by Gil Bettman
It should be noted that even though in most respects the visual design for this scene is exemplary and typical, it is unusual in one respect. Cameron Crowe actually shot two moving masters for this scene. The first master serves the very first beat of the scene and a second one works for the remainder. He made this choice because in this initial beat of the scene — in striking the perfect balance between motion and drama — he wanted to come down very heavily on the side of motion. As to why, read on. (To view a video of this scene from Jerry Maguire go to this link on the Internet: http://hollywoodfilmdirecting.com/
directing-the-camera.html)
Right before this scene Jerry has been fired as a top agent at a huge, profit-driven sports agency. He goes to Avery looking for advice and consolation. But Avery just berates him for “screwing up both our lives” by getting fired. Clearly, what made Jerry attractive to Avery was the size of his paycheck and his office. As the scene moves toward its climax, this reality comes into focus for Jerry, and he shocks his fiancée by announcing, “It’s over.”
The scene takes place in the huge main ballroom of a convention center where the NFL is about to stage its annual draft of college players. Avery works as a PR consultant for the NFL. Jerry tracks her down just as she is walking into the ballroom to distribute press kits, and tells her he has been fired. He pleads, “How do I spin this?” Avery furiously replies, “Oh honey it’s spun.” And then she turns her back on Jerry and charges into the ballroom.
At the start of the first moving master for this scene Crowe puts the camera in front of both of them so they are framed up in a side-by-side two-shot with Avery just a little bit in front of Jerry. (Figure 3.001) As Avery marches into the ballroom the camera pulls back in front of them. Jerry, stung by her harsh reaction, asks, “What did I do to you?” (Figure 3.002 to 3.004) The camera then slows and lets them go by the camera in a wide arc moving left-to-right (Figure 3.003 to 3.013), as Avery indignantly replies, “It’s all about you, isn’t it? Soothe me! Save me! Love me!” She says these lines back over her shoulder at Jerry who reaches out and tries to stop her by tugging on her sweater. Because the camera has pivoted and let them go past it, they are now framed in a side angle, so when Avery turns back to Jerry she faces into the lens. This ends the first moving master for this scene. An overhead 3D animated depiction of how the actors move in relation to the camera can be seen in Figure 3.013a.
This shot does a superior job of satisfying the three Tasks that require a moving camera — Tasks 1, 2, and 3. At the same time it does a respectable job of capturing drama and satisfying Task 4 because Crowe has designed the shot so that, for the most part, Jerry and Avery are facing the camera.
Here is how he does this, Task by Task.
Task 1 — Establishing
When the camera slows and lets them go past it in a wide arc, the huge expanse of the ballroom is revealed behind them. In this, the shot does an excellent job of satisfying Task 1 — Establishing. It shows the audience everything they need to see to understand what happens next. In this it establishes the new location.
The “everything” which needs to be shown can be broken down into three parts:
1. geography
2. money
3. believability
Geography is what every master must establish. It must show where everything that is going to play a role in the scene is located in relation to everything else. This is needed to establish eyelines. In this first moving master Jerry is established screen left and Avery screen right (Figure 3.001 to 3.013). So in the shot Crowe cuts to next — the second moving master for this scene — he maintains the same geography and eyelines by putting Jerry on the left side of the frame and Avery on the right (Figure 3.014). The rule is that once geography has been established in the master of a scene, all the other shots for that scene must maintain that same geography, unless it is reestablished in a different way in a subsequent master. (And in fact, Crowe used the second moving master to re-establish geography and eyelines, repeatedly. This is described in detail on page 54 below.)
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It goes by quickly, but a great deal of money was pumped into making this wide panning shot of Jerry and Avery entering the ballroom look the way it does. Money boils down to everything the producer paid for to mount the scene, specifically: all of the tables and chairs on the floor of the ballroom and all of the NFL banners, red, white, and blue bunting and banks of TV monitors on the walls (Figure 3.001 to 3.013) as well as the many hours of manpower needed to put them in place. Also contributing extensively to the expense of mounting the scene were the salaries of the twenty or more extras who can be seen behind Jerry and Avery, in particular in Figure 3.001 and 3.008. These are Screen Extras Guild extras who, according to strict union rules, each get paid about $200 a day, not counting overtime and fringes. An established director like Cameron Crowe does not have to show absolutely everything the producer paid for in every master he shoots. But a director at the beginning of his career had best take this precaution if he wants to work for that producer or studio again in the future. Putting the money on the screen is the mark of a professional director.
Believability comes down to the pieces of physical evidence that must be revealed at the beginning of the scene to make what transpires in the scene completely plausible. If someone is going to get shot in a scene it should be revealed in the master that the victim is in range of the shooter. I go into this in more detail below on page 57 of this chapter under The Master With Warren Feur — How Seamlessness to the Max Helps Reveal “Everything”.
Task 2 — Seamlessness
Even though people who are in conflict usually face each other, the dramatic context of this scene — the fact that Avery is ashamed of Jerry — makes it perfectly natural for her to turn her back on Jerry, even as he is talking to her, and walk away from him into the ballroom.
