planing the shooting day

[GeorgeSelinsky]

Really? I read somewhere (sorry, no idea where) about a director or producer (this sounds like I really know what I'm talking about, huh?) saying how they hated the attitude of "all we need for this scene is a master and two closeups", regarding covering a scene with two people talking.

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For me personally, it's all a matter of the specific scene. Long scenes obviously should have more coverage because you need to keep audience interest. An average scene is about a minute and a half to two, you can get away with a master shot, two OTS's and a good medium shot too (as a matter of fact, you can usually get away with covering just the beginning and end of the scene with a master, maybe throw in a point in the middle somewhere too).

 

I don't do a lot of camera moves (very few, actually), so I try to go for more coverage of a scene, esp. with various medium shots/two shots. Some I go over the shoulder more, some I go profile, etc.

 

The way I usually do it is try to break down how I can cut things. I can say "Okay, this is the beginning so we'll start wide, then we'll cut in closer as things progress". That's a frequent strategy. Then I can break into an interesting medium or wide shot here or there to keep things more interesting, give some space. Then I can find a crucial moment in the scene where a nice tight CU would be interesting.

 

What I found that I like to do sometimes is search around the room and find a position/place where I can't set up a tripod. I take the camera off the sticks and then squeeze myself in tightly, using things like my camera case and pillows to keep myself propped up, like a sniper. Then I just hold my breath and I try the shot. I found that a lot of interesting things can be done that way. Of course, sometimes you're f-ed when you inevitably will shift ever so slightly and the frame dips (btw, I often find that wide shots with camera jarring end up on the floor much sooner than closeups), but you can cut around it often.

 

When I'm about to roll out, I often go handheld for a crazy shot, too. 1 out of 3 times I use something from those.

 

I work much more filmschool style, being that I'm the camera operator/DP and director, but I find that while camera operation is a fulltime job that can interfere with directing, it's a very direct and hands on way of working.

 

- G.

[Bob Hayes]

I read somewhere (sorry, no idea where) about a director or producer (this sounds like I really know what I'm talking about, huh?) saying how they hated the attitude of "all we need for this scene is a master and two close-ups", regarding covering a scene with two people talking. You're saying that approach is just fine?

 

No not really. I think you are limited by your own vision. I never said shooting a scene in three shots meant a master and two close ups. Although it often becomes that. Think of the famous Steadicam shot from ?Rocky? where the camera follows Rocky up the stairs and does a 360 around him. The ?I?m King of the World? shot from ?Titanic?. Sometimes you don?t need ten shots to tell the story. George C. Scott in the monologue from ?Patton? with the American Flag behind him. Notice how scenes that really stick in your mind are often images where a few shots tell the story.

 

I watch a show like Law and Order SVU, and the cover the crap out of the courtroom stuff. . .OTS's, CUs, Wides, often of the same subject. What're the rules? Are there any?

 

Courtrooms often require lots of set-ups. The ?Spray and Pray? photography on shows like ?Law and Order?, which I like very much, demonstrates a machine gun style of film making. Just pull the trigger and point it at anything that moves. That said, grabbing the zoom lens and changing the frame size on take two doesn?t really qualify for a new set up in my book. Starting on her hands and panning to her face on take three are sort of different versions of the same set-up. Shooting two cameras side by side can pump up the set-ups.

[Ellen D. McCarn]

Right now I'm working on a show that's trying to shoot an 88 page feature/treatment in 4 days. We're not coming even close to making our days, but it's an adventure. Still, we're averaging about 12 pages and probably 60-70 setups a day, and 20-30 scenes. Can you say "low budget"? Luckily, it's DV, and most of the setups don't involve huge lighting changes, though.

Edited March 4, 2005 by edm150

[Sam Wells]

What do you do if you end the planned day early?

 

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Wait for the producer to say "I'm buying the first round" :D

 

-Sam

[quinn]

Wait for the producer to say "I'm buying  the first round"  :D

 

-Sam

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here, here!

 

Low coverage doesn't always equal speed. I watched the behind the scenes footage of Gerry and read about it in New Cinematographers and got dizzy looking the dolly track stretching to the horizon!! I

 

I'm currently still doing the ultra-low budget thing - 1 crew member on most days. So, It can take quite a bit to get set up. I can't wait for the day to have three crew members. Haha.

[Ram Shani]

hi

 

why one shot scene are more "arty" then mountage which really is the power of cinema. ??????

 

sametime its seems like more of a film making show-off (one shot)

 

ram

Edited March 5, 2005 by ramdop

[Sam Wells]

Low coverage doesn't always equal speed.  I watched the behind the scenes footage of Gerry and read about it in New Cinematographers and got dizzy looking the dolly track stretching to the horizon!!   

 

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Yeah but there's a reason for that. No matter what you think of "Gerry" - when he *does* turn it around, shoot the reverses - it really means something, it can be a rupture in the apparent but illusory seams of the film.

 

Just as in "Elephant" when the Steadicam comes down the hall again - or in reverse direction the space is the same but the implications are changing, so this is 'minimal' coverage, but the tension of montage-thinking is still there, it just happens in expanded space/time.

 

-Sam

[Bob Hayes]

Right now I'm working on a show that's trying to shoot an 88 page feature/treatment in 4 days.  We're not coming even close to making our days, but it's an adventure.  Still, we're averaging about 12 pages and probably 60-70 setups a day, and 20-30 scenes. 

