Cinematography
There are different types of cinematography (also known as Director of Photography):
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The shot types
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Mise-en-scene
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Colour
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Framing and composition.
Shot types
There are different types of shot angle:
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Dutch angle (or canted angle)
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Close-ups
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Mid shot
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Long shot
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Extreme close-up
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Low angle
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High angle
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Mid shot
A Dutch angle is where the camera shot is slightly tilted; this shot sometimes symbolises the subjects tension and uneasiness. For example, In Thor, there were many dutch angles of Thor which shows he’s uneasy about being on earth and losing his powers.
A close-up shot is where the camera shot is close to the subject, sometimes extreme-close ups where little of the background is shown and the purpose of the close-up is to show the characters emotion or will show the character’s facial detail. For example, throughout the X-Men franchise film (in particular X-Men First Class and Days Of Future Past), the scene usually shows Magneto’s close-up, showing his (sometimes evil) intention and his powers awakening.
A long shot is where the camera shot is far from the subject showing the characters whole body from head to toe which is intended to show the audiences the location or the characters surroundings. For example, in The Sound Of Music, at the beginning of the film, when the girl was singing, a range of long shots were shown, showing the characters natural surroundings and her action.
A low angle shot is where the camera shot is low and faces upwards to the subject showing the power of the character. For example, most of Tarantino’s film has a low angle shot, in particular, Reservoir Dogs where 3 characters open a car trunk and looked down at one of the characters in the trunk showing power from those 3 characters.
A high angle shot is opposite to a low angle shot, the camera shot is high and faces downwards showing the dominant looking down at the weak. For example, in Avengers 2: Age Of Ultron, in the battle of Sokovia, there were several high angle shots taken, such as when Vision arrived, Ultron was looking up at Vision and also after when Captain America was saving a civilian, one of the Ultron robots attacks Captain America then Captain America threw off one of the Ultron robots where the defeated Ultron robot was looking up at Captain America, a high angle was shown in both scenes where the weak and defeated was looking up at the dominant character.
A mid angle shot is where the camera is positioned in the waist-above which is used for focus mainly on a character which is the subject, sometimes it creates a effect where it’s a point-of-view shot. For example, in the first Avengers, the characters were gathering up together preparing to fight, there a mid shot was established where it shows all the characters from a waist above level shot.
Mise-en-scene
Mise-en-scene is the setting of the scene. It includes the props, lighting, set, costume, hair, colour, performance, facial expression and body language. Everything in the set has some meaning that symbolises of some sort. For example, in American Beauty, when Lester is called into the office by Brad, the shot of Brad is more dominant than the shot of Lester. The shot of Brad is a low angle shot, taking up a majority of the frame, his facial expression and body language show confidence and there’s a lot of leading lines who symbolises sharpness. Compared to Brad, Lester has a less dominant shot where he takes up a small portion of the frame, and body language shows depression and the lighting is poorer than the shot of Brad. Later, it is shown the power of both of those characters has changed where Lester appears to be more dominant than Brad and Brad appears less confident than he was before.
Colour palette
Colour palette is one of the most important aspects of the film, and the colour is used to set the mood, theme, tone and atmosphere of the film. Different colours have different connotations such as the colour red symbolises anger, blood, lust, and danger. For example, in Thor 3: Ragnarok, Hela’s (the main antagonist) dominant colour is green and green would usually associate to nature but in this case, the colour green would associate her aura to be ominous, darkness, danger and corruption. Her colour scheme is similar to Maleficent's colour scheme which both characters from the different film have the same colour connotation where both characters appear to be corrupt.
Framing and Composition
Framing and composition are how the things are positioned in the shot. Proxemics is where objects are placed, especially with actors in the frame; proxemics means the study of distance between objects. For example, in the film Me And Earl And The Dying Girl, proxemics is widely used in the film, like when 3 of the characters were having ice cream together, one of the characters is more space than the other 2 character which suggests that the character thinks himself as the third wheel, or it could also suggest the character is isolated.
Dominant contrast is where the audience’s eyes are attracted to first thing whereas subsidiary contrast is the next thing the audience’s eye is attracted to, the dominant and subsidiary contrast depends on size and lighting. For example using the example of Avengers again, where all the original Marvel heroes were gathering, I think the dominant contrast is Captain America, whereas the subsidiary contrast is Iron Man. This is because the colour blue and red stood the most from the background, the reason why Captain America has a more dominant contrast than Iron Man is that of the composition; Captain America is positioned more in the center whereas Iron Man is more off center.
Dominant and Subsidiary Contrast
In my opinion, I think the technical use of cinematography is overall effective because it helps me consider things like shot angle, colour palette, framing and composition and mise-en-scene and helps me consider what meaning do I want audiences to imply when creating a short film.
