Motion Pictures II the sequel
Posted on February 25, 2009
Moving the camera, there’s a time to do it. A time to reap, a time to sow…
Being from a theatre and photography background, I appreciate a good composition. I really do.
A static frame can add to heightened dramatic tension (In the Company of Men), or comic absurdity (Napoleon Dynamite.)
Those who argue for a camera with cement shoes often point to classic films as evidence of aesthetic authority. But, what they don’t realize is that they have ignored a technological historical obvious fact: there’s a reason those old films didn’t move much, those cameras were tanks. They could’ve if it was possible. And when they could, they milked every moment out of it (Ben Hur, Singin’ In the Rain, Touch of Evil, Lawrence of Arabia.)
Oh, but they claim that they’re not complaining about jib, helicopter, dolly, boat, elevator, crane, cable, plane, dumb waiter, or truck shot. (They don’t want it to seem that they don’t understand three dimensional space. Even through that’s exactly what they’ve proved with such an inflexible opinion.) No, they hate the ‘Shaky-cam” as they call it. It makes them motion sick, they can’t follow the story. Those with a bit of learnin’ will go further to bemoan the schools of Dogma 95 and Cinema Verite.
Sure, the extreme use from filmmakers has resulted in extreme reactions from audiences and critics. There is a shaky-cam syndrome. The Blair Witch Project, NYPD Blue, Battlestar Galactica, The Kingdom, Paul Greengrass, all prove that it’s possible to use a single spice in the soup until nothing else can be tasted. But, the syndrome is merely a chronic nuisance, not an epidemic.
I was working on a feature five years ago. I had been lobbying for a dolly for months. All of a sudden, on the last night of shooting, it showed up. All of my blocking plans didn’t include it, but I’d try to fit it in. I hoped the schedule could conform to this new demand. What floored me was the moment I realized that the director had no idea how to use it. I knew we had no time to be finding and experimenting in an attempt to move at all times (Michael Bay.) That would have destroyed my back with all those setups (what with only a three man crew for all camera, light, sound, and light setups.) I did my best Poo, “Think, Think, Think, Think,….” I got it: move on important moments, beginnings, ends, climaxes, punchlines, only move on the aganorisis, the perepeteia, and the aristeia. (On a side note, when the DP has to decide all the actor blocking and camera choreography, is he essentially the director now?) So, in order to keep to schedule and still introduce a bit of movement artistry, each scene was limited to only three moving shots (in, out, punchline.) But, when it came to the climactic fight scene, it was time to change things up a bit. I insisted on going handheld. I quickly learned the fight choreography and became a third member of the scene. It was brilliant. Run up, duck a punch, run away, crouch, soar… the camera was unleashed. How did I know that changing the camera blocking approach would work? I saw the exact same thing done for the climax in Drop Dead Gorgeous and Napoleon Dynamite.
Back to the syndrome, the catalyst for shaky-cam grousing seems to be editing. “Quick-cut editing” is the term that puts the sour lemon expression on these critics faces. It’s true to an extent. Cuaron’s handheld work in Children of men was lauded because it was all done it one take one shot. Berg and Greengrass are criticized because their editing style is just as frenetic as their handheld camera movement. But I understand the intent of such style and am a fan and practitioner, when appropriate.
That’s because this philosophy views the audience as more participant than spectator. The filmmaker respects the audience enough to know they can handle a ride rough enough to equal what the characters on screen are experiencing. That’s the point, to enhance the viewing experience to a perspective that rivals the characters’. Bring the audience closer to the action. It’s a ride, not a show. We can’t move the seats or the theatre (it’s not an amusement park), so we move the camera.
My favorite philosophy regards the camera as dance partner. The master of this device was Stanley Donen (Its Always Fair Weather: suck on it, Tony Hawk!) The audience, with camera as proxy, is literally dancing with Gene Kelley, Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, Howard Keel, and Cyd Charrise. Its the exploitation of the medium. Its not theatre anymore, break the fourth wall. imagine what he could accomplish with todays’ technology.
Conversely, I’m critical of those that have used movement to excess. Kenneth Branagh loves his steadicam. Being a master blocker as a theatre director, I guess he thought it would translate onto the screen. There are scenes in Hamlet and Frankenstein where the steady cam operator is blocked like in a hoe-down during Cotton-eyed Joe. All the while actors and are flying in from the wings and background only to immediately exit. It feels like being the sole remaining member of your team in a dodge-ball match. It seems to last an eternity. Sure, it was only used during important, climactic moments, and was an example of his mastery of the medium both technical and artistic. But, I thought it gilded the lily. Branagh and Carter were dramatic enough by them selves. (For Love’s Labours Lost, i noticed that he calmed down and took a few notes from Donen.) Ah, Who else? Of course, Michael Bay. Did the camera ever stop moving in Armageddon? Consider that none of these shot sequences I’ve just exampled conform to the definition of ‘Shaky-cam” or ‘Quick-cut.” So, even well structured movement can wear out its welcome.
