Natrualistic vs Stylistic. the natrual trend and your take on it?

[George Ebersole]

I guess I should clarify, I see shaky cam all over the place in sitcoms; Parks and Rec, Modern Family, a couple others. I remember a couple of bikini contests I worked, and the DP there did the exact same thing as he scanned the models bodies. But he didn't design the shot ahead of time.

 

I guess I should rephrase. How much DP is in there working when you're doing hand helds for an entire half hour episode for 26 eps? How much forethought goes into those setups?

 

I don't recall any hand held stuff in 2001.

[David Mullen ASC]

There's a couple of handheld shots in "2001", which was not easy considering the size of the camera. As I recall there is one walking down the ramp when the astronauts approach the monolith, and there is one following Bowman around when he goes up the ladder to get to the door into HAL's brain, I think there may be a handheld pullback from the cockpit of the moonbus down the narrow hall as the astronaut crosses, not sure. I think that's about it.

 

Being an artist is about making choices, but even operating handheld involves a constant series of choices.

[John E Clark]

I guess I should clarify, I see shaky cam all over the place in sitcoms; Parks and Rec, Modern Family, a couple others. I remember a couple of bikini contests I worked, and the DP there did the exact same thing as he scanned the models bodies. But he didn't design the shot ahead of time.

 

I guess I should rephrase. How much DP is in there working when you're doing hand helds for an entire half hour episode for 26 eps? How much forethought goes into those setups?

 

I don't recall any hand held stuff in 2001.

 

From a 'definitional' point of view a 'director' of anything implies a 'crew'... in the case of film crews, and photography then a 'Director of Photography' is someone who directs the filming activity.

 

It may be that the DoP is also a 'camera operator', 'gaffer', on a minimal... or one man band... crew... at which point I'd probably use the term 'cinematographer', and credit of 'cinematography by ...'.

 

The DoP communicates with the film director, to effect the filming goals that the director has.

 

That said... I do have a problem with the current self-inflated used of the term 'Director of Photography' often used in 'craigslist' ads... or other nolo budget film making circles.

 

Usally I self designate eithe 'photographer' or 'cinematographer', because I often have been the sole person doing the filming... no crew... no 'director'...

 

However recently for a project from one of the groups I'm a member of I did 'direct' the placement of 'lights', camera placement, and the 'operator' operated the camera, so that's about as 'close' to Director of Photography I've come...

 

As far as I can tell no matter the 'reality show style', for a commercial production crew there is a 'director of photography', and a crew to support the filming process. Whether the DoP 'operates' a camera, is more dealing with union rules at least in the US and in Hollywood in particular.

[Stuart Brereton]

I guess I should rephrase. How much DP is in there working when you're doing hand helds for an entire half hour episode for 26 eps? How much forethought goes into those setups?

You're confusing handheld camerawork with just hosing the camera around. If I'm operating camera, I block and plan the shot just as I would if the camera was on sticks or a dolly. Being handheld might make me a little more able to improvise, but I'm never just throwing the camera around. What I do has to work for the actors, it has to work for lighting. My focus puller needs to know what I'm going to do, and where I'm going to be. It's not a free-for-all.

[Matthew B Clark]

I don't understand why "unnatural" has been lumped in with "cheesy" unfairly. I think if anything is old hat and totally tired and ready for the grave, it's "normal" looking stuff.

[Bill DiPietra]

I guess I should rephrase. How much DP is in there working when you're doing hand helds for an entire half hour episode for 26 eps? How much forethought goes into those setups?

 

If the creative team has decided that it's the look that best serves the story, then it's just as much of a creative choice as a shot designed to have a stationary camera set-up.

[Carl Looper]

There's an art to handheld camera work.

 

A completely artless method is mimicking the way an inexperienced camera user might use a camera. Or a documentary crew might use a camera. This is not realism. This is psuedo-realism. A conceit. Of course in some cases this conceit might very well work. The Office and Modern Family exploit a certain conceitedness in the scenarios themselves. But as a rule it's just rubbish.

 

The first thing one should try when developing hand held camera work is to just move a camera around arbitrarily, without any interest in what the camera is actually shooting. To take one's eyes off the viewfinder completely and move the camera around in the physical space. To feel the weight of the camera. To get a sense of it's momentum.