Lighting
Lighting in film is used to set the mood and atmosphere of the scene. There are different types of lighting used in film, such as three-point lighting and background lighting.
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Three-point lighting consists of 3 different types of lighting: Backlighting, key lighting and fill lighting. The three-point lighting is used to make the subject brighter and also used to control shadows. Backlighting is lighting positioned behind the subject, sometimes this lighting can be brighter than the other two in order to create an effect which makes the subject dark where audiences are unable to see the subject but instead sees their silhouette. An example of a film that has brighter backlighting is Nightmare on Elm Street where Freddie is standing with evil intention, but the audience can only see his silhouette. In Key lighting, there is high key and low key lighting; key lighting is the most important light where the light shines directly on the subject. High key lighting is where the lighting is more bright and therefore, is commonly used in comedies and sitcom like Friends. Low key lighting is opposite to high key lighting where it creates a more shadowy effect and is commonly used in mysterious and horror film such as Psycho. Fill lighting is used to neutralise the contrast of a shot, it is used to either make the shadows lighter or darker.
Background lighting is like the three-point lighting in addition to background lighting making this a four-point lighting. Background lighting is used to lighten up the background of the scene. It is used to add distance between the background and the subject as background lighting is placed behind the subject while shining towards the background.
Sound
There are different types of sound in a film:
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Ambient
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Foley
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Diegetic
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Non-Diegetic
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Music
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Voiceovers
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Parallel and Contrapuntal sound
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Sound bridges.
Ambient sound is the natural background in the film with no dialogue or music. Examples of a ambient sound includes: noise pollution (noise the crowd makes), traffic, wind, alarms, animal noise or mechanical noise (noise a device makes). Ambient sounds are used to create a natural atmosphere.
Foley sound is where sound effects are created to enhance the audio quality. Examples of a foley sound includes any actions such as footsteps, opening doors or breaking class. Foley sound is used to enhance the sound quality and sometimes is used to cover up any unwanted ambient sound.
​Diegetic sound is sound that the characters within the film can hear. Examples that diegetic sound comes from is dialogue or background noise. Non-diegetic sound is opposite to diegetic sound; they are sounds that the characters cannot hear whereas the audiences can hear. Examples of non-diegetic sound are voice-overs, music or sound effects. The purpose of having non-diegetic sound is to set the mood and atmosphere of the location or to inform the audience something the characters in the film doesn’t know about. An example of a film that has sounds that are non-diegetic is Jaws; when the scene shows Jaw as the first person, a non-diegetic sound is played, it is non-diegetic because no one in the film noticed him and didn’t hear the sound if they were to hear the music played they would run away.
Music also is known as soundtrack and background music is a type of non-diegetic sound where it sets the mood of the setting of the film. For example, In Django Unchained, many music were played on a soundtrack and Tarantino builds a scene around the soundtrack.
A voiceover is a type of non-diegetic sound where it can be taken place as a character thought or a narration. For example, in Deadpool, voice overs are used by Deadpool himself to tell the audience jokes or tells them what is going on in some scenes, breaking the fourth wall as he is addressing directly towards the audience.
Parallel sound is where the sound of the film goes according to what the audiences see whereas Contrapuntal sound is the opposite of parallel sound where the sound of the film does not go according to what the audiences see. An example of a film with contrapuntal sound is A Clockwork Orange; although the film shows a fight scene, happy music was played rather than a serious music played. The music plays against what the film shows.
Sound Bridges is where there is the sound heard in the next scene before it is visually shown then moments later shows the next scene. It is used as a transition between scenes, making transitions easier. For example, in The Matrix, one of the characters whispers something to another character then an alarm sound is heard where it is used as a transition between this scene and the next scene which is the morning scene.
In my opinion, I think the technical of sound is effective because there are types of sound to consider when creating a short film. However, I don’t think a contrapuntal sound is effective because having a contrapuntal sound in a film will confuse the audience giving them a different interpretation.
Editing
There are several editing techniques in a film that uses cuts as a transition between 2 scenes:
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Match cut
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Jump Cuts
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Transitional wipe
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Parallel cut
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Effective reaction shot
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The Kuleshov effect
Match cuts is a transition between two scenes where the shape of the object is matched, it is used to create a smooth transition. An example of a match cut is The Space Odyssey where the ape threw a bone up in the sky after they discovered that the bone is used as a weapon, then it transitions to a spaceship, when transition between the ape scene and the spaceship scene, the shape of the bone and the shape of the spaceship is similar and it draws a connection between technological advancement to the audience.
