Over-use of close-ups.

[Hal Smith]

If a movie is first intended for the theatrical market, what's important is that the movie works well in that market, because high sales will help drive home video sales later. So there is no financial reason to compromise the theatrical version to suit a later video release.

Good point. Except for Oscar winners, classics, etc. the one chance to see a movie on the big screen is first release in a theatre. That has to be the reason for a lot of ticket sales - wait a day too long and the audience's only choices are cable, sat tv, or DVD. I'm certain movie business people have a lot of research data that supports producing films with theatrical big screen values, not little screen values.

[James Steven Beverly]

Sure it's a business, but rarely does that factor into issues like composition and how tight the framing should be -- producers don't often interfere at that level of artistic decision-making, except in the rare "we want to see more cleavage" type discussions (which actually tend to favor widening out a little!) and even those can actually be story-motivated decisions (the actress needs to look seductive in this scene, etc.)

 

I don't think any studio has a policy of "tighter framing means more money at the box office and home video". No one buys a DVD based on how tight the framing is.

 

I do think, however, that there is a tendency to solve a "problematic" movie with more edits, i.e. each new cut of the movie involves making more cuts to "fix" a scene -- rarely does a long editing process lead to fewer cuts.

 

And of course a distributor may have an opinion on aspect ratio, i.e. if the movie is mainly intended for the straight-to-video market ("direct to DVD" is another term) then there is little reason to shoot in 2.35.

 

But I don't think there is any policy at the studios to frame movies tighter because they'll sell better in the video market. If a movie is first intended for the theatrical market, what's important is that the movie works well in that market, because high sales will help drive home video sales later. So there is no financial reason to compromise the theatrical version to suit a later video release.

 

That's true, that does make sense, a strong theatrical release will definately push video sales through the roof. I did think of one other thing though, the academy standard screen on my KEM flatbeds aren't much bigger than a monitor and the scope and widescreen heads seem smaller, What not just build a scope and widescreen monitor for the Avids, any non-linear editors? That also seams to make sence to me.

[Max Jacoby]

Isn't it also true that directors rarely get the final cut?

While that it the case for most commercial (Hollywood) films, it is a whole different story in Europe, where the author's rights are protected by law.

[David Mullen ASC]

That's true, that does make sense, a strong theatrical release will definately push video sales through the roof. I did think of one other thing though, the academy standard screen on my KEM flatbeds aren't much bigger than a monitor and the scope and widescreen heads seem smaller, What not just build a scope and widescreen monitor for the Avids, any non-linear editors? That also seams to make sence to me.

 

You're young...

 

Affordable large-screen computer LCD monitors are a fairly recent development. For many years, the screens used by AVID's were large by computer CRT standards of the day, but not THAT large when you consider how movies were cut, with the picture occupying a window on the screen. Plus for years, in order to increase the speed of the system, the clips were digitized at very low resolution so that detail was limited.

 

So it is only recently that one can edit using larger monitors at higher resolutions in real time, so eventually you may see movies cut while the editor watches a bigger image. And hopefully video dailies will eventually be replaced by HD dailies with larger projection on location, although it's hard to not get away from directors just watching them on a laptop or something. Even Peter Jackson on the King Kong shoot mentions that even though DP Andrew Lesnie watched projected 35mm prints of dailies, Jackson only had time to watch them in between set-ups on his portable DVD player.

[Michael Nash]

http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/profil...le-fincher_h640

[James Steven Beverly]

I'm not that young, wide screen monitors have been available for the last 3 or 4 years, about the same amount of time realtime editing has been available. I would have figured they would have been immedeately adopted by editors, especially for big budget flicks. As I said before, I haven't really noticed an overtly exaderatted amount of CU in recent films, but from the discussion, I gather it's a fairly recent phenomenon, which means it's come about over the last year or 2. I just figured the problem would be fairly self correcting with the introduction of these new tools. Maybe it's nothing more than a style trend, the kind of thing that films seem to go through over the years, like verite' or slow motion violence.

 

Also about your comment that wide shots favor cleavage, doesn't that depend on the actress? I mean some of them need to be shot in Cinemascope! :rolleyes:

[Dan Goulder]

Also about your comment that wide shots favor cleavage, doesn't that depend on the actress? I mean some of them need to be shot in Cinemascope! :rolleyes:

That comment belongs in the thread on rack focus.

[James Steven Beverly]

Good one! :lol:

[David Mullen ASC]

I'm not that young, wide screen monitors have been available for the last 3 or 4 years, about the same amount of time realtime editing has been available. I would have figured they would have been immedeately adopted by editors, especially for big budget flicks. As I said before, I haven't really noticed an overtly exaderatted amount of CU in recent films, but from the discussion, I gather it's a fairly recent phenomenon, which means it's come about over the last year or 2.

