Black Swan handheld camera operating

[Hal Smith]

The "Shakycam" is obviously a deliberate choice. I used to shoot ethnographic film. I can handhold a Bolex/ArriS/Beaulieu R16 without accessory handles, braces, etc. better than what you see in "Black Swan". I know the operators on it were perfectly capable of professional class handholding so it had to be what Aronofsky wanted.

 

I shot some fast moving hospital footage recently with just my 7D, no handles, cages, whatever. A friend who worked in the Mexican film industry years ago asked me what dolly I used. Yes, young Padawan, the Force will steady your hand.

[Jay Young]

I think subtle camera movement is an amazing and very difficlt art to master. If you can, watch "The Virgin Suicides" and let me know if you still feel the same way about never moving the camera. Seriously, I'd love to hear your thoughts after viewing it.

 

Thanks for considering the above. ;) :)

 

 

I did just watch "The Virgin Suicides" last night and this morning. I saw mostly locked off shots, using dolly/track and maybe a jib in use in this Zoatrope film. I thought that I detected a handheld scene, but most of the shots look like Steadicam use.

 

What I personally feel, is that I don't like the dialogue coverage scenes that look like they were shot 300 feet away with a giant 500mm zoom handheld by a 5 year old. There is too much unneeded movement (See Bourne films). Tracking/Dollying shots can be beautiful, and I wish I owned a techocrane. I very much appreciate steady-cam footage and the operators. Personally, I prefer there to be a need for moving the camera. The artist in me says the camera needs to move ONLY when necessary to complete the vision. That means if some outside source would naturally shake your head/eyes (like the wind, and explosion/shock-wave, the ocean, a violent acceleration such as a car crash), then naturally the camera frame and the scene it photographs would move.

 

The weird thing is that even in violent movements, or if a person is attached to a machine which moves, our eyes seem to compensate for that vibration or movement. Totally off topic here: In my undergrad, I played Contra-Bass Clarinet a lot. Since the tones produced from this instrument extend down in the the 13Hz range, it is obvious that this will impair your vision due to your skull actually vibrating (since your teeth are on the instrument). This had the added effect of me having to memorize all my music, because I could not see the notes on the page.

 

Now would be a good time to bring up the thought of whether the camera is seen as a window into the story you are making, or it being as a person actually there, watching the story take place. Mind you, if you think of it as a "viewing through a persons eyes", most people hold there head still during conversation, and rarely move it about as if they were on LSD. In the above example, you can see some of this technique appearing in Gaspar Noe's film "Enter The Void", where the camera is actually the characters head. Even the blinking of the eye is shown! If someone were to make a scene in which the character played a giant instrument that shook the skull, I would expect the camera to shake equally (well, I would expect the camera to shake at the exact same frequency as the tone produced, but that's just me).

 

Now I can't speak for Aronofsky; whether he was trying to put the audience into the mindset of the character or simply trying to create an atmosphere of uneasiness, only he knows. What I can say is that he was half successful. A lot of theatre-goers were unsettled, and this has generated a lot of discussion. Who is correct here... well opinions are like that old saying which we all know too well.

[Simon Knight]

Just adding my two-pennith-worth.

The beach assualt in SPR was made spectacular by the handheld work AND high shutter speed giving an immediacy not seen for a while.

Now i shoot digital but am of the schooling where the camera stays still. It might be a controversial statement but many have said that this fad of rapid camera movement is due to a fear that the script is weak and needs exciting. If the action/dialogue is good, why does the viewer need to announce their position. Or is it just because we all want to be in a first-person-shooter x-box game???

Edited March 19, 2011 by Simon Knight

[Antti Näyhä]

Finally saw this last weekend. Overall I enjoyed the operating, the grain and the whole "visceral" visual style – although I agree that you couldn't really feel she gave the performance of her life in the final scene. Obviously I love "The Red Shoes" too, but this wasn't really the same story and I could see why they chose a different approach here.

 

In some scenes it felt like the camera was almost attached to the characters and looked like that the camera was running at 45 degree shutter in dance sequences, did they change the shutter in reality?

I swear I saw some double images – at least in the opening scene but probably in later dance sequences as well. Looked more like a frame-blending post effect than 45° shutter to me.

 

Not trying to pick on you, either, John, but "putting the camera on a tripod and walking away" would most certainly create the most visually boring film ever made.

May I suggest you watch "Songs from the Second Floor" by Roy Andersson? (Or his most recent film "You, the Living" which shares the style, but I prefer "Songs" personally.) The camera moves once in the whole film and it's all the work of a genius. I doubt that would have worked for Black Swan, though.

 

Was working with a Producer the other day that suggested a new drinking game for every time the camera followed Natalie from behind.

If you're going to play that game, you should watch "The Wrestler" instead. You're going to end up wasted much faster that way (which is the purpose of all drinking games, isn't it?). Personally, I liked the approach in both films.

[Gabe Spangler]

Antti, those examples are the exception, not the rule. And I said "visually boring," not simply "boring." It's all about story and content. Technical stuff is always secondary.

[Antti Näyhä]

Obviously you haven't seen the films I mentioned. Whether you like them or not, I just can't possibly imagine anyone describing them as "visually boring" films that only work because of "story and content". (I don't even subscribe to the whole "form vs. content" dualism really, but that's a whole another story.)

 

"putting the camera on a tripod and walking away" would most certainly create the most visually boring film ever made.

I'll be the first person to admit that Andersson's films are expectional. But "most certainly"…? No.

 

Anyway, I guess we agree that it's hard to imagine something like Black Swan shot completely from a locked-down tripod.