One of the hack directors I used to work with would never allow a zoom. He’d read in a how-to book that Hollywood movies don’t use zooms inside a shot, so he never would. I didn’t fight it. I just wanted the day to end. So, I never brought up Robert Altman. I’m jealous that he perfected the zoom and only he can ever use it. Now that he’s dead, we’ll never see it again.
The director I admire most once told me: “If your subject is still, move the camera. If your subject is in motion, keep the camera still.”
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Utilitarian Objectivistic Pragmatic aproaches to the Gestalt of Aesthetics
Posted on February 24, 2009
I’ve disciplined myself towards a gestalt approach when considering the question of aesthetics. Like the aesthetics of the gestalt, within the school of architecture, the demands of function dictate the product’s from.
Back in the fall of ‘96, I noticed that the content of a report I did in my Theatre History class could be applied to the demands of other projects from other courses. Humanities, history, writing, economics, science, logic, they all benefited from that one research report. With a little massaging, the message was made to fit the needs of every other medium. In fact, what I had realized was that each course was not asking me to deliver content, but exhibit mastery of a process: research, analysis, comprehension, and communication. This medium of process was the message, not the content, not the facts.
This lead me to discover what thousands before me had found: that there was a simple method, an obvious aesthetic standard to communications, a universal singular theory, hallowed by usage and consecrated by time.
I noticed that the same rules applied to all of the endeavors of man: interior design, architecture, fashion, painting, sculpture, media, music, religion, government.
Yes, Virginia, form follows function.
Allow me immediately to appear contradict myself:
I once performed a media transfer for a professor. He needed a series of EP cassettes converted to CD. They corresponded to a visual presentation stored on 35mm slides. He had already had the slides scanned and converted to JPEGs. His habit was to present them in a PowerPoint presentation to his class. So, all he wanted was an audio CD from whence to serve from a boom box he would port across campus. I couldn’t persuade him to use the computer’s media player to play the audio. He didn’t want me to cut and synchronize the audio to the appropriate slide in the PPT presentation. He kept and served the PPT presentation from an old CD-ROM. He could not understand my arguments for a USB HDD, or thumb drive, or network storage drives, or thin-client/web/cloud service. Furthermore, I was unable to convince him to allow me to marry the audio and video into a single media file presentation. I understood all of this, it was a common defeat I would suffer from most members of his generation. But, what shocked me the most was not the medium difficulties, but the message.
He was using instructional media to deliver a lesson on advertising print communication. My problem with the content was it’s narrow concept of how to deliver messages to an audience. The program advocated – no, demanded, one layout and copy aesthetic standard for all messages, all products, and all audiences. On and on, example after example it criticized photo and copy layout that didn’t contain enough information in an acceptably conservative manner. Surely, you don’t sell hot dogs and lingerie the same way you bark Cadillacs and condoms? Do you speak the same way to the audience that consumes your firearms as you would to the audience that dances in your leotards? Does the audience that needs life insurance even speak the same language as your customers that eat your Pla-doh?
Am I a hypocrite? No. What’s often overlooked is the realization that the message, the audience, the product, the time, the space, the venue, the medium, the politics, religion, history, language… all have aesthetic requirements to be considered when constructing a communication. In fact, these demands are not restrictions, but contribute to the very message itself. The function demands a specific form. Even though they bear many similarities, you don’t build the same kitchen or uniform for a soldier in the army that you would for a soldier in the Salvation Army.
The copy and layout program didn’t cover guerrilla marketing, of course. That concept would have given them apoplectic fits.
I once worked for a director who hated handheld camera work. Against all of the argumentsof his peers and colleagues, he never would admit to having seen it aptly applied. Never could understand its potential contribution.
I’ve known media professionals who could only work in one medium. The TV guy couldn’t do film, the film guy could only do horror, the actor only did plays, the musician couldn’t freestyle jam, the director couldn’t work without a shot list or storyboards, the fight choreographer couldn’t block a dance. Some of these examples constitute a small leap forward or sideways within the same skill set. Others require applying utilities towards mediums they were not originally designed for. But, creativity is finding new applications for old tools. A bucket is a drum once you bang on it, and a canvas is blank until you…
The only concrete rule I have concerns the vulgarities. But, your use of archetypal communication standards can transcend the more common reference devices that will die or be co-opted or suffer etymological complete polar shifts of definition: metaphor, vernacular, idioms, axiom, myths, legends, urban tall tales, analogy of slang. They’re useful, but date the piece. Keep it classy.
I’ve worked in steel, PVC, dirt, tempera, emulsion, pixels, bits, electrons, bass notes, and humors. The mediums differ slightly only by degrees and dimensions but the basic aesthetic tools of communication remain the same: short simple declarative statements, moderate use of metaphors, strong use of descriptive analogies, three to five point paragraph structure, three to five act story structure, varying use of contrast, polar shifts, hamartia, hubris, perepeteia, aristeia, anagnorisis, can you improve upon the methods that made Shakespeare and Aristophanes famous?
Maybe, that’s what artists strive for in experimentation. But, master the classic forms first, then get creative.
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