 

NLE editing has been around for well-over a decade, and the problem with overly tight framing for features is also at least a decade or two old, since the mid 1980's (basically when more and more movies started being directed by people coming from the TV, commercial, and music video worlds.) Perhaps that's why you haven't noticed a problem with tight framing -- it's been around for so long now! It's just been getting progressively worse over the past twenty years -- it's not an overnight phenomenon. Just compare the framing in a widescreen movie like "Dr. Zhivago" or "Patton" to something like "Mission Impossible III". Hell, just compare the first Star Trek movie to the last one, or the first James Bond film to the last one; the trend has been towards progressively tighter and tighter framing and using more and more close-ups with more edits.

[Dan Salzmann]

Perhaps budget/time constraints are a factor as well since often less time and equipment is required to light closeups.

IMHO, while MTV has expanded the pallette, it has also reduced many peoples attention spans to almost nil.

Maybe in 10 years, flicker films will be the norm.

Sort of like when punk started and certain groups like the Ramones sounded fast. Today they sound like the Beach Boys. Everything is getting faster. The gaming thing is also formatting the youth into flicker freaks.

[Dan Goulder]

Mr. and Mrs. Smith provides a good example of a DP resisting the tendency toward overly exaggerated closeups, despite featuring two of Hollywood's best known faces. There seems to be a motivation to put some "air" around the subjects, on both the vertical and horizontal planes.

[Adam Frisch FSF]

Film is fashion, like David Fincher says. Once the flicker editing has been taken as far as possible, then a backlash will come. In fact, I think it's already started. Tony Scott - a director I've always liked in a guilty kind of way - has taken that to the very edge lately, w. Domino being the culmination. And nobody came to watch it. Don't be surprised if the editing is much less frenetic on his upcoming Deja Vu....

 

Things I'd hope'd people would have grown tired of by now is:

 

1. Narrow shutter jittery-images. Please stop. No it doesn't signal "excitment, urgence and action" anymore.

 

2. Special process, bleach-cross-whatever for flashbacks and flashforwards. We get it - no need to telegraph.

 

3. Fast editing "for the kids". Kids should be given more credit than that - they're follow it if it's good enough, no matter the pace.

 

4. Constantly moving camera so as to not "bore the kids who grew up with MTV". Please. Say that to the makers of Napoleon Dynamite.

[Leo Anthony Vale]

-- it's not an overnight phenomenon. Just compare the framing in a widescreen movie like "Dr. Zhivago" or "Patton" to something like "Mission Impossible III". Hell, just compare the first Star Trek movie to the last one, or the first James Bond film to the last one; the trend has been towards progressively tighter and tighter framing and using more and more close-ups with more edits.

 

Would the trend of shallow depth of field be related to this?

 

A deep-focus close up needs needs room in the frame to reveal the backgroud subject.

 

---LV

[David Mullen ASC]

On the one hand, with faster stocks, deep focus is easier than it ever was (and even more so if you shoot with a 2/3" CCD camera or Super-16). On the other hand, people are shooting at lower light levels than ever thanks to faster stocks.

 

There are a couple of reasons why deep focus hasn't come back as a style. One is that it takes more work, not only to light to a high footcandle level but still maintain some naturalism. And also, once you get that deep focus look, you have to understand how to stage a scene to take advantage of it artistically, rather than simply having the background look in focus all the time, which can be distracting if nothing important is happening back there. Classic directors and DP's knew how to stage dramatically for deep focus, but less so today. Someone like Scorsese, Polanski, Spielberg (or Terry Gilliam) can, those directors that already favor a wider-angle look and like to stage in depth.

 

The other reason is that aesthetically, shallow focus is more attractive in color photography. In b&w photography, you only have texture, tone / contrast to deal with, but with color, you have (obviously) the additional layer of information from the color of an object to take into consideration. So in a deep focus image in b&w, you direct the eye through lighting and contrast, otherwise the image can just become a wash of gray details. But in color, now you can have unimportant background details pop out because of their color, so a stop sign in the background or some billboard, etc. will be calling attention to itself. This puts a greater burden on the art director to control all the color elements in the frame, often moving towards the monochromatic (if you look at a lot of old Hollywood color movies, often considered garish, the backgrounds can be quite monochromatic at times, reserving strong colors for the foreground people, especially the women's costumes.)