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Right now I'm working on a show that's trying to shoot an 88 page feature/treatment in 4 days. We're not coming even close to making our days, but it's an adventure. Still, we're averaging about 12 pages and probably 60-70 setups a day, and 20-30 scenes. Can you say "low budget"? Luckily, it's DV, and most of the setups don't involve huge lighting changes, though.

 

First of all at 12 pages a day you are not shooting an 88 page movie in four days. You?re really doing it in 8 days. It sounds like the problem is really two many short scenes. If you are doing 24 scens and 12 pages that's 1/2 a page a scene. You can't do that in a four day movie. Here are some tricks to pulling it off.

 

There are some tricks to cranking out quality in short time. The scripts need to have longer scenes with smaller cast. Light your sets so you can shoot 180?s. Shoot two cameras. Do a minimum amount of takes.

 

Here is an interesting fact.

 

Let?s say you shoot 12 pages in a day and do each scene as a oner and only did one take. That means out of your 12 hour day you spent 12 minutes filming.

 

If you shot each scene in three shots master close-up and close-up and only did one take you spent 36 minutes of your day filming.

 

Lets say you end up shooting each scene in five set ups instead of three. You?ve spent 60 minutes just filming the actors.

 

Finally let?s say you did five set-ups per scene and four takes of each shot. Not unrealistic. You have spent 240 minutes filming. That?s four hours of rolling the camera consuming one third of your day.

 

So whether you are trying to shoot a feature in four days, a television series in 6 days, or as feature in 36 days. The amount of coverage and number of takes consumes much of your day. But at the level you are shooting it is a huge part of your day.

[GeorgeSelinsky]

I always had the toughest time determining just what is a scene. If two people are talking and they walk from one room to the next, I usually count that as two scenes. If two people are in one location and they're talking, then we cut to another shot outdoors for a while, then we cut back in, I count that as two scenes, not three. But sometimes the narrative changes pace in the given scene, a new character comes in, etc. I gotta hear some script breakdown tips if anyone has them because I really am not that great at it.

 

- G.

[Laurent Andrieux]

My 2 cents :

 

Usually, as for a theater play, a scene is determined by its unity of place, time and action. it corresponds to what you call scenes.

 

A sequence (of scenes) can be considered in a certain continuity (the 2 or 3 scenes you describe are in sequence).

 

Some screenwriters cut in sequences, other in scenes. Sometimes the AD cuts another time in prep (creating 73A, 73B for instance) as to have different numbers for different scenes when the writer did cut in sequences.

 

When we shoot we cut scenes in shots and then consider more commonly that we cut sequences in shots, put shots in sequences. The term sequence changes and becomes sequence of shots rather than sequence of scenes...

 

May be this explains your confusion ?

[Ellen D. McCarn]

Thanks for the input, Bob. The math makes it feel more manageable, and, therefore, doable. Actually, the first 2 days, we didn't make our day at all. We were scheduled to shoot 15 on the first day and 25 on the second. We made our days on the last 2 days, though (26 and 30 pagers). Pretty much everything was a oner with 2 cameras, and we were aiming for getting it in one take. The long scenes took a painfully long amount of time, though. Of course, this has less to do with the actual setups than to do with an actor who decided that it was more important to go out for drinks with friends at night instead of learning his lines, so the short scenes went a lot more smoothly (a lot easier to memorize 2 lines in a short amount of time than 30). Also, on the last day we had 30 actors in. However, as it was more of a treatment than something for distribution and view by others than investors, it came down to, "If we don't have it, we'll cut around it. So be it." I think, even with the circumstances, that we got some quality footage, too. It was four very long days, though.

[David Mullen ASC]

That's something I have a hard time getting directors to understand -- they always say "well, I would have gotten my thirty shots if 'x' hadn't gone wrong! (actor shown up late, generator broke down, prop didn't work right, weather changed, etc.)"

 

Something ALWAYS goes wrong. Any plan based on a best-cased scenario to achieve will probably fall short of success. You always need to leave in a little wiggle room, time-wise. Of course, you also have to address the time-wasters so as to minimize them rather than accept them.

[Bob Hayes]

The ?I?m King of the World? shot from ?Titanic?. Sometimes you don?t need ten shots to tell the story.

 

I gotta bust myself. The "King of the World" shot from Titanic is a pretty well covered sequence. :-)

[Michael Nash]

There are some tricks to cranking out quality in short time.  The scripts need to have longer scenes with smaller cast. Light your sets so you can shoot 180?s.  Shoot two cameras.  Do a minimum amount of takes. 

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I had the pleasure of working with Bob on some pickups for a feature last year, and got to observe this approach in practice and have to say I was impressed at the quantity and quality of coverage he was able to put together (remember Pit Fighter?). He knows of what he speaks! :P

 

I operated B camera with him for one "sequence," which was really several scenes that took place on the same set, and by cross-shooting we covered something like 9 pages in about an hour of shooting. Bob carefully organized the blocking and shot size to make it all cut together.

 

Now I'm DP'ing a three-camera TV show, and have really gotten used to the speed and effiency of a multi-camera approach. For some scenes with a group of five people, we cross-shoot with two cameras side by side in one direction, and the third camera getting a reverse. With the two side-by-side cameras we can cover a group and singles, or single of a person speaking and cutaway reactions of the other people simultaneously. Since the show is "mostly" reality-based, we're trying to cover genuine first-time reactions and statements with a minimum of retakes and pickups. With the director watching the monitors, we all know what we missed on the first go-'round and can quickly pick up just that bit and move on.