 

From this one can develop a sense of oneself as a physical performer, performing with a weight in one hands. To feel the muscles in one's legs and arms. To sense how one's body reacts to the momentum of the camera. And how the body might push back on that. How to neutralise certain forces and allow others. To get a sense of the physics.

 

And from there it becomes a pleasure to shoot hand held rather than some chore.

 

C

[George Ebersole]

Thanks for the answers, and sorry if I pushed anyone's buttons, but it's been a topic that's been really gnawing at me since the commercials of the 1980s.

 

When shaky cam was first used intentionally to sell products on TV, I dismissed it as a fad. I thought someone was just trying to make some quick 30-second commercial look like it had been created from raw footage (which was the whole point), but that people would get tired of it; crew and consumer alike.

 

But here we are thirty years later, and it's like audiences still buy into it. Oh well.

 

David; I'll have to rewatch 2001 now.

[Gregg MacPherson]

 

The first thing one should try when developing hand held camera work is to just move a camera around arbitrarily, without any interest in what the camera is actually shooting. To take one's eyes off the viewfinder completely and move the camera around in the physical space. To feel the weight of the camera. To get a sense of it's momentum......

 

From this one can develop a sense of oneself as a physical performer, performing with a weight in one hands. To feel the muscles in one's legs and arms. ......

 

I don't know where you get the confidence to suggest that. It sounds nonsense to me (laughing).

 

If one cultures a deeper connection with the subject matter, if one is interested in it, if one has receptivity to it, then one can begin to seriously observe it. Depth of observation or a similar notion should be primary. Appropriate forms arise from that quite naturally, as will, I would say, the required co-ordination between the cinematographer and all that's external to him. Exercises as you suggest are of lesser order.

[Carl Looper]

Another one, in 2001, is where the bone is thrown up into the air, just before the cut to Earth orbit.

 

If I correctly recall the story, this was something Kubrick himself improvised during a break, where he handled the camera himself. And I believe there was some consternation over this due to demarcation rules in industrial filmmaking.

 

Whether true or false there's something quite compelling about this story/legend. The concept informing the cut, from bone to spacecraft, is the concept of both of these things as tools, or indeed weapons. While not made explicit in the film, the spacecraft is generaly understood as a nuclear weapon - the origins of this idea to be found in Clarke's novel. Where the story of how the shots were done interconnects with this is that the camera is also a tool. Kubrick is seized with the idea of the camera being used in a more raw way - in handheld shots. And the story of this bypassing the usual protocols of filmmaking gives an additional metacinematic charge to the concept.

 

C

[Bill DiPietra]

Another one, in 2001, is where the bone is thrown up into the air, just before the cut to Earth orbit.

 

If I correctly recall the story, this was something Kubrick himself improvised during a break, where he handled the camera himself.

 

He may have handled the camera, but that was not a hand-held shot.

[Carl Looper]

 

I don't know where you get the confidence to suggest that. It sounds nonsense to me (laughing).

 

If one cultures a deeper connection with the subject matter, if one is interested in it, if one has receptivity to it, then one can begin to seriously observe it. Depth of observation or a similar notion should be primary. Appropriate forms arise from that quite naturally, as will, I would say, the required co-ordination between the cinematographer and all that's external to him. Exercises as you suggest are of lesser order.

 

 

Yes, observation is central. The observation being elaborated is that of the physical space and time in which one works, which must necessarily involve the physics of one's own being within that. As much for any kind of camerawork as it is for handheld work. But handheld work is so much more sensitive and requires a more intimate sense of this. A mechanically operated camera (tripod/dolly/crane etc) shares a certain automatic affinity with the architecture of space and time. The camera frame becomes an extension of the set. But the handheld camera risks recentering the camera's point of view, rather than the scenes point of view (volume of view?).

 

Observation is a two way process. It is the result of interaction. Without interaction there is no observation. Just an empty pattern. Both receptivity and constructivity is required. The classic locked off shot is receptivity. But while it provides a single point view the fact that it resolutely maintains this point of view has the effect of shifting the centre back to what is happening within the scene. Mechanical shots also work in the same way.

