Thursday, October 27, 2011

Keeping the Window Out of Frame

Framing a shot acts much like the frame around a piece of artwork on your wall.

However, in the case of movies, the artwork is (usually) moving. Even though the frame has to move, still it's there.

This can definitely be a good thing when you're actually making a movie. Sometimes, your filming location may not be perfect. And while it may not be ideal, with a little creative framing, you can make it work.

On one of our film shoots, our location was a church with a lot of stained glass windows. During pre-production, we noticed that one of the windows had been boarded up. As it turned out, the church was doing some renovation work on the old windows.

No problem. But since we didn't need the "boarded-up-window look" for this scene, we had to figure out angles that avoided showing that particular window.

The crazy thing was that when we went back to film there a week or so later, the original boarded-up window had been fixed. But the window next to it was now boarded up!

Adjustments had to be made for some slightly different camera positions to avoid filming the new boarded-up window. (At that point, we did ask if they would halt the window-beautification project for the duration of our filming. They did.)

Frankly, it doesn't really matter what's outside of the frame of the camera. Nobody will ever see that. That's the magic of filmmaking. You create a reality out what makes it into frame...

Sometimes, it just might take a little creativity.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Dunnville in a Pickle



One of the documentaries we're working on...

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The Camera Lies, You Know

When it came to understanding the camera, Hitchcock was a master.

He had all sorts of tricks up his sleeve. But sometimes the people working with him didn't understand his "sleight of hand".

There's a story about one actor who learned this while on set. The film was Shadow of a Doubt (1943). The scene: a family dinner.

At one point, one of the actors is supposed to rise in reaction to another character. Hitchcock told him to do this abruptly. The actor did, pushing off his chair and stepping back.

HITCHCOCK
That's all right, Hume, but rise and step in.

ACTOR
Toward Teresa?

HITCHCOCK
Yes, step in and lean forward.

ACTOR
But she's just said something very offensive.

HITCHCOCK
I know.

ACTOR
But... yes, sir.

Thinking this direction was "completely false", when Hitchcock asked for another take, the actor repeated the original movement by stepping back.

HITCHCOCK
You've done it wrong again.

ACTOR
I know. I'm terribly sorry. It just feels so uncomfortable.

HITCHCOCK
There's no law that says actors have to be
comfortable. Step back if you like--but then
we'll have a comfortable actor without a head.

Finally, the actor did it Hitchcock's way.

HITCHCOCK
Come and see the rushes... You'll never know
which way you stepped. The camera lies, you
know
--not always, but sometimes. You have to
learn to accommodate it when it does.

[Original Photo by fredpanassac]