Jump cuts is when two scenes transition but the subject is still the same, it is used to show time passing in a film. For example, in the Schindler's List, a jump cut was used when Oscar is choosing his secretary and there were jump cuts of different secretary's on a typewriter.
Transitional wipe is when one scene transitions to another by wiping one side to another. For example, the Star Wars series often use transitional wipe between scenes, the cut has been done so that the film can get straight to the scene.
Parallel cut also known as cross-cutting is where two scenes transitions between each other which create an effect where the two scenes are happening at the same time but different locations. Usually, the parallel scenes intersect where it reaches the climax of the film. An example of a film with a parallel cut is Inception where both scenes show a different level of unconsciousness and is happening at the same time.
The reaction shot is a shot where it cuts from the main scene into a close-up shot of the subject's face showing a reaction. The subject could either smile, frown, or gasp saying little dialogue as producers are showing more than telling. For example, in The Shining, a reaction shot is seen when the kid is strolling through a hallway, come across 2 girls then later saw them dead, then a reaction shot of the kid is shown in horror.
The Kuleshov effect is when one scene cuts to another, it creates a meaning. Most examples of films with the Kuleshov effects are films from the 19th century where technology is more basic.
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In my opinion, I think some editing techniques are more effective than other editing techniques. I think the reaction shot goes more under cinematography (as shot types) rather than editing because reaction shot basically shows a shot of the reaction of the subject’s face reacting to something.
Scripting
In scriptwriting, there are 5 key steps to a script:
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Name of character
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Scene direction
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Parentheticals
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Slugline
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Action
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Dialogue
The name of the character always has to be in the capital letter unless it’s in the dialogue where the character does not say the name in the capital letter. The scene direction where it always has to be in the present tense. It contains a detailed description of the scene and the character's appearance and action. The parenthesis is made up of the actor's direction where it’s in brackets and describes the characters face or the way they speak, it is used to help actors what they should look like when acting. Slugline is known as the scene heading where it sets the scene. The slugline must be all capitalized and starts with EXT (exterior; the scene taking place outside) or INT (Interior; the scene taking place inside). Dialogue is basically what the character says, it goes under the parenthesis (if there is). The action is what the character does that will always be in the present tense. Below shows an example of a structure of a script form the pilot episode of Orange Is The New Black:
Building a story and scene
In my opinion, I think this technique of scripting is useful because it helps structure what a script looks like and it gives specific detail about their scene. However, scripts do not usually give a shot angle. Therefore, producers would have to decide on what shot angle to create when turning the script into a film.
Building a scene and story is how the story moves forward and how the scene is constructed. Building a scene consists of:
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Pacing
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Showing vs telling
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Mood and Conflict
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Moving forward
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The ending​​
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Pacing is how fast or slow the scene moves forward. Some pacing can be good, and some can be bad depending on the dialogue, music and editing techniques used. An example with a film with slow pacing is Deathproof where the first half of the film mainly consists of dialogues, and little action is involved. The pacing of the first half of the film is slow, and therefore audiences would find it boring because it’s mainly dialogues between characters. However, during the second half of the film, the pacing got quicker making it fast pacing because the second half has more actions and the ending seems a bit rushed.
Showing vs telling is where the scene shows but not tells. The scene is shown visually through actions rather than characters telling you what’s going on. It wouldn’t be a good film if there’s more telling than showing because audiences would find it boring to be told through telling whereas if the audience is told through showing, it would interest them.
Mood and conflict are how the scene moves forward depending on the mood of the character and may involve conflict which can build tension in the film leading up to the climax of the film. For example, in Captain America 3, due to the event in Sokovia in the Avengers 2, the Avengers has to sign a contract however, the scene story progress forward when some of the characters (like Captain America and Scarlet Witch) and therefore creates a conflict between the Avengers team, thus, leading to a climax of the film. Captain America and Scarlet Witch did not sign the contract because of emotional reasons where Scarlet Witch felt guilty after what she did at the beginning of the film (and therefore had to be kept in isolation), and Captain America had to attend Peggy’s funeral. This film shows how both the mood and conflict builds a scene in the film.
Moving the story forward is basically how the story progresses and how the scene is played in the previous scene.
Ending is how the story ends where it can either be an open or closed ending. Especially film that has a dramatic ending such as The Boy In The Striped Pajamas where the ending is a sad ending as one of the characters smuggles himself into a concentration came to be with his friend he met earlier in the film, little did he know, he and his friend are rounded up to be taken into a gas chamber and the scene plays off making it an open ending, it is assumed that the boy and his friend died in the gas chamber in the end.
In my opinion, I think this technique is effective because it gives me an idea how can I build a scene when creating my short film. I find the showing vs telling effective because audiences would not be bored with the film if there's too much telling and not enough showing.