by Ben Brady
So take a look at camera language and format before you go on to your first assignment. After you read what follows, go back and look at the three scenes in the last section. We have deliberately treated their camera language and format as if they were the first scenes of their given stories so that you would have a number of examples. We have also treated them as if they were the entire story. That is why FADE OUT appears after each. Last, they represent reasonable examples of the use of shots for writers, neither too many to interfere with their reading, nor too few to make them impossible to visualize. If you flip through this text, you will find many other scenes to look at for their form.
We are talking about making movies, and the language of the camera is the jargon of the trade. But that doesn’t mean the language is difficult. A script is written in a way to guide the separate activities of a large number of people diversely engaged in the process of producing it. Properly written, the script focuses the attention of the various collaborative areas and serves two primary purposes. First, it tells a story as you see it: the camera is your eye. Second, it contains a set of instructions for those who are going to film it. The best instructions are brief, clear, cogent, and, above all, do not clutter the story.
Photographing the Story
The chief distinction between film and stage is the mobility and flexibility given the screenwriter by the camera—it gives a dimension of intimacy that the proscenium arch cannot give. This provides the screenwriter with an unrestricted range of visual opportunities, enabling him to probe character more deeply by means of expressions of a subtle nature and adding to his opportunities to present his story more imaginatively, lustrously, and in greater depth. How well the screenwriter exploits these additional dimensions in ways that are original, artistic, and stimulating is a measure of his talent and skill.
But disagreement exists about the extent of a screenwriter’s responsibility in relation to photographing the story: a writer is not expected or advised tq trespass on the director or cameraman’s ground. It is difficult to draw the line between how much or how little photographic detail may be considered proper for the screenwriter to give, and ideas about it vary even among university film teachers. Let us dispose of the philosophy in cinema arts, too often expressed in film study courses, that film is a director’s medium. Nothing could be more misleading.
Simply put, a writer is entitled to the full range of his pictorial imagination when he believes that the sight of something will inspire an atmosphere, mood, or reaction that he considers to be important in the telling of his story. Admittedly, one cannot underassess the director’s most creative contribution to the artistic sense of a film in theatrical release films, though that contribution is less in television. But it is almost ludicrous to disenfranchise the writer in the process of giving the director due credit! The bulk of films would never see the light of day were it not for the individual who draws from the fountainhead of his imagination that which makes all the subsequent contributions a reality. Nonetheless, the current trend favors the most economical use of camera instructions in a script, almost to the point of including only the essentials that set and describe the scene or sequence, and the characters involved.
This position is difficult to challenge in television, where time is money and costs are astronomical. Complicated camera instructions are not highly negotiable commodities in a marketplace where the chief concern is the clock. Moreover, there is an assembly-line numbness in most series to any departure from fixed production ideas.
Yet the more we search for some specificity on this viewpoint, the more we sense an equivocation caused by instructors’ concern for the infatuation most beginning writers have for irrelevant angles and shots that muddy the story and rob the script of readability. A writer should realize that if he put in all the shots of a typical movie, there would be over six hundred in his script, which would make it unreadable.
Historically, it was expected that writers would provide scripts with each shot carefully numbered and conceived for shooting. Slowly this function was taken over by the director, in part influenced by the impact of the European auteur theory and in part reflecting the lessening of the initial literary influence that appeared in films with the development of sound. There is no doubt that an extreme application of either approach is wrong. A writer should no longer pepper his script with hundreds of numbered shots, yet the final script of a teleplay or screenplay should be a writer’s complete, personally edited version of the action as he would want it seen and experienced by the audience. To this end, he should indicate how the camera might best be used to evoke the dramatic emphasis of whatever he considers genuinely significant to convey his meaning. In the final analysis, the aim of satisfying the reader who might purchase the script is what it’s all about.
