CinematographyTelling Visual Stories with Film

What is Cinematography?● Cinematography (from Greek: κίνημα,

kinema "movements" and γράφειν, graphein "to record") is the art or science of motion picture photography. It is the technique of film photography, including both the shooting and development of the film.

● The cinematographer could also be referred to as the film director's main visual collaborator.

How do filmmakers tell stories?● Acting● Camera Angles & Movement

● Framing, Editing & Montage● Set Design● Lighting● Soundtrack & Sound Effects● Costume & Makeup Design● Building Suspense

Camera Angles & MovementGeneral Rule: The Closer the Shot, The More Emotive Effect for the Audience

High angle. The camera is placed above eye level, looking downward. A high angle shot can make a character look smaller, younger, weak, confused, or more childlike.

Eye level. Most commonly used.

Low angle. The camera is placed below eye level, looking upward. A low angle shot can make a character look bigger, stronger, or more noble. It also gives the impression of height.

Camera Angles & Movement

When Hitchcock focuses his camera in a particular place, he is telling you to

pay attention!

(From Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious”)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JueGAaj5pu8

Creating Emotional Response

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfTxHwWYOpM

Establishing ShotA shot normally taken from a great distance or from a “bird’s eye view” that establishes where the action is about to occur.

(From Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Trouble with Harry”)

Long ShotA shot that shows a scene from a distance (but not as great a distance as the establishing shot). A long shot is used to stress the environment or setting of a scene.

AKA: wide shot, full shot.

(From Alfred Hitchcock’s “Charade”)

Medium ShotA shot that frames actors, normally from the waist up. The medium shot can be used to focus attention on an interaction between two actors, such as a struggle, debate, or embrace.

(From Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope”)

Point of View ShotPoint of view camera and editing is a key device through which filmmakers create audience identification with characters in a film. This technique is often used to place the audience in the position of the main character. The POV shot begins with the character looking off screen, we then cut to the object the character is looking at.

(From Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”)

Overhead Shot

The camera looks down from directly above the figure. Usually denotes that the character or object is being watched, or to highlight the presence of a “narrator.”

(From Alfred Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt” and “Vertigo”)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6WXNYausYw

Over-The-Shoulder ShotA shot of one actor taken from over the shoulder of another actor. An over-the-shoulder shot is used when two characters are interacting face-to-face. Filming over an actor’s shoulder focuses the audience’s attention on one actor at a time in a conversation, rather than on both.

(From Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”)

Two ShotA shot of two people together. Unlike the over-the-shoulder shot, a two shot shows the faces of both characters at the same time.

(From Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious”)

Close Up ShotA shot taken at close range, sometimes only inches away from an actor’s face, a prop, or some other object. The close-up is designed to focus attention on an actor’s expression, to give significance to a certain object, or to direct the audience to some other important element in the film.

(From Alfred Hitchcock’s “Notorious”)

Extreme Close Up ShotThe shot is so tight that only a detail of the subject, such as someone’s eyes, can be seen. Used to convey extreme, strong emotions.

(From Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”)

Selective FocusSelective focus is used to obscure the audience’s view using a camera’s depth of field. Using shallow depth of field will blur the background in order, in part, to direct attention to the facial expressions of the key character in the foreground.

(From Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rebecca”)

Personified Camera

The camera becomes an active participant in the action, independent of the characters on screen.

In this scene, the camera explores the environment to show the audience information.

(From Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”)

Dolly ZoomUses: The visual appearance for the viewer is that either the background suddenly grows in size and detail and overwhelms the foreground, or the foreground becomes immense and dominates its previous setting, depending on which way the dolly zoom is executed. As the human visual system uses both size and perspective cues to judge the relative sizes of objects, seeing a perspective change without a size change is a highly unsettling effect, often with strong emotional impact.

The effect was first developed by Irmin Roberts, a Paramount second-unit cameraman, and was famously used by Alfred Hitchcock in his film Vertigo.

(From Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=je0NhvAQ6fM#t=40

Double ExposureEarly in his career Hitchcock experimented a lot with superimposed images, creative dissolves (gradual transition from one image to another).

In film editing, a dissolve is a gradual transition from one image to another. In film, this effect is created by controlled double exposure from frame to frame; transitioning from the end of one clip to the beginning of another.

(From Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Wrong Man”)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUN5c6jtTvU#t=29

MontageA technique in film editing in which a series of short shots are edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruoPT9JeYHAatch?v=ruoPT9JeYHA

Internal FramingThe placement of a figure or figures (or other important objects) within boundaries formed by other mise-en-scene elements (sets, objects, other figures, etc.) A composition often referred to as "frame within the frame."

(Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”)

Set Design

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=654YXL5xq3k

Sound DesignRear Window is one of the greatest masterpieces of audio design in all film. Not only is all the sound diegetic (except for a musical overture that bookends the movie), but it all seems to waft in through L. B. Jefferies' (James Stewart's) apartment apartment window, keeping audiences rooted in his point of view. With most of Hitch's films you can turn off the sound and follow only the imagery. With Rear Window, however, you can turn off the picture and the main dialogue and still get a strong sense of mood.

Graphic Design

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qtDCZP4WrQ

Lighting Design

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk8FW9atXuw#t=34

Costume & Makeup Design

Edith Head

Costume, after all – unlike voice, body and movement – is the only thing not shared by a actor and his part: it belongs to the part alone and is the sublimation of his identity.

As costume designer Sandy Powell wrote in her introduction to Jay Jorgensen’s monograph of Edith Head, “About 80 per cent of what a costume designer does is psychology; only 20 percent of it is art.”

Surprise vs Suspense

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xs111uH9ss#t=39

“There is a distinct difference between "suspense" and "surprise," and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean.

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!"

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.”

Building Suspense, Hitchcock’s Way● Present tension● Give the audience all

the information● Make them wait! Let

tension build.● Use a MacGuffin to

introduce reason for suspense to characters.

● Relieve tension with small bursts of humor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xuy0-yGyrE