" effect; focuses on a thin slice while presenting other images as blurred

e) Zoom: (25-250mm) creates a "pulling" or "pushing" effect

In these zoom shots from Walkabout, the first shot zooms out and then, as the ncamera pans left, the second shot zooms in on the brother. In the first shot the zoom accentuates the vast wilderness, and in the second it pulls the brother closer.

2) Color

a) Controlling Color: During post-production in the editing suite, the editor can more easily match shots if the cinematographer had definite ideas about color during principal photography on the set.

i.) Cinematographer collaborates production designer to make sure certain colors are present or absent from costumes, make-up and scenery;

ii.) Cinematographer can use filters on camera's lens to block or accentuate a color;

iii.) Cinematographer can place mesh or colored transparent "gells" over lights.

b) Attributes of Color

i.) Hue: color in spectrum (set and costume). When the cinematographer and production designer collaborate, they often discuss the attributes. Generally, the director finally approves the decision on the set.

ii.) Brightness: amount of light reflected

iii.) Saturation: intensity of color

iv.) Desaturation: adding white to the color of something on the set. After principal photography, colors can be desaturated by a lab process known as "flashing," in which the film stock is exposed to light making everything appear as if it were photographed under a fog.

c) The Language of Color: Certain colors are said to have emotional energy or symbolism, "warm" colors being energetic and "cool" colors being relaxed and demure.

i.) warm: red, orange, yellow

ii.) cool: green, blue, velvet

d) Using Color

i.) Color energy: warms are high; cools are low. The more saturated the color--meaning the less white added to the color--the cooler or warmer the energy becomes. SATURATED BLACK IS AN EXCEPTION. Example: Batman costume in which the desaturated black highlight's Batman's musculature, making the dark color more active.

ii.) Color composition: designed harmony or discord: In The Thin Red Line, green foliage dominates the bloody taking of the hill. The green with its connotations of life contrasts to the red, which shows death.

iii.) Color symbolism: emotional or intellectual states. In Singin' In the Rain, Cyd Charisse wears a green dress to symbolize her character's devotion to money.

iv.) Psychological effects: In Tommy the scenes with Cousin Kevin are dominated by yellow to accentuate the unease audience feels for the deaf, dumb and blind boy being left in the "care" of his sadistic cousin.

3) Film Stocks

a) Fast stock: sensitive to light, uses available light. Fast film used by documentary makers has rough grain that sparkles. Contrast is diminished. (e.g. Battle of Algiers, Kids and sections of Saving Private Ryan and Affliction).

b) Slow stock: captures colors without washing out; requires as much as ten-times more illumination. Slow film used on sound stages has a fine grain.

4) Opticals

a) double exposure: a post-production development in which one image is superimposed over another

b) multiple exposure: similar to double exposure but involving more than two images

c) optical printer: a machine that puts an exposed image onto film stock and often reworks the image. An optical printer creates a number of effects such as fade-ins and -outs, freeze frames and dissolves. In essence, the optical printer is a camera and projector working together so the camera can re-photograph existing frames from the projector.

G) CAMERA SPEED is the manipulation of the persistence of vision. Usually cameras show 24 separate images per second. When we see slow motion the camera was anything but slow. For slow motion, the camera cranks the film faster at 36, 48 or 72 frames per second (i.e. Raging Bull)

In his cinematography for Raging Bull, Michael Chapman begin with images reminiscent of Life Magazine and then put them into motion, often varying the film speed to evoke the emotions of Jake Lamotta (Robert DeNiro, right above) as he boxed.

If slow motion means that more frames are taken per second, then fast motion, you might guess, means that the film moves slowly at 16 to 9 frames per second. Consequently, the eye accustomed to 24 frames per second sees jerky movement because some frames are missing. Contemporary film often uses undercranking for humorous scenes such as the chases in Hard Day's Night or the menage in Clockwork Orange.

III) Collaboration

The clapper board that appears at the beginning of every shot can work as a symbol for film's collaborative essence. Just as the second assistant camera operator slaps the clapper to help the editor later in the cutting room, the cinematographer helps the editor by keeping the lighting on the set consistent so shots match. The cinematographer also provides the editor with adequate coverage of shots, so the editor has choices in the cutting room.

The images of a movie result from decisions made by the director, the production designer and the cinematographer.

Distinguishing the director's and cinematographer's visual artistry can be difficult. Because film is a collaborative art form, many crew members contribute to the look of the shot. Some directors have an identifiable style. Some cinematographers--although most would deny it--have a look. Cinematographers often give credit to the production designers who provide the materials with which to compose the shot. Finally, the actors' expressiveness also contributes to the image. For simplicity's sake, the director often receives the credit, but only in a few cases is it clear who created the image.

Below are some diverse examples of classic films and who has received credit for them.

• Alfred Hitchcock is said to have relied heavily on preproduction storyboards, so little decision-making fell to his cinematographers.
• Luis Bunuel was only interested in beauty to mock it.
• Sidney Lumet believed in a "lens-plot," meaning he felt the lens told the story.
• Vilmos Zsigmond's evocative work on the anti-pastoral Deliverance was done on the river rapids where the director's control was minimized by the environment.
• Rollie Totheroh set up camera for Chaplin, often moving between close and full shots, depending on whether Chaplin's body or face delivered the comic content of the shot.
• Gordon Willis has demonstrated his control of shadow and earned himself the nickname "Prince of Darkness" in films by different directors (i.e. Godfather & Annie Hall, Manhattan).

 

IV) Personnel

A cinematographer is a chemist who combines light textures, cameras, lenses, film stock, filters and spatial composition.

Cinematographer--also known as Director of Photography--must work with closely with the director and production designer.

Cinematographer roughs in camera placements, blocking and lighting each day before shooting begins.

Zsigmond: No such thing as a cinematographer's film. "Images have to follow the story."

The Cinematographer or DP works with the director and production designer to create the images for a story. The DP oversees a crew that sets up the camera and light placement. The crew has such unusual job titles as "gaffer" which means chief electrician and the gaffer's assistant, the "best boy."

CREW

• Camera Operator: lines up the shot, adjust lenses, starts and moves camera.
• First Assistant Camera Operator: moves lens ring to keep camera in focus. Also known as "focus puller" (e.g. Maurice in Living in Oblivion).
• Second Assistant Camera Operator: records shots and runs clapper board to help editor sync sight and sound.
• Key Grip: works with DP to plan and arrange setups of equipment and to supervise personnel.
• Gaffer: chief electrician who coordinates shots.
• Best Boy: first assistant electrician who helps grips prepare the next shot.
• Second Unit Crew: often sent without director for master or insert shots. Often underwater, aerial, pyrotechnics, airplane landings, billboards.

Because cameraman must get lighting right, he's the one who really controls the film and often brings it in on time or puts it over.

The cameraman handles as much of the film as the editor. One of the cameraman's concerns is providing the editor with enough coverage of a scene.