On the whole, then, it’s reasonable to say that the camera should not be called into play beyond the obvious setting of scene and action unless it serves to make a significant dramatic point. At such a moment a writer should never hesitate to call the camera into play to make that point. There may be times when a writer will want to use an OVER THE SHOULDER angle, a CLOSE-UP, or some character’s POV (point of view) to dramatize appropriately the emotional impact or significance of a scene, and in such cases when it is not already perfectly apparent he should. But this also seems a good place to emphasize the extreme necessity of the writer’s keeping the dramatic action of the story foremost in his mind and writing it so that the impact and sense of that story can survive any number of debates between writer, director, and cameraman about whether a particular moment should be shot one way or another. Remember the playwright writes an action, not just words or shots.
Writing to Cover the Action
A screenplay’s substance could be set out in what are called “master scenes.” In such a procedure a writer would establish the scene and thereafter concern himself chiefly with the characters in the scene and their dialogue, without placing the camera or describing the moves that may be necessary to illustrate the action. The serious dramatist should avoid this procedure: it is not generally acceptable as a finished product.
This treatment or one only slightly more detailed is common practice among those who write for television situation comedies. These shows invariably confine themselves to one or, at the most, two sets, and generally use the three-camera technique, which largely makes unnecessary setting up the shots that apply when only a single camera is used. Another reason is that a talent for comedy is far more rare than the ability to manage a camera; the emphasis is placed accordingly.
This way of generalizing camera use might also be sufficient when a writer has an on-going relationship with the director or producer. Apart from these exceptions, the dramatist of integrity prefers to describe his screenplay with those shots he thinks necessary to communicate his meaning. We reemphasize that last point. Clearly indicate setting and action, but don’t go after camera effects that try to be directorially artistic. USE the camera to underscore the significant dramatic values of your story.
For instance, consider a situation in which the dramatist is more concerned with the reaction of one character than he is with the action of another. In that case he would direct the attention of the camera to an angle that FAVORS the reactor rather than the actor. Imagine a scene in John and Mary Adams’s living room.
INT. ADAMS’S LIVING ROOM DAY
JOHN enters the room quickly followed by MARY. He crosses to the couch and sits. Mary sits beside him.
Obviously, if our camera is covering the entire scene, we must be distant from John and Mary. To involve us more intimately with what they are going to say or do, we should be closer. We so direct the camera:
TWO SHOT: JOHN & MARY
MARY
I asked you: did you see that girl last night?
JOHN
(he looks at the floor)
I said no.
MARY
John—look at me—
John continues to stare at the
floor.
MARY (CONT’D)
John, will you look at me? Please?
ANGLE: FAVORING JOHN
He slowly looks up at Mary, his eyes clouded with guilt.
In other words, we FAVOR him with the camera because we want to see the guilt in his eyes.
There might be a time, as noted above, when you decide to exclude an actor entirely and call for a CLOSE-UP of the reactor. In such a case we would hear the actor’s voice, but he would be OFF SCREEN (O.S.).
EXT. ANDERSON HOME DRIVEWAY NIGHT
MED. SHOT: MANNIX
reaching his car parked a distance away from front of house in the circular driveway.
KELLY’S VOICE (O.S.)
Mr. Mannix—!
He turns. She appears crossing to him from the side of the house.
Or there may be times when POV is more important than the people in the scene and what they are saying.
IRONSIDE
Did anyone else know you were moving in?
FRAN
Karen didn’t know she was leaving till the last minute.
IRONSIDE
Did you know whether she got any calls? Like that?
FRAN
I phoned her in New York. She says no.
CAMERA FOLLOWS action as Ironside frowns thoughtfully for an instant, then crosses to the big living room window. He opens the drapes and looks out searchingly at the surrounding buildings.
IRONSIDE’S POV: THE OTHER BUILDINGS
SLOW PAN to SHOW the penthouse is higher than any nearby building, and we can SEE it offers no opportunity for observation from outside. MEANWHILE
IRONSIDE’S VOICE (O.S.)
Do any of the windows face another building?
FRAN’S VOICE (O.S.)