 

An example would be to compare "The Last Picture Show" (shot in b&w) to its sequel, "Texasville" (shot in color) -- but employed a deep focus style but whereas the first movie was admired for its b&w look, the reviews for the sequel mentioned how it looked "tacky". Suddenly small town, middle-class Texas life in color wasn't as elegiac as the b&w version of the first movie.

[Michael Nash]

Film is fashion, like David Fincher says. Once the flicker editing has been taken as far as possible, then a backlash will come. In fact, I think it's already started.

 

I think we've already been there, done that, with music videos in the late 80's - early 90's. There were even jokes at the time about "what's the IPM factor of your new video (images per minute)?" There was indeed a backlash, where filmmakers looked for other "gimmicks" (although not necessarily slow editing). What's going on now seems to be a much more robust palette of "styles," which I think is a good thing.

 

I remember saying this on this forum about eight years ago, but I'll say it again now: In any art form (film, music, whatever) whenever there is a new popular trend it gets exploited up to the saturation point, and then either gets absorbed into the vernacular as useful or dropped as fad. The "fads" go away for a period of time and get "rediscovered" by the next generation, and the vernacular carries on continuously so that the younger generation can't remember a time without it.

 

Remember that styles evolve. Maybe people weren't able or willing to accept tight closeups or fast cuts 40-50 years ago; they just weren't ready for it. That doesn't mean it's a bad thing, just a newer thing. "Art is a product of its time and place."

[James Steven Beverly]

Life is faster paced than it was 40 or 50 years ago. People are always on the go. In a way we've lost something as a society. People simply don't take time to slow down. There is no doubt in my mind this is refected in our art. Film in the 30's, 40's and 50's had considerable more dialog than fims of today. Today the emphesis is on action rather than words. I miss some of the eloquent deliveries of diolog from the past. I think also the limitations of camera movement restricted the amount of coverage you could get. Up until the mid to lat 60's, 70% of feature done in the US were shot on Mitchells, These big, heavy beasts were difficult to move and virtually impossible to use hand hend. The real difference in style came during the 60's when the verite' stlye of foriegn features greatly influenced the American market. The and the go stlye of hand held lends it's self to quick cuts and rapid, unsteady pans, plus the CU is much easier to hold steadily that a long shot when a tiny flinch from the camera operator becomes a jarring jerk to an audience member. The change to extensive use of CU's may be that simple.

 

Make that-The "On the go" style of hand held lends it's self to quick cuts and rapid, unsteady pans, plus CU's are much easier to hold steadily than a long shot where a tiny flinch from the camera operator becomes a jarring jerk to an audience member. Dyslexia is a bitch :D

Edited June 6, 2006 by Capt.Video

[James Erd]

Life is faster paced than it was 40 or 50 years ago. People are always on the go. In a way we've lost something as a society. People simply don't take time to slow down. There is no doubt in my mind this is refected in our art. Film in the 30's, 40's and 50's had considerable more dialog than fims of today. Today the emphesis is on action rather than words. I miss some of the eloquent deliveries of diolog from the past. I think also the limitations of camera movement restricted the amount of coverage you could get. Up until the mid to lat 60's, 70% of feature done in the US were shot on Mitchells, These big, heavy beasts were difficult to move and virtually impossible to use hand hend. The real difference in style came during the 60's when the verite' stlye of foriegn features greatly influenced the American market. The and the go stlye of hand held lends it's self to quick cuts and rapid, unsteady pans, plus the CU is much easier to hold steadily that a long shot when a tiny flinch from the camera operator becomes a jarring jerk to an audience member. The change to extensive use of CU's may be that simple.

 

Make that-The "On the go" style of hand held lends it's self to quick cuts and rapid, unsteady pans, plus CU's are much easier to hold steadily than a long shot where a tiny flinch from the camera operator becomes a jarring jerk to an audience member. Dyslexia is a bitch :D

 

I agree with most of what you are saying, but I would point out that pace of the Thin Man series of films with William Powell and Myrna Loy were pretty fast paced even if the cameras may have weighed as much as the actors :D Of course this had a lot to do with the way the dialogue was delivered and they way the films were edited. but that is another story to be sure.

[Laurent Andrieux]

HI, guys !

 

I'm getting about 10 mails a day saying there's a new reply in that thread, it's really the one, nowadays...

 

I must confess I didn't read all of it since I posted here, but I'm sure someone must have mentionned the fact that when you have a talent who's famous or costs a lot (the two going together), it's like you had to do CUs, like if the production wanted its money back. Feels like a guy who's going to a palace hotel and would then take 3 baths a day, use 15 towels, ask for waitresses 10 times a day etc. See what I mean ? Sort of a taste falt, to me.

