New Zealand cinematographer Donald Duncan (Snakeskin, Alex) has explained how he sees his role:
“The cinematographer’s role in the creative process is to find ways to express visual ideas beyond the ordinary and everyday; to create timeless beauty and artistry with the tools and circumstances available; to listen as much to observe, in order to interpret the story, the emotion and the vision of collaborators; and to create a working atmosphere where teamwork contributes to a common goal.”
We have discussed cinematography as part of our studies of a visual text but some of you struggle to write about it. Cinematography includes techniques of composition and framing, camera movement, the manipulation of light and the use of special technical tricks.
Camera movement is something that confuses but what it is to do with is panning and tilting as well as the ways that the camera can be moved through space. Most of you are familiar with a dolly (a mobile camera platform on wheels or mounted on tracks) or a crane. Cinematographers also manipulate light (both natural and artificial) to create illumination, contrast and depth. They may also play around with exposure, use slow or fast motion, glass shots and matte shots to create optical illusions.
The use of technical tricks means that the camera can be used in ways other than photographing and reproducing reality. Cinematography is an art. It can create striking images, manipulate mood and atmosphere and meaning. A director relies very much on the artistic and technical skills of the cinematographer. The cinematographer hones the audience’s focus towards where the director wants to them to look and they do that by using light, colour or composition.
In terms of the production process it is the cinematographer that brings together aspects of the creative process with the technological side. Cinematographers need to understand visual aesthetics and they often study film history, painting and photography. Some people describe cinematography as ‘painting with light’. Cinematographers also need to know the technical aspects of their craft such as the optical, mechanical and camera processes.
The job of a cinematographer, is in a nutshell, to create and maintain the right visual style for the film, whatever the genre and have the technical expertise to deal with the production requirements. They have to be able to realise the director’s vision.
Often in class we talk about films that we have enjoyed but what is a film that you have truly loved? One film that I would put in this category would be Truly, Madly, Deeply directed by Anthony Minghella. The story focuses on Nina (Juliet Stevenson – a fantastic performance) who can’t break free from her grief over the death of her partner, Jamie (Alan Rickman, pre-Snape), a cellist whom she ‘truly, madly, deeply’ loved. I don’t know why I loved this film so much as on the surface it is just a romantic comedy but the performances are simply so good that it hooks you in like few movies of this genre do. I do remember that the part of Nina was written for Stephenson and that she is unbelievably good, appearing to be totally grief stricken and that she does not hold back as she sobs and weeps and wails for Jamie. Alan Rickman is predictably terrific and funny, particularly in the scenes with his ghost friends. I haven’t seen this film for many years and I wonder if I would still like it as much but I hope I would. Here’s a scene:
The Guardian reports that Toy Story 3 has been named the highest grossing film of 2010 in a year that saw animated movies dominate the worldwide box office. Toy Story 3 is also one of the best reviewed films of the year as well. Russell Baillie at The NZ Herald gave it 5 out of 5 and proclaimed it “dazzling right from the get-go”. For Baillie the real joy of Toy Story 3 is “in how it takes its familiar world and characters and uses it as a leaping off point to a story that is clearly the smartest, deepest, funniest and darkest of the trilogy”.
The Year 11 exams are in week 10 and this term is going very quickly! The exam is two hours long and it will be in the hall. The 102 classes will have to write essays on extended texts and film and the 101 classes will do that plus formal writing. It is not too early to start preparing for it!
Get ready for writing a film review by looking at the Vulture Critics’ Poll. The poll is the definitive survey of terribleness in film, with ballots and commentary from 43 of America’s most prominent critics. Here is their list of the ten worst movies of 2009.
Find out who hated what films and why they did. Critic Joe Morgenstern gives his view on his worst film of last year below – he certainly keeps it short and to the point. Read the rest here.
Joe Morgenstern, The Wall Street Journal
Transformers, hands down.
Frosty Man and the BMX Kid is another finalist in the Your Big Break competition. The young star is James Rolleston the star of Boy.
Boy is released on March 25 in New Zealand. It is being picked as the next New Zealand film to hit it big.
The year is 1984, and on the rural East Coast of New Zealand Thriller is changing kids lives. Inspired by the Oscar nominated Two Cars, One Night, Boy is the hilarious and heartfelt coming-of-age tale about heroes, magic and Michael Jackson.
Boy is a dreamer who loves Michael Jackson. He lives with his brother Rocky, a tribe of deserted cousins and his Nan.
