"On The Lot" tonight

I just can't bring myself to watch the show. If I wanted to watch untalented, annoying people make movies, I'd move to LA. :evil:
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
He said something like shoot it close and they will give you $1K to make a soap opera, shoot it wide and they will give you $1mil to make a movie.

TV since it has been traditionally shot for a smaller screen favors closeups and tighter shots.

Film since it is giant on a big screen need not go so tight to still see the actors eyes.

Also film, because of the aspect ratio and size, may emphasize shot composition more.

In Walter Murch's book The Blink of an Eye (required reading) he says one rule of thumb is to ask if you can see the actor's eyes or not. If not there may be no reason to go tighter.

TV shows, especially soap operas and to a lesser degree situation comedies, because of the way they are shot and in the case of soap operas because of how fast they are turned around, may have no desire or time to think as compositionally as film so they have a kind by rote system of shots that, again favors closeups because of the small screen size.

He was saying the guy did not think about telling the story visually for the most part and just set up two close ups. I thought the handheld work was nice in the closeups but it was an astute observation on Marshall's part, IMO.

Also he may have been hurt by the location. Can't remember exactly, but I think the cafe seating area was very cramped - might not have been able to move back enough to get a wider or more composed shot.

Lastly, in film, again in contrast to televisions rote use of the closeup, you want the close up to be very motivated, only going to it for the