by Gil Bettman
To give the first-time director a better understanding of how to alter the default pattern to meet the unique needs of an individual scene, I will now analyze the visual design of the master shot for three additional scenes. The first of these scenes was taken from a movie made for Showtime by a friend of mine, Doug Barr. It required a specialized application of Tasks 1 and 5 — Establishing and Coverage. The other two scenes were taken from the feature film, What Lies Beneath, directed by Bob Zemeckis. To formulate the best moving master for one of these scenes Zemeckis went about satisfying Tasks 2 and 4 — Seamless and Drama — in an unusual way. In the other scene, he altered the default pattern a great deal in the way he went about using Tasks 1, 3, and 4 — Establishing, Eye Candy, and Drama — to meet the specific needs of that scene.
THE MASTER FOR THE MAHJONG PARLOR FROM CONUNDRUM — FOLLOWING THE DEFAULT PATTERN
This moving master which veteran TV director Doug Barr crafted for his Showtime movie, Conundrum, conforms to the default pattern until the first, and final, confrontational moment in the scene.
To view a video of this master shot from Conundrum go to this link on the Internet: http://hollywoodfilmdirecting.com/directing-the-camera.html
Conundrum tells the story of Rose Ekberg, a female detective, played by Marg Helgenberger. Early on in the film, Rose and her detective partner, Stash Horak (Michael Biehn) go to a mahjong parlor to question a Vietnamese gangster, Tony Tam, about the whereabouts of a gunsel named Joey. At the beginning of the scene, the master favors Task 1 — Establishing — above all others. Accordingly, the shot starts on a medium wide shot of Tam seated at a table in the back of a mahjong parlor (Figure 3.056). A waiter leaves Tam’s table and walks toward the front of the parlor (Figure 3.057 to 3.058). The camera goes with the waiter, and in so doing, pivots 180 degrees on the X-axis and lands at the front door of the parlor just as Stash saunters in, with Rose a step behind him (Figure 3.057 to 3.060). So, in the opening seconds of the master, the audience has seen three-and-a-half walls of the four-wall mahjong parlor as well as all the actors and extras in the scene. In addition, the 180-degree pivot of the master whipped the lens horizontally on the X-axis through every vertical object in the room, exploiting almost every opportunity for eye candy. The master also captured all elements of the story in one continuous shot and eliminated the need to cut. This follows the pattern perfectly. Tasks 1, 2, and 3 — Establishing, Seamlessness, and Eye Candy — are fulfilled in just that order.
As soon as Stash comes through the door and moves aggressively up to Tam’s table the conflict in the scene starts to mount. To show the audience the maximum number of eyes of one of the parties in the conflict, the camera pulls back as Stash walks up to Tam’s table, but it doesn’t travel as far as Stash does, so it actually tightens into a good shot on Stash in the foreground and Rose behind him, both seen over Tam’s shoulder (Figure 3.060 to 3.063). The camera now comes to a permanent stop.
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Stash asks, “Where’s Joey? We have a warrant for his arrest.” To which Tam replies, defiantly, “I’m in the middle of a game.” To show Tam who is boss, Stash sweeps his forearm across the table, knocking all the porcelain mahjong tiles onto the floor (Figure 3.064). Tam and Stash trade insults. Then Stash drops his business card on the table and tells Tam to call him if he sees Joey, turns, and stalks out the door. Rose follows on his heels. (Figure 3.065 to 3.067)
Figure 3.067a depicts a 3D animated image of the entire moving master.
As soon as Stash draws to a halt and confronts Tam nose-to-nose the balance in the scene shifts from motion to drama. Doug Barr continues to follow the default pattern by turning his moving master into one of the best shots for exposing the audience to the confrontational nature of the drama: a static over-the-shoulder shot on one of the participants in the conflict. In this he does an excellent job of fulfilling Tasks 4 and 5 — Drama and Coverage — and at the same time abandons Tasks 2 and 3 — Seamlessness and Eye Candy. Because the moving master has come to stop there will be no more eye candy. And because the shot is an on-axis shot looking at Stash and Rose over Tam’s shoulder, as soon as Tam speaks back to Stash the center of the drama will shift off-camera and the editor, accordingly, will cut to the reverse over-the-shoulder shot on Tam (Figure 3.068).