 

But the handheld shot requires a certain amount of bodily effort to re-centre the scene.

 

Of course one can just ignore such advice and try other ideas. For example lot of different camera angles, none of which are particularly effective in themselves, might, as a group, recentre the scene. And this has the added benefit of not requiring much effort. But generally I find such fails miserably. Probably because there is no effort. No connection between scene and camera. No observation. An empty pattern. It all ends up looking like complete drivel no matter how many fast cuts and dramatic music one overlays.

 

C

[Carl Looper]

 

He may have handled the camera, but that was not a hand-held shot.

 

Fair enough. Not sure where I got the idea it was handheld. In any case the shots are a significant departure from the shots leading up to it. There's a certain freedom expressed in those shots of the bone. A relaxation of the otherwise controlled compositions that had preceded it. And the jump cutting adds to that sense.

 

C

[David Mullen ASC]

Recent discussions about "2001" made me dig up the old Cinefex retrospective article on the movie. In that article, was this photo of Kubrick shooting the TMA excavation scene with a handheld 65mm camera:

 

It also reconfirmed the story I heard about Kubrick lighting the African landscape set for overcast by using hundreds of 500w photoflood bulbs in the ceiling. It says that John Alcott actually came up with the idea and Kubrick's concern was that the tall parts of the set closer to the ceiling would be unrealistically brighter. Alcott said that this was unavoidable unless they spent the money and time to put every bulb on an individual switch so that they could turn a few off closer to the tall parts of the set. Kubrick told him to go ahead and do it, much to the annoyance of the electric crew who had to wire the whole thing up. But it worked.

 

The article also said that all of the African landscapes were built on a giant turntable because the front projection screen was not movable, so to get different camera angles, they rotated the set instead.

[George Ebersole]

Another one, in 2001, is where the bone is thrown up into the air, just before the cut to Earth orbit.

 

If I correctly recall the story, this was something Kubrick himself improvised during a break, where he handled the camera himself. And I believe there was some consternation over this due to demarcation rules in industrial filmmaking.

 

Whether true or false there's something quite compelling about this story/legend. The concept informing the cut, from bone to spacecraft, is the concept of both of these things as tools, or indeed weapons. While not made explicit in the film, the spacecraft is generaly understood as a nuclear weapon - the origins of this idea to be found in Clarke's novel. Where the story of how the shots were done interconnects with this is that the camera is also a tool. Kubrick is seized with the idea of the camera being used in a more raw way - in handheld shots. And the story of this bypassing the usual protocols of filmmaking gives an additional metacinematic charge to the concept.

 

C

 

It just struck me as a match object transition, and not much else. Flying bone to flying spacecraft, telling the audience that there's progress from hominid to man over the eons.

[David Mullen ASC]

"Not much else"??? A jump cut that leaps 4 million years, not to mention the symbolism of the first tool of mankind that has become a murder weapon transitioning to an orbital nuclear bomb platform (though that is only clear if you read the book.) I think it may be one of the most important cuts in the history of cinema!

[Carl Looper]

I'd second that.

 

And the fact that's it's quite jarring. As if someone had suddenly changed the channel on you. The jump cut between the two bones shots, followed by a matching but not quite matching shot of the spacecraft. It really throws you. Into the sudden silence. The vacuum of outer space. It's awesome, as my eleven year old daughter would say.

 

C

Edited November 15, 2014 by Carl Looper

[George Ebersole]

"Not much else"??? A jump cut that leaps 4 million years, not to mention the symbolism of the first tool of mankind that has become a murder weapon transitioning to an orbital nuclear bomb platform (though that is only clear if you read the book.) I think it may be one of the most important cuts in the history of cinema!

 

Well, like you infer, you had to have read the book to gotten the nuke reference and the whole gist. I never have. I've only seen the movie.

 

I saw it as symbolism, but nothing referencing nuclear weapons. :unsure:

 

And I think that's true for the lay audience member as well.

[cole t parzenn]

I am lead to believe that Kubrick did all of his own handheld operating.

 

This thread makes me think of Wally Pfister. His lighting style was very naturalistic but he still lit as beautifully as anyone else and his handheld operating was superb.