Boys other hero, his father, Alamein, is the subject of Boy’s fantasies, and he imagines him as a deep sea diver, war hero and a close relation of Michael Jackson (he can even dance like him). In reality he is in gaol for robbery.
When Alamein returns home after 7 years away, Boy is forced to confront the man he thought he remembered, find his own potential and learn to get along without the hero he had been hoping for.
The film stars Te Aho Eketone-Whitu, James Rolleston, Taika Waititi and it is directed/written by Taika Waititi (‘Eagle Vs Shark’, TV’s ‘Flight of the Conchords’)
Next term Year 12 students are going to be writing film reviews. I have added a link to one on Children of Men to start you thinking about the task. The review is by Chris Bellamy and it is posted on Orson Scott’s Inter-Galatic Medicine Show. The title of the review is Dystopian Messiah and it has an interesting discussion of genre. Here is an extract:
People are already referring to it as “the scene.” Without giving anything away, it takes place in the middle of a chaotic and violent war zone. It is one unbroken shot, lasting six-and-a-half minutes, that follows our reluctant hero from one pivotal plot point to another. We are literally put right in the middle of the war zone, as director Alfonso Cuarón weaves us through it in one of the most impressive feats of technical virtuosity ever committed to film. The scene – brilliantly effective in drawing us into the urgency of the moment – is among the most gripping cinematic moments I’ve ever experienced. I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything quite like it . . . and how often can you say that anymore?
Cuarón’s real-time strategy is not only a technical feat in and of itself, but it capitalizes as a dramatic and emotional payoff. The scene itself, and the much quieter scene that comes just a few moments later, clinches Children of Men as the best film of 2006, a genuine masterpiece from a director who is rapidly becoming one of the best in the field.
Even before we get to that key sequence, the film has already separated itself from the rest of the end-of-the-year rush – and from its own genre. Great films can be found in all forms and in all genres, but the best are usually those that transcend that genre. They take the mechanics of the formula to a whole new level, or they reject the formula altogether and find a new way to tell the story. Children of Men certainly has a formula, but in the dystopian thriller subgenre, one would be hard-pressed to find anything so fully realized. The “future” in the film is London circa 2027, but it is more concerned with humanity than with differing cultures and nationalities (though those play a role as well). Humans have become infertile, and no one can explain why. Society has crumbled, deteriorated into hopeless and aimless violence that reflects humans’ sudden desperation and insignificance and fear at the prospect of no longer being. It is the near future, but our existence is bleak.
Read the rest here.
We have been talking about the editing of Children of Men in class and you may find this interview with editor Alex Rodriquez in Movie Maker interesting and useful.
Here is an extract:
MM: What is striking to me from your work in Children of Men is that you don’t notice the editing, which is beautiful. There seems to be a marriage between the movement of the camera, the acting, directing and the editing that is subtle and intuitive as breathing. Was Children of Men more difficult to edit then projects you have done in the past?
AR: Yes. It doesn’t look difficult, but it was more difficult. First of all, working with Alfonso Cuarón… you need a lot of energy. The approach to editing Children of Men was very similar to Y Tu Mamá También. Actually, he really had it in his head the way he was shooting–very long shots, just one long take–and then for the editing it was more about the rhythm between all these long scenes trying to address the story from the narrative point of view.
MM: I know that you were asked to be on the set during the filming pretty constantly because of that reason–because of the long takes.
AR: Yeah, you have to be there to make sure all the takes will match.
MM: For example, the car scene in which Julianne Moore’s character is killed. The camera is inside, rotating 360 degrees to capture both the inside action as well as the outside view of the rebels coming from the forest to attack the car in what appears to be a single take. Were there any cuts inside that sequence?
AR: (laughs) Yes, there were. There were some cuts. The take was almost physically impossible to shoot the whole take, so it was shot in segments and each segment was joined digitally. But the framing of the camera was very similar, so it’s only a few frames that needed correction.
MM: The other memorable shot was the birth of the child. How difficult was that to edit?
AR: The take was chosen the day of the shoot, because it involved visual effects and adding the build up of the sound. But it is only one take.
MM: I have a friend in New York, a war photographer, who told me that the scenes in Children of Men paint the most realistic version of what it is like to be in the fields of battle. The camera continually shifts perspectives of what Theo (played by Clive Owen) experiences, having the camera both behind him and in front of him, the camera is constantly shifting as he goes through the landscape of the film.
AR: And at some points it goes to strict points of view, the camera goes behind him and in front of him with a strict point of view. So you have all the positions of his perspective. You are always stuck with the character. Everything you see he sees or lives.
Read the rest here.
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