FILM Lecture 11

8/6/2019 FILM Lecture 11

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Cinematography IICinematography II

Rear Window Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock 1954)(Alfred Hitchcock 1954)



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Recommended Viewing

• Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography(Todd McCarthy and ArnoldGlassman, 1992)

– Available in the KUClibrary



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Aspects of Cinematography

• Framing – Shape of the frame – Camera’s distance from subject – Camera angle, level and/or height – Camera movement (mobile framings) *



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Four Basic Types of CameraMovement

1. Pan (“panorama”) – Camera rotates left or right – Creates impression of frame horizontally

scanning space2. Tilt

– camera tilts up and down (height does not

change) – creates impression of space unrolling from

top to bottom or vice versa



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Four Basic Types of CameraMovement

3. Tracking (Dolly) shot – shot on a camera dolly that can move forwards and

backwards, left and right, along curves &c.

4. Crane shot – camera mounted on mechanical elevating arm, which

is in turn mounted on some kind of moving vehicle – allows camera to leave ground level, move upwards,

downwards, forwards or backwards – Variations: helicopter & airplane shots



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Film Stock

• ASA film speed – measure of a film stock’ssensitivity to light

• Slow film = low sensitivity to

light (low ASA) – Longer exposure time required – Smoother, softer images

• Fast film = higher sensitivity

to light (high ASA) – Harsher, more grainy images – e.g., newsreel sequence in

Citizen Kane

Citizen Kane: slow (above) and fast film stock (below)



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Double Indemnity: cinematographer John Seitz used a fast black-and-whitestock in poor lighting conditions



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Overexposure

Deliberate use of overexposure in The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)



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Underexposure

Deliberate use of underexposure in The Godfather (1972)



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Filters

• Sheets of glass or gelatin placed before the lens of camera (or substanceapplied to lens) – effect is to reduce certain

frequencies of lightreaching the film

• Day-for-night (vs. night-for-night) shooting

Green & blue filters help differentiatethe two worlds of The Matrix (1999)



11A red filter is used for the interludes in Run Lola Run (1998)



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Hand-Colouring

Hand-coloured frame from from The Last Days of Pompeii (1926)

Partially hand-coloured frame fromfrom The Great Train Robbery (1903)



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Colour Toning & Tinting

Colour toning (on left) and tinting (on right) in The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari (1920)



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Technicolor

Becky Sharp (1935): the firstlive-action feature to use

Technicolor

Flowers and Trees (1932):Disney’s first Technicolor

animated short



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Film’s Speed of Motion

• Modern standard = 24 fps(frames per second)• During silent era: 16-20

fps

• Manipulating speed:slow- & fast-motion

• 1980s: variable-speedcamera

• Today: digital post- production to vary speedssmoothly

Run Lola Run (Lola rennt , 1998 )



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The Lens:i. Focal Length

• Focal Length: – distance from the

centre of the lens to the point where the lightrays converge to a

point of focus on thefilm

Source:http://www.eyeconart.net/history/photography.htm

FOCAL LENGTHFOCAL LENGTH



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Short-focal-length (“Wide-angle” or “Short”) Lens

• Exaggerates depth – distances between

foreground and background seem greater than they are

– figures moving toward or away from camera appear

to cover ground morequickly

Citizen Kane : Charles Foster Kane (Orson

Welles) takes just a few steps and is suddenlydwarfed by the mise-en-scène



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Radio Raheem as seen through a short (wide-angle)lens in Do the Right Thing



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Upper left: normal lens, slightly low angle; Upper &

lower right: short (wide-angle) lens, lower-angle shot



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A short lens tends to distort straight lines at the edges of the frame, as in thisscreen capture from The Seven Year Itch



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Long-focal-length (“Telephoto”or “Long”) Lens

• Allows closer shots of distantobjects• Has flattening effect

– Distance between foreground

and background seems greatlyreduced

• Figure moving toward or away from camera seems totake longer time to cover distance than we might expectThe space-distorting properties of a

long lens: the pitcher’s mound is60’ 6” (18.4 m) from home plate

http://www.ehow.com/how_4476199_photograph-baseball-game.html



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AA: long (100 mm) lens

BB: normal (28 mm) lens

( source:www.vanwalree.com/optics/dof.html )



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Zoom Lens

• Variable focal-length lens – Magnifies or de-magnifiesobject being filmed

• During a zoom, the camera

itself does not move – Rather, the lens increases or

decreases focal length – Distinct from the tracking shot,

in which the camera itself moves



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The Lens:ii. Depth of Field & Focus

• Depth of Field: – A property of the lens – Range of distances before the

lens within which objects can be photographed in sharpfocus

• e.g., depth of field = 4-12 feet

• everything closer than 4 feet or further away than 12 feet will be out of focus

http://photographyforbeginners.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/depth-of-field-guide.jpg



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The Silence of the Lambs (1991): a nervous Clarice Starling (JodieFoster) shows her I.D. to Hannibal Lecter. Of the three distinct planes in

the shot – the wallet in the foreground, her face in the middle ground,and the wall in the background – only the middle one is in clear focus.



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Hard & Soft Focus

Soft focus in The Asphalt Jungle(1950)

Hard focus in Citizen Kane



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Selective (or Shallow) & DeepFocus

Selective focus in The Apartment Deep focus in Citizen Kane



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Pulling (or Racking) Focus

Rushmore (1998): two captures from a single shot



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Aspects of Cinematography

• Framing – Shape of the frame – Camera’s distance from subject – Camera angle, level and/or height – Camera movement (mobile framings) *

• Type of film stock used & degree of exposure tolight

• Type of lens(es) used• Speed of motion• Duration of the image (longer/shorter takes)*



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FILM Lecture 11

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