Because they are both facing in the same direction the camera can back up in front of them and see both Jerry and Avery’s eyes (Figure 3.001 to 3.004). As the camera slows and pivots and lets them go by the camera into a side shot, Jerry goes into profile, but Avery talks over her shoulder at Jerry so both of her eyes remain in the frame (Figure 3.006 to 3.011). This way the camera sees three of the four eyes of the principals. By designing the shot in this way, Crowe is able to do an excellent job of telling the story in one continuous shot without a cut, thereby generating the esthetic of seamlessness.
As I explained in the previous chapter, seamlessness distinguishes a moving shot from a static shot. Moving shots can last for two or three minutes without a cut (like the shots from War of the Worlds and Pulp Fiction referred to in the previous chapter). Static shots usually run out of information and stop doing a good job of telling the story after three or four seconds. In the post-Spielbergian era the standard for professional directors of all stripes, mainstream, indie and art house, has been to pump as much seamlessness as possible into every shot. Audiences have become accustomed to high levels of seamlessness in everything they see on a screen. If your film lacks seamlessness it will seem dated.
Again, the only way to generate seamlessness and eye candy and satisfy Tasks 2 and 3 is to move the camera. Moving shots are more difficult and time-consuming to do than static shots. Therefore if you take the time and spend the money to set up a moving shot, pump it full of as much seamlessness and eye candy as possible. This is how at the start of your career you can establish yourself as a great visual stylist, like Cameron, or Fincher or Cuarón.
Because the camera slowed down, pivoted, and let Jerry and Avery go by the camera it eventually ended up on their backs (Figure 3.013). At this point it stops doing a good job of telling the story because
it cannot see their eyes. This requires that Crowe cut out of this first moving master and into a second moving master shot. This second moving master shot is back out in front of Jerry and Avery so the camera can see both of their eyes as it retreats in front of them (Figure 3.014). If Crowe had just kept the camera backing up in front of them from the minute they come in through the double doors to the ballroom (Figure 3.001) until the start of this second moving master (Figure 3.014) he could have done their entire walk into the ballroom in one continuous shot. This would have generated more seamlessness but less eye candy. Crowe opted for the eye candy. In most scenes, in order to conserve time and money one master is made to suffice. But Crowe deemed it worth the extra time and money to get the extra eye candy.
Task 3 — Eye Candy
As I explained in the last chapter, eye candy is essentially motion blur. If the camera is in motion any static object or object moving in a different direction or at a different speed that passes by the lens will have a slightly blurry edge to it. These blurry edges make a succession of static images rapidly viewed one after the other to look like a continuously moving image. If the science of this is unclear to you ask a cinematographer to explain it in more detail. The bottom line is: the more motion blur the more eye candy.
The cheapest and the easiest way to generate the most motion blur is to move the camera as dynamically as possible horizontally along the X-axis of the frame in front of as many bright, prominent vertical objects as possible. Dynamic vertical motion along the Y-axis in front of bright prominent horizontal objects generates an equal amount of motion blur, but it requires the use of a crane or CGI so it is dramatically more expensive.
The X-axis runs from side to side across the frame, either left-to-right or right-to-left. The Y-axis is from the top of the frame to the bottom, moving either up or down. The Z-axis runs from the vanishing point in the frame up to and past the vantage point, again moving in both directions: either deeper into the background or out into the foreground. Movement on the X-axis across the frame generates more motion blur and eye candy than movement on the Z-axis to the camera or away from the camera.
By letting Jerry and Avery walk by the camera and pivoting with them Crowe was able to pack as much eye candy as possible into this first moving master. Pivoting and panning this way generates the most dynamic horizontal movement along the X-axis of the frame. It insures that every object in the frame that Jerry and Avery walk in front of will strobe through the frame more rapidly and be feathered with the maximum amount of motion blur (Figure 3.004 to 3.013).
It is worth noting that as long as the camera is retreating in a straight line in front of two actors who are walking and talking, most of the movement in the frame is on the Z-axis. This generates much less eye candy. If a director wants to generate the maximum amount of eye candy he will try to block the actors and the camera so the actors move more on the X-axis than the Z-axis.
Crowe also made certain that every object and every person that Jerry and Avery walked in front of was as large and bright and vertical as possible. This accentuates its motion through the frame.
There are three ways a director can fill his frame with verticals:
1. He must identify everything that is large and bright and vertical in his location and then block his actors so they walk in front of it. This is why Crowe blocked Jerry and Avery so at the start of this shot they walk through a large white double doorway and immediately in front of a large white wall which divides the inner expanse of the ballroom from an outer foyer (Figure 3.001 to 3.006).
2. He must work with his production designer to pack as many large bright vertical objects into the frame as the budget will allow. Jerry Maguire was a big-budget film so Crowe and his production designer knocked themselves out filling this ballroom to the rafters with large bright objects with strong vertical lines. A big white dais sits in the middle of room (Figure 3.011) and the floor is a sea of long tables covered with bright red tablecloths (3.020). Bleachers stacked with red chairs ring the room. The walls are festooned with banks of bright TV monitors, as well as a huge multicolored mosaic of every NFL team logo and lots of red, white, and blue bunting and NFL banners (Figure 3.007 to 3.013).