Only the one in the dressing room.
If you as a screenwriter fail to visualize each foot of your story in camera terms, you are like a painter without a canvas. Your canvas is the camera frame. If you fail to visualize the dimensions of your canvas—the view of your camera—you will stand a good chance of losing your perspective of dramatic values.
As a screenwriter, you will tell your story through images. “Don’t tell it—show it” is more than a cautionary bromide: it is the meaning of the film. You must both mirror your scene of action and particularize the nuances of what you want the viewer to see.
Susan Sontag describes the importance of this use of the camera in this fashion: “as people quickly discovered that nobody takes the same picture of the same thing, the supposition that cameras give an impersonal, scientific result yielded to the fact that photographs are evidence not only of what is ‘there’ but of what an individual sees: not just a record, but an evaluation.”
That is your obligation as a screenwriter. Use the camera in such a way that the viewer can properly evaluate what you see. It is, as Sontag explains, your “corner of material reality” that the audience might not see at all until you focus their attention on it. To do this you must master three things: how the camera may be placed, how it may be moved, and the nomenclature for such use.
Organizing Scenes and Using Shots
Apart from dialogue, the body of a script is composed of scenes and shots. A scene is a sequence of dramatic action that runs continuously according to the actual time it takes as the story progresses. If the time of day or the location of the action changes, a new scene begins. Such a scene may contain additional SHOTS that highlight or punctuate or dramatize special parts of the scene. Such a SHOT is a visual unit in the film that is also described as an ANGLE, meaning an angle of the camera, that includes only the people or things that are to be emphasized.
These scenes and shots are numbered from beginning to end in a shooting script—one that is ready to start principal photography. Some students are taught to do this. Why, we don’t know. It’s likely a script will be changed substantially before it is accepted for production, so it is better left for the production manager who sets up the shooting schedule to number the scenes after the producer has approved all the revisions.
Whenever you give a shot or a movement of the camera in your script, you address the director, the cameraman and his assistants, the gaffer (lighting man), and the key grips. For that reason, always write your camera instructions in all capital letters. This means you write SEE when you want the CAMERA to SEE something.
There are times when the actor is instructed to approach or move away from the camera. Whenever someone or something moves but the camera remains stationary, unchanged, neither the word camera nor the instructions are capitalized.
Use all capital letters in two other instances—all audio effects that are addressed to the sound effects man, and the first (and only the first) time you introduce a character. You always write a character’s name in all capital letters over his dialogue.
FADE IN:
EXT. HOLBROOK MANSION (EST) NIGHT
The place is immense; the grounds are immaculate and beautifully landscaped. There is a circular driveway, with plenty of room for several expensive cars parked there. Among them is a FERRARI. There are LIGHTS on in some of the rooms, and it is quiet. Suddenly, VOICES are raised; there is a MUTED CRASH of GLASS or CROCKERY somewhere.
CLOSER ANGLE: TOWARD UPSTAIRS ROOM
Figures are SEEN to move quickly behind drawn blinds, a pair of VOICES is HEARD—a MAN’S, a WOMAN’S, then both together. Then, a SLAP and a SCREAM. Then, the SOUND of RUNNING FOOTSTEPS APPROACHING CAMERA, which now PANS DOWN to HOLD FULL on the massive front door. There is a SINGLE GUNSHOT; seconds later the door opens and a woman emerges. This is NANCY HOLBROOK, about 25, beautiful—and at the moment, very distraught. Her face is wet with tears as she jumps into the first car she finds with keys, which is the Ferrari, STARTS IT, and ROARS OFF in it.
EXT. STREET NIGHT
MED. PAN SHOT: FERRARI
TIRES SQUEAL and the big MOTOR SNARLS as Nancy takes the car through the neighborhood as fast as it will go.
EXT. PETROCELLI TRAILER AREA NIGHT
It is peaceful, with crickets and moonlight. From the direction of the partly built house
PETROCELLI’S VOICE (O.S.)