[David Mullen ASC]

Whether or not one gets the reference to nuclear weapons, the cut from the first tool 4 million years ago to a space-age tool is pretty audacious and thrilling.

 

I'm hard-pressed to think of many other famous cuts in cinema history other than the match to the sunrise in "Lawrence of Arabia". Some of the dissolves from Michael Corleone to young Vito Corleone in "Godfather Part 2" are also pretty important. I'm sure I can think of some more but the cut in "2001" would have to fall into a Top 10 list.

[John Holland]

Yes David "2001 cut was fantastic even more so on a huge Cinerama screen . Opening night 1968 Casino Cinerama Old Compton Street London , booked my seat 3 months in advance . Much like i did with "Interstellar" but alas not such a big impact .

[George Ebersole]

Whether or not one gets the reference to nuclear weapons, the cut from the first tool 4 million years ago to a space-age tool is pretty audacious and thrilling.

 

I'm hard-pressed to think of many other famous cuts in cinema history other than the match to the sunrise in "Lawrence of Arabia". Some of the dissolves from Michael Corleone to young Vito Corleone in "Godfather Part 2" are also pretty important. I'm sure I can think of some more but the cut in "2001" would have to fall into a Top 10 list.

 

Yeah, I got the whole progression thing. And it was fairly profound.

 

John Holland; "Interstellar" wasn't that stellar?

[Carl Looper]

In 2001 there is an emphasis on not explaining what you are experiencing. And this is great. It's proposing in it's own way that an experience doesn't need an explanation. You can appreciate the film without the book. You can write your own book. That's the nature of experience, especially when it works against the concept of explanation or communication. It is not illustrating or communicating or representing the book, or anything else for that matter. It is not communication. It is an experience. One that works in parallel to the book, as a parallel reality. It has no need to put a radiation symbol on the spacecraft. It would be superfluous. Or worse, it would be an act of communication. A message. The film has no need to communicate anything. It is an experience. The film and book are co-developed, each within their own domain (the cinema and the novel), but with an intentional cross-domain interference pattern between them: in the form of a correlation rather than a cause/effect relation.

 

C

[George Ebersole]

Kubrick was a photo journalist, and his usual style, exemplified in 2001, was to show pictures representing the story. It's why "2001" has a lot of lock downs (the famous dolly shot inside Discovery, and the hand held stuff not withstanding). So you're almost essentially seeing the book as it might appear if you only filmed the actual action and dialogue.

 

I think that's how photojournalists are trained, if I'm not mistaken. Take the pictures that tell the story, show them to the readers, and add some narrative afterwards.

 

To me that's how "2001 a Space Odyssey" feels. Cinematically I think it's one of the great masterpieces.

[Carl Looper]

Kubrick was a photo journalist, and his usual style, exemplified in 2001, was to show pictures representing the story. It's why "2001" has a lot of lock downs (the famous dolly shot inside Discovery, and the hand held stuff not withstanding). So you're almost essentially seeing the book as it might appear if you only filmed the actual action and dialogue.

 

I think that's how photojournalists are trained, if I'm not mistaken. Take the pictures that tell the story, show them to the readers, and add some narrative afterwards.

 

To me that's how "2001 a Space Odyssey" feels. Cinematically I think it's one of the great masterpieces.

 

Yes, I think you've got something there. Kubrick's grounding in photo-journalism prepares him for a particular way of making films, where it's not necessary for the film to be the entire story. But more importantly, where it becomes understood that it's impossible for the corresponding newspaper article, or the novel, to be the entire story.

 

Kubrick, as much as many other filmmakers, will come to understand a way of creating films in such a way that the films will no longer represent a story. Rather it will be the story that represents the film. For example, in the novel one might say "an hour later", and a mistake some early filmmakers will make is to represent this, such as a clock in which there is a dissolve, showing the hour hand move. The correct solutiuon is to make the film in such a way that the text "an hour later" is just one of any number of ways of representing the corresponding scenes in the film. The film does not need to represent the novel or the script etc. If it has any affinity with the novel or script it is in being that which lends itself to be interpreted in the way that the novel or script otherwise represents the film.

 

C