 

The excuse being "we have to serve the actor..." Meaning, he/she'll want to see him/herself in CUs on the screen !

 

Don't know if someone mentionned this weird relationship there is beetween directors and talents about givingthem close ups.

 

When I want to have the best of an actor, I sometimes shoot CUs - even if I may consider not using them - so he/she is "happy" with the shooting, see what I mean ?

 

I reckon it's sort of "normal", when you have a talent to show his/her face in close up sometimes. As long as it doesn't affect the film, but when they hire a star, they feel more nervous and anxious about that, I think, and it's easy to pass the limit...

 

I went to see Almodovar's Volver the other day - I didn't like the movie much, though I like Almodovar's work, esp. the youngest, but that's another topic - and I was really feeling the CUs on Penelope Cruz were sort of "out of it", There shouldn't have been so many of them. I felt it was obvious it was like "We've got this starring actress, we must show her face..." And that doesn't go well on the screen... Esp when you have An LC 4 or something so on the CU, and that doesn't match the rest of the scene...

 

What do you think ? (Sorry if you discussed that point and for my bad english again)

[Max Jacoby]

Good point Laurent

 

I've worked on a film where an Academy Award winning actor got into a shouting match with the director and demanded that a close-up of him to be shot.

 

Another thing is that in order to keep actors happy, if you give one of them a close-up, they others will expect one too.

[Guest fstop]

Remember that styles evolve. Maybe people weren't able or willing to accept tight closeups or fast cuts 40-50 years ago; they just weren't ready for it. That doesn't mean it's a bad thing, just a newer thing. "Art is a product of its time and place."

 

Eisenstein and Soviet Cinema- it was there longer than 40-50 years ago, and was very successful, just not in Hollywood. It resurfaced in the new wave too. Nowadays they've dumped the propaganda/intellectual connotation of frenetic editing and montage, using it exclusively as a formal gimmick.

 

I feel a lot of modern filmmaking has gone to hell. It's a truly painful experience going to a multiplex these days, like watching first year work in a high school media studies screening.

[David Mullen ASC]

Eisenstein and Soviet Cinema-

 

Not to mention Abel Gance, or Dryer's "Passion of Joan of Arc". Fast cutting and tight shots are not new to cinema and I'm not against it, either. What we have been discussing is the boring, pedestrian over-use of close-ups in typical mundane dramatic scenes as directors adopt a TV screen mentality to shooting features, not so much about legitimate artistic uses of tight shots or fast cutting.

[Byron Karl]

Well I don't know how many are involved in music videos, but from what I'm hearing from record exec people, they are specificially asking that the majority be in close-up as they are trying to showcase the video on ipods/online and even phones where the screen size is not up to par. I wouldn't be too surprised to hear this concerning any project that has a non-theatrical release.

[Ram Shani]

i think its not the over use of c.u. is the problem but the lack of using film gramer and cut cut cut show show show its like light and shadow. i think most films are done in "light" and not using the "shadows" the sub conchesnes the sub text. just look what happen when WKW use c.u. in 2046

 

or abel gance

[Michael Nash]

Not to mention Abel Gance, or Dryer's "Passion of Joan of Arc". Fast cutting and tight shots are not new to cinema and I'm not against it, either. What we have been discussing is the boring, pedestrian over-use of close-ups in typical mundane dramatic scenes as directors adopt a TV screen mentality to shooting features, not so much about legitimate artistic uses of tight shots or fast cutting.

 

What I was referring to is what's considered "normal" at any given point in time. Sure these techniques have been with us since the beginning, but they weren't the norm or conventional "style" at that time. Styles change with time.

 

Eisenstein was ahead of his time, in my opinion.

 

i think its not the over use of c.u. is the problem but the lack of using film gramer and cut cut cut show show show its like light and shadow. i think most films are done in "light" and not using the "shadows" the sub conchesnes the sub text. just look what happen when WKW use c.u. in 2046

 

or abel gance

 

Actually I think Wong Kar-Wai and Chris Doyle are very conscious of the use of framing and editing to tell a story. 2046 is cloustrophobic framing throughout, for a reason I think. Other films by those two (together or independently) use wider shots and negative space very effectively. Or did you mean 2046 is a good use of CU's?

[Guest fstop]

What I was referring to is what's considered "normal" at any given point in time. Sure these techniques have been with us since the beginning, but they weren't the norm or conventional "style" at that time.

 

They were in 20s Russia!

 

Styles change with time.

 

Save the classical.