There are not that many crickets in the entire world. There can’t be!
It is unlikely that you will want to use all the wide variety of shots that are available to you, but you should recognize them and their abbreviations.
FULL SHOT (FS)—This ANGLE is taken at a considerable distance and is used to ESTABLISH (EST) the entire scene for the purpose of orientation.
LONG SHOT (LS)—This ANGLE differs from a FULL SHOT in that it is taken from the same long distance of the viewer from the subject, but the LS shows only the portion of the scene that the audience is specifically meant to SEE.
MEDIUM SHOT (MS or MED. SHOT)—This ANGLE is neither LONG nor CLOSE. It is a middle distance from the subject.
CLOSE SHOT (CS)—This is not to be confused with a CLOSE-UP. It is a CLOSE ANGLE of two or more elements close to the viewer.
CLOSE-UP(CU)—This SHOT focuses clearly on a single object in a scene, either a person or an object.
EXTREME CLOSE-UP (ECU)—This is simply a tighter CLOSE-UP in which a specific object or feature, such as the eyes or mouth of an individual or a ring on someone’s finger, is the subject.
Apart from these, you may also call for a TWO SHOT. When you do this, indicate the two people in the shot:
TWO SHOT: JOHN & MARY
You might want a THREE SHOT or a FOUR SHOT. Indicate the names of the characters in these, too. If there are more than four people in the shot, you would call for a GROUP SHOT and not list the characters’ names after it.
A shot can MOVE WITH the action it is photographing, for example, with an automobile, an airplane, a runner, or people walking. In this case the camera can be mounted on a separate vehicle that moves in concert with your characters. You simply describe it as such:
MOVING SHOT: THE CADILLAC
to SEE it race down the block and t
urn the corner.
A MOVING SHOT is not the same as a PAN or a DOLLY. These last two are not shots but simply movements of the camera that modify a shot while it is on the screen. A PAN is a swiveling movement of the camera on its mount as it turns right or left on a horizontal plane to sweep the scene or FOLLOW an element that moves across it. It is a direction of an existing shot, not a shot in itself.
ANGLE: THE KITCHEN DOOR
as a waiter comes through the door and crosses the restaurant to the cashier. PAN with him.
A DOLLY is a movement into the scene, decreasing the field of vision or the reverse. If you want to move the camera closer in a given shot, you DOLLY IN; if back, you DOLLY OUT.
Much use today is made of the ZOOMAR lens for a similar effect of decreasing or increasing the field of vision without moving the camera. The terminology here is ZOOM IN or ZOOM OUT. Beginning writers often abuse this perfectly legitimate direction.
Use ZOOM IN or OUT and the following more sophisticated ANGLES with caution. If you have a good reason for using one of these, don’t hesitate, but it had better be good!
LOW ANGLE—when the camera shoots up from below.
HIGH ANGLE—when the camera shoots down from above the subject.
FAVORING—selects the character to be favored in the SHOT.
OVER THE SHOULDER—Shooting from behind one person over his shoulder to see the face of another when two characters face one another. Beginners find this especially tempting to overdo.
REVERSE ANGLE—an ANGLE the opposite of the one that precedes it.
OVERHEAD SHOT—looking down at a subject, for instance, at a pool table.
POINT OF VIEW (POV)—a SHOT that gives the viewer a close look at what a person in the scene is looking at. This is usually preceded by a CLOSE SHOT of the individual to make clear the direction of his POV. Beginners are advised to label these shots with the character’s name to whom they belong, for example, “IRONSIDE’S POV.”
TILT (UP or DOWN)—moving up or down in a vertical plane. This is also described as a PAN UP or PAN DOWN.
When a scene or a shot changes on the screen from one to the next, this is a CUT. This takes place automatically, and there is no need to indicate it at the end of each shot. Writers do occasionally indicate CUT TO or CUT or SMASH CUT simply to communicate the feeling of pressure or abruptness to the reader or editor.