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What this master from Conundrum does not do which it should do if it were to stick strictly to the logic and dictates of the default pattern is push into a tighter shot on Stash after he knocks the mahjong tiles off the table (Figure 3.064) and the confrontational nature of the drama peaks. The camera would push in and land where the white camera is shown in the 3D animated image seen in Figure 3.067b.
In scenes that have multiple successive climaxes, such as the scene from Jerry Maguire, or in a scene in which an exit has dramatic consequences, such as the scene in the mahjong parlor (after Stash trashed the gangsters mahjong tiles, he and Rose were lucky to make it out of the mahjong parlor unscathed), the needs of Task 1 — Establishing — come back into play at the end of the scene. The master stays wider in order to show the audience everything they need to see to understand and believe how the actors shifted position in the location or how they exited. If the geography and the eyelines change this has to be re-established in the master.
In the scene from Jerry Maguire in the course of their long-running argument, Jerry and Avery keep walking across the X-axis in front of each other. Cameron Crowe did this deliberately because for most of the scene Avery is walking in a straight line deeper and deeper into the ballroom with Jerry on her heels. This keeps all the motion on the Z-axis and does not generate much eye candy. But every time they cross in front of each other on the X-axis they are verticals moving horizontally so this energizes the frame with a jolt of eye candy.
It also reverses the eyelines. This shift in geography must be established and then re-established in the master. Therefore, Crowe shot the entire master and reverse-master wide enough to make sure he could always show both Jerry and Avery in the same shot whenever they crossed in front of each other and reversed their eyelines (Figure 3.020 to 3.023, Figure 3.028 to 3.029, and Figure 3.041 to 3.044) He stayed back with the camera rather than push in for all the moments of peak confrontation because he knew that the next thing he had to do with the camera was show this reversal of eyelines. (He also knew he could pick up all the tighter confrontational moments simply by putting a tighter lens on the camera and re-shooting the master and reverse-master in the same lighting setup with a tighter lens.)
It runs slightly counter to the sequential logic of the Five Tasks and the default pattern, but in some scenes, Task 1 — Establishing — must be addressed not just at the beginning of the scene, but also in the middle and sometimes at the end.
In this way, shooting a good moving master is like shooting pool. The camera is like the cue ball. You must make sure that whatever path it takes, it ends up in the best place for what it has to do next. Sometimes this means staying wide, even at a moment of peak confrontation, such as when Stash knocks all the mahjong tiles off the table (Figure 3.064).
THE MASTER WITH WARREN FEUR FROM WHAT LIES BENEATH — SEAMLESSNESS TO THE MAX
Bob Zemeckis made What Lies Beneath as an homage to Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock loved the way a moving camera could eliminate edits. (He made a feature-length film, Rope, in which there is not one visible edit.) To a large extent, he pioneered the use of seamlessness in modern cinema. Accordingly, in What Lies Beneath, Zemeckis tried to eliminate as many edits as he could in each of his moving masters. This turned many of the masters into one’ers. A one’er is a shot that conveys the entire scene in one continuous piece, without an edit.
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ck to shooting a one’er and generating the maximum amount of seamlessness is to keep the camera in motion and resist shifting the balance in the design of the shot to drama, even as the scene becomes more and more confrontational. According to the default pattern, when people get in each other’s face, the camera swings more on-axis, tightens and slows, or comes to a stop. But when you are trying to shoot a one’er, you keep the camera moving so it can keep on telling the story in one shot. You fight the shift to drama. Ultimately this means you favor Tasks 1, 2, and 3 over Task 4 — Drama.