3. He must work with his First AD so that he routes his moving extras and stations the static extras so they break and move through the frame in the most dynamic way possible. To this end, right in the middle of shot, Crowe’s First AD sent an extra in a bright blue shirt through the frame in the opposite direction of Jerry and Avery (Figure 3.009 to 3.011).
Of all the Five Tasks, generating eye candy seems the most beside the point. That is why I call it eye candy. In a sense it is trivial. It takes place in the background of the shot while the camera is moving from A to B to C to fulfill the other Tasks.
But it is also of great consequence because, even more than seamlessness, it makes a moving shot look like a moving shot. When a shot continues at length without a cut this lends an almost subliminal element of unity to the esthetic of the shot. But there is nothing subliminal about eye candy. It is the source of the dynamic visual energy of a moving shot. More than seamlessness it distinguishes a moving shot from a static shot.
All the directors who have achieved status as great visual stylists have done so largely through a preternatural ability to cram eye candy into their shots. Spielberg designed the amazing shot from War of the Worlds of Ray Ferrier flying down the interstate in his van, discussed in the previous chapter, by making sure that the shot could continue without a cut by staying on the eyes of whichever member of Ray’s family is talking (Figure 2.009 to 2.011, pp. 12–13). But when the drama dissipated slightly he worked to pack this shot with the maximum amount of eye candy by having the camera fly away from the van and frame it up in a straight side shot moving as dynamically as possible across the X-axis of the frame. And then, just as Cameron Crowe did in his moving master of Jerry and Avery walking into the ballroom, Spielberg teamed up with his production designer to strategically place the maximum amount of large bright objects with strong vertical lines — other cars — between the camera and the van and behind the van so they break the frame as dynamically as possible and generate the maximum amount of motion blur as they strobe through the frame (Figure 2.001 to 2.006, p. 12).
Most of Quentin Tarantino’s long moving master of Vinnie walking into Jack Rabbit Slim’s from Pulp Fiction (cited in the previous chapter) follows Vinnie by pushing in behind him on the Z-axis as he walks deeper into the club. The shot starts this way (Figure 2.090, p. 27) and it ends this way (Figure 2.101 to 2.111, pp. 27–28). This does not generate the maximum amount of eye candy.
To jack up the eye candy in the frame, in the middle of the shot, Tarantino interrupts this motion on the Z-axis by very deliberately making Vinnie almost slow to a stop, then point and look intently at a waiter dressed as Zorro, as the waiter crosses into the far right corner of the nightclub (Figure 2.092 to 2.094, p. 27). This cocks the camera as far to camera right as possible and then allows Tarantino to generate the maximum amount of eye candy by having the camera pan back across the entire X-axis of the frame to extreme camera left. This internally generated camera move shows us what Vinnie see as his eyes move off of Zorro and sweep across the entire expanse of the nightclub (Figure 2.094 to 2.099, p. 27). Like Crowe and Spielberg, Tarantino works with his production designer to accentuate this movement across the X-axis by filling the frame with as many large, bright vertical objects as the budget will allow — most noticeably, large white pillars and brightly lit movie posters, six feet tall (Figure 2.095 to 2.096, p. 27)
More than any of the other Five Tasks, generating eye candy visually energizes the frame and helps bring the film to life. This is why Crowe, Spielberg, Tarantino, and all directors known as great visual stylists work diligently to fill their moving master shots with eye candy.
Task 4 — Drama
At the start of this second moving master shot of this scene from Jerry Maguire, Jerry complains, “Eve
rything is on the fucking run with us! Everything!” (Figure 3.014 to 3.018). Avery stops and turns and gets in Jerry’s face, confronting him head on with the truth that, “Jerry, you and I are salespeople. We sell.” (Figure 3.018 to 3.024). Crowe rightly distinguishes this as a moment in the scene when the conflict and the drama have now risen to a more confrontational level. It is only natural that Avery would stop walking away from Jerry, and turn and face him so they are in the position in which human beings normally confront each other: nose-to-nose.
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As explained above, the best way to tell the story and convey the drama when it peaks like this in a shot/reverse/shot configuration, cutting between two static matching close-ups or over-the-shoulder shots. Accordingly, Crowe slows his camera down and brings it around behind Jerry as Avery turns to face him. She says one-half of her line into the camera over Jerry’s right shoulder (Figure 3.021) and then the camera keeps moving behind Jerry (reversing the eyelines) so she says the second half of the line into the camera over his left shoulder (Figure 3.021 to 3.024). (Figure 3.024a provides an overhead 3D animated depiction of the movement of the actors and the camera.)
Jerry throws his hand up and tries to respond, but she cuts him off. To show Jerry trying to stand up to Avery, Crowe cuts to a reverse shot over Avery’s right shoulder on Jerry (Figure 3.025 to 3.027).
