Moving Camera / Static Camera
- Thread starter JT
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David Mullen ASC
Active member
Well, there are two "motivations" for a camera move -- one is to simply follow the action of the scene, so if someone walks from one place to another and you don't want to do it in cuts, you need to move the camera. The other is psychological motivation, like dollying into a tighter close-up during an emotional moment, or booming down / tilting up in a close-up to make someone look more powerful.
Movement and cutting are musical in nature, allowing you to create a certain rhythm to the scene. It's just like when writing poetry and using something like iambic pentameter, long, short, short, long, etc. Flowing movements puntuated by editing.
There are no rules. It's all about generating an emotional response in the audience and doing it at the right moments. For example, if you feel that a slow push-in has a certain effect of creating tension, you don't want to use that camera move on too many set-ups before you need it for the effect you want because you might drain it of its power.
There is also a power to the static shot, so it's not always a case of movement adding more emotion to the shot -- if used badly it can be distracting and therefore deflate the scene. Trouble is that no one can agree on when to move or to not -- that's where individual taste comes in.
Movement and cutting are musical in nature, allowing you to create a certain rhythm to the scene. It's just like when writing poetry and using something like iambic pentameter, long, short, short, long, etc. Flowing movements puntuated by editing.
There are no rules. It's all about generating an emotional response in the audience and doing it at the right moments. For example, if you feel that a slow push-in has a certain effect of creating tension, you don't want to use that camera move on too many set-ups before you need it for the effect you want because you might drain it of its power.
There is also a power to the static shot, so it's not always a case of movement adding more emotion to the shot -- if used badly it can be distracting and therefore deflate the scene. Trouble is that no one can agree on when to move or to not -- that's where individual taste comes in.
Also, how about revealing something. Let's say the subject is busy and the camera slowly pulls back to give the audience additonal information that the subject isn't aware of ( the murderer with a butcher knife ... Hitchcock stuff)...so it sets up tension in the viewer. That's sort of like a psychological use, but for the viewer......... more than of the subject's emotional/mental state! 
David Mullen ASC
Active member
Yes, I guess that would be a third "motivation" -- camera movement as a form for editing, showing you different information when needed.
As a DP how do you go about overseeing a Steadicam operator so you know your getting what your after?
I was reading somewhere that there are some elaborate Digital/ Film projection comparisons being conducted in LA, what sort of opinions are you hearing from DPs, Directors & Producers about the results? and what do you think will playout in the future?
Here's a fun one, I saw that there are many 1920s cameras still around, have you or other DPs used one for a section of a movie, i.e., say a flashback? I think that would be a blast especially if you could find old style celluloid film stock.
Thanks
I was reading somewhere that there are some elaborate Digital/ Film projection comparisons being conducted in LA, what sort of opinions are you hearing from DPs, Directors & Producers about the results? and what do you think will playout in the future?
Here's a fun one, I saw that there are many 1920s cameras still around, have you or other DPs used one for a section of a movie, i.e., say a flashback? I think that would be a blast especially if you could find old style celluloid film stock.
Thanks
David Mullen ASC
Active member
You see the Steadicam shot on your monitor and you discuss the shot before and between takes with the operator.
Generally the consensus is that current 1.2K DLP-Cinema projection has inadequate resolution and that 2K projection is needed to match 35mm release print resolution, although 4K projection would be nice to see all the resolution possible on a 35mm negative.
We're now seeing demos of 2K projectors from TI and Kodak, etc. and Sony announced a 4K projector. Now the problems are getting to be less about resolution and more about color space, compression, contrast, black levels, etc. A good 35mm print is capable of better blacks and a wider brightness range than digital projection, although digital projection is getting closer.
This doesn't addresss though any of the financial problems of implementing digital projection on a large scale. The simple truth is that the problem stems from the fact that most of the advantages and cost savings of digital projectors and not making prints are with the distributors and most of the costs and problems of implementation are with the exhibitors. An exhibitor buys a 35mm projector and it pays for itself within a few years and works fine for decades, while a digital projector is many times more expensive and will probably be obsolete in five years.
I've never used a Silent Era camera although I wish I could. "Man on Fire" had lots of shots done with an old hand-cranked camera.
You should check out the DVD of "Lumiere and Company" where someone recreated the original Lumiere b&w emulsion and made some small rolls of it and gave one roll and an original camera to several filmmakers and told them to make a short film with it, or whatever they wanted. David Lynch made the best short with it.
Generally the consensus is that current 1.2K DLP-Cinema projection has inadequate resolution and that 2K projection is needed to match 35mm release print resolution, although 4K projection would be nice to see all the resolution possible on a 35mm negative.
We're now seeing demos of 2K projectors from TI and Kodak, etc. and Sony announced a 4K projector. Now the problems are getting to be less about resolution and more about color space, compression, contrast, black levels, etc. A good 35mm print is capable of better blacks and a wider brightness range than digital projection, although digital projection is getting closer.
This doesn't addresss though any of the financial problems of implementing digital projection on a large scale. The simple truth is that the problem stems from the fact that most of the advantages and cost savings of digital projectors and not making prints are with the distributors and most of the costs and problems of implementation are with the exhibitors. An exhibitor buys a 35mm projector and it pays for itself within a few years and works fine for decades, while a digital projector is many times more expensive and will probably be obsolete in five years.
I've never used a Silent Era camera although I wish I could. "Man on Fire" had lots of shots done with an old hand-cranked camera.
You should check out the DVD of "Lumiere and Company" where someone recreated the original Lumiere b&w emulsion and made some small rolls of it and gave one roll and an original camera to several filmmakers and told them to make a short film with it, or whatever they wanted. David Lynch made the best short with it.
mercuryzap
New member
That David Lynch short is really haunting and from what I can tell a mini-masterpiece of organization.
There is currently a really interesting series airing on the BBC here in the U.K.. Entitled the Lost World Of Mitchell And Kenyon it features films shot in Edwardian times by the titular entrepreneurs who recorded facets of everyday life as experienced by working-class people. The films were projected in fairs and other meeting places - mostly to the people who featured them - giving them their first taste of the moving image.
Thought lost - save for a few fragments - 800 rolls of nitrate film were discovered by builders who where gutting a building, saved by a local film enthusiast and then restored by the British Film Institute. The quality is fantastic and the end result is film as time-travel - one of the true miracles of the moving image and one which we will no doubt come to marvel over more and more the further away we get from the twentieth century.
There is currently a really interesting series airing on the BBC here in the U.K.. Entitled the Lost World Of Mitchell And Kenyon it features films shot in Edwardian times by the titular entrepreneurs who recorded facets of everyday life as experienced by working-class people. The films were projected in fairs and other meeting places - mostly to the people who featured them - giving them their first taste of the moving image.
Thought lost - save for a few fragments - 800 rolls of nitrate film were discovered by builders who where gutting a building, saved by a local film enthusiast and then restored by the British Film Institute. The quality is fantastic and the end result is film as time-travel - one of the true miracles of the moving image and one which we will no doubt come to marvel over more and more the further away we get from the twentieth century.
mercuryzap, that sounds very interesting! that is really exciting to think there is new LOST REELS of film to watch.
Are they going to turn this Lost World... series into DVDs?
....I love watching normal everyday movies of normal life a hundred years ago. It really is the closest thing we have to a time machine.
Are they going to turn this Lost World... series into DVDs?
....I love watching normal everyday movies of normal life a hundred years ago. It really is the closest thing we have to a time machine.
mercuryzap
New member
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