To view a video of the one’er from What Lies Beneath discussed below, go to this link on the Internet: http://hollywoodfilmdirecting.com/directing-the-camera.html
Early in the story of What Lies Beneath the main character, Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer), goes a little nuts. She obsessively spies on her next-door neighbor, Warren Feur (James Remar) and becomes absolutely certain that he has murdered his wife. Claire hunts Feur down to a theater where he has just attended a play. With her husband, Norman (Harrison Ford), hot on her heels, she rushes up to where Feur is standing in the lobby of the theater and hits him on the shoulder, turning him around (Figure 3.069 to 3.076). By pulling straight back in front of Claire as she crosses the lobby and revealing Feur in a three-shot with Norman (Figure 3.076), the visual design satisfies Tasks 1, 2, and 3 in order and follows the dictates of the default pattern. It shows everything. It does not cut, and it generates eye candy. Claire immediately calls Feur out, declaring in a loud voice, “You! You think you’re pretty smart! You think you got away with it. But I know you killed her you murdering son-of-a-bitch!” The camera continues to follow the dictates of the default pattern pushing in from an over-the-shoulder shot and into a good, on-axis two-shot of Claire and Norman (Figure 3.076 to 3.077). Because the confrontational nature of the drama has become more intense, the shot has stayed on-axis and tightened to do the best job possible of satisfying Task 4 — Drama.
In response to this accusation, Feur asks incredulously, “Who?” When Feur speaks the center of the drama shifts 180 degrees onto his eyes. The best way to show this and continue to do the best job of satisfying Task 4 — Drama — would have been to cut to a reverse shot on Feur — to shift to the shot/reverse/shot configuration. But Zemeckis never shot a reverse on Feur. He had no intention of cutting out of this master. His overriding priority was to not cut. So he resists this shift to drama and keeps on moving his camera so he can continue to tell the story in one shot. To do this he pushes in from a good on-axis shot on Claire into a distinctly off-axis profile shot on her as she all but screams, “Don’t give me that shit! Your wife!” (Figure 3.077 to 3.079)
As she hurls this accusation the center of the drama is in her eyes. The best way to convey her crazy rage to the audience would have been in an on-axis shot which sees both of her eyes such as the image in Figure 3.073 shot with a tighter lens. If Zemeckis had been interested in doing the best job possible of satisfying Task 4 — Drama — as the confrontation peaks he would have pushed into a tighter on-axis frame on Claire and Norman. Not the off-axis shot in Figure 3.079. But he has brought the camera around into this profile shot so it is cocked and ready to swing around on the X-axis, camera right, into a reverse shot by following Norman as he apologetically mutters, “I am sorry she is very upset” and takes a big step camera right, landing in a side-by-side two-shot with Feur (Figure 3.079 to 3.081). Just then, Feur’s wife, Mary, exits the women’s restroom, where she has been closeted until this moment, and rushes up to Feur’s side (Figure 3.081 to 3.083). With a look of concern etched on her face she says, “Honey?” Her husband wraps his arm around her, turns to Claire, and states, definitively, “I did not kill my wife.” (Figure 3.083) For an overhead 3D view of how the camera swings almost 180 degrees from an on-axis over-the-shoulder shot on Claire and Norman to an off-axis three-shot of Norman, Mary Feur, and Warren Feur see Figure 3.082a.
By continuing to move his camera, dollying and panning from Claire over to Feur, Zemeckis has managed tell the story in one shot without a cut. He has done the best job possible of satisfying Task 2 and keeping the shot seamless, but at the expense of drama and Task 4. The shot on Norman as he speaks is in profile (Figure 3.080). When Mary Feur arrives at her husband’s side and says her one line she is in profile (Figure 3.083). And when Feur confronts Claire with the truth, he is in profile (Figure 3.083). All of these shots are off-axis and do not convey the full power of what these characters are feeling by allowing the audience to see both of their eyes. To do that Zemeckis would have had to stop moving the master when it was framed up in a good on-axis two-shot on Claire and Norman — essentially a slightly tighter, slightly more on-axis version of the shot in Figure 3.077. He should have let them say all of their lines in this two-shot. And then he should have shot a matching, reverse, on-axis two-shot on Mary and Warren Feur. This would have given him the shot/reverse/shot configuration with which he could have conveyed the full power of the drama to audience. The simple formula which he has not adhered to is that the center of the drama in every scene is in the eyes of the person who is talking, and the more eyes the audience can see, the better, with the maximum being two per person.
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In the visual design of this scene there is proof positive of the validity of the fact that Tasks 1, 2, and 3 fight Task 4. Tasks 1, 2, and 3 — Establishing, Seamlessness, and Eye Candy — are enhanced by camera movement and Task 4 — Drama — is actually best fulfilled in the shot/reverse/shot configuration of two static close-ups or two over-the-shoulder shots. The push-pull trade-off between the first three Tasks and the most important Task — Task 4 — means that if you err on the side of making your camera movement as dynamic as possible, as Zemeckis has done in this one’er, you often weaken the drama. But this was the tradeoff Zemeckis was willing to make in order to fashion a film that was a more perfect homage to Hitchcock. The point being that every scene in every movie is unique and calls for a unique application of the Five Tasks. The default pattern provides a starting point. But a great visual stylist crafts a one-of-a-kind application of the Five Tasks to each scene.
The Master with Warren Feur — How Seamlessness to the Max Adds Eye Candy
In the design of this shot Zemeckis was primarily intent on not cutting. But it is worth noting that by pulling out all the stops to fulfill Task 2 and make the shot completely seamless, he was able to do an even better job at generating eye candy and showing the audience everything in this theater lobby. To avoid having to shoot a reverse shot (which he would then have to cut to) Zemeckis must pan and dolly dramatically across the X-axis from a profile two-shot on Claire and Norman to a profile two-shot on Norman and Feur (Figure 3.079 to 3.081). Up until this moment the camera has been moving on the Z-axis, first pulling back in front of Claire as she charges into the lobby and then pushing in on her as she blasts Feur. The dramatic pan and dolly on the X-axis sweeps the camera horizontally across most of the architectural facets of the lobby, which are vertical. Zemeckis’ cinematographer, Don Burgess, uses contrasts in light and shadow to define all these vertical planes. This enables Zemeckis to pack more eye candy into the frame with this dolly/pan than at any other point in his one’er.
The Master With Warren Feur — How Seamlessness to the Max Helps Reveal “Everything”
When Feur first responds incredulously to Claire’s accusation that he murdered his wife, and she screams, “Don’t give me that shit! Your wife!” every theatergoer in the lobby turns his head in alarm (Figure 3.077 to 3.078). This is part of the “everything” that Zemeckis must show the audience in order to fulfill Task 1 — Establishing. The dramatic dolly/pan on the X-axis that Zemeckis must make in time to see Mary Feur exit the women’s restroom (Figure 3.079 to 3.081
) enables him to linger for an instant on the head of each theatergoer as it turns. After Feur wraps his arm around his wife and confronts Claire with the truth, declaring, “I didn’t kill my wife,” he leans in and inquires, “Are you all right?” The camera keys off his right-to-left motion and executes a reverse dolly/pan back in the opposite direction across the X-axis (Figure 3.083 to 3.085). Norman then retreats behind Claire muttering apologies. The camera follows him back along the X-axis and frames up a reverse two-shot on Norman and Claire in time to see Claire blanch and gag at the sight of a hale and hearty Mary Feur (Figure 3.085 to 3.088). By reversing the dolly/pan from one side of the lobby to the opposite side Zemeckis is able to again linger momentarily on the face of each strategically placed extra just as their alarm melts away and they turn and go about their business. For an overhead 3D view of this reverse dolly/pan back onto Claire and Norman see Figure 3.088a.
This dramatic dolly/pan off of Claire to the opposite side of the lobby enables Zemeckis to show the audience yet another part of the “everything” that must be revealed in the master to satisfy Task 1 — Establishing. Again, if there is some particular aspect of the physical characteristics of a location that makes the drama taking place in that location more plausible, this must be revealed in the master. This is the “believability” part of the “everything” that must be displayed in order to satisfy Task 1 — Establishing. Mary Feur must not be present at the beginning of the scene when Claire loudly proclaims that Mary has been murdered and then she must suddenly reappear at the end. Where is it most logical for a man’s spouse to disappear to after coming out of the theater? The women’s restroom. No other physical object in this lobby is as important to the believablility of this scene than the icon of a figure in a skirt on the door of the women’s restroom. And so Zemeckis is careful to light it and center it in the frame behind Mary Feur’s head as she rushes up to her husband’s side (Figure 3.081 to 3.082).
