Cinematography-Theory-And-Practice

More subjectiveMore subjectiveMore objectiveMore objectiveon very rare occasions. Probably the most famous example is thenoir film The Lady in the Lake (Figures 2.29 and 2.30). In this casethe story is seen in an entirely first person, purely subjective fashionas if the camera is the detective. When other characters speakto the detective they look directly into the lens. As a result we cannever see the detective because the camera is the detective — the lensbecomes his eyes. The only time we see him is when he looks into amirror. A fascinating and very successful modern variation of this isa film titled 84 Charlie Mopic, a Vietnam war film (Figure 2.40). Thepremise is that a cameraman along with a journalist/interviewer aresent along with a long-range reconnaissance team to record everythingthey do. Throughout the entire film everything we see is onlywhat is photographed by Mopic’s camera. It’s a terrific conceit andis executed beautifully. We see Mopic only three time in the entirefilm. At the very end they are under fire and are being evacuatedby helicopter. Mopic is just about to get into the chopper and heis shot. He tosses the camera into the chopper and it lands on thefloor facing him. It records his death as the chopper takes off withouthim. The fact that his death affects us so much illustrates the powerof subjective POV as a device to involve the audience both visuallyand emotionally. Similar devices have been used in Cloverfield and anumber of other films.Other forms of POV are things like doggie cam. If there is a dogin the scene and the camera is placed low to the ground and movesalong in a fashion resembling how a dog moves, we are seeing thescene from a dog’s point of view.The Fourth Wall and POVSubjective POV is often used to represent someone observing ascene from hiding, however, it is rarely carried all the way through.For example, if the “victim” were to see the stalker and walk overto confront him, logically he would look directly into the camera.There are two problems with this. First it would break the illusionof the film. The audience would be made jarringly aware that theyare watching the movie. In the theater it would be called breakingthe fourth wall. This is when an actor in the play talks directly to theaudience (Figures 2.30 and 2.31). To take it to its most extreme andridiculous logical end, if the man were to ask the stalker a questionand he agreed, we would have to nod the camera up and down.The most frequently used type of character POV is the POV look.An example of this is when we see someone looks up, and then thenext shot is a view of an airplane (Figure 6.57) The proper executionis discussed in more detail in the chapter Cinematic Continuity. It isoften used as a device to cheat a location or establish a physical rela-Figure 2.35. (top) An over-theshouldermedium shot.Figure 2.36. (middle) When movingto a tighter shot, the same angle willseem too far off axis and the eyelinewill seem wrong.Figure 2.37. (bottom) As the cameramoves in for tighter coverage, thelens must be closer to the eyelineaxis.Figure 2.38. (above, left) In general,the closer the camera gets to theperformer’s perspective, the moresubjective the shot becomes. Theultimate example of this is a subjectivePOV where the camera becomesthe eyes of the character; this putsthe audience into the character'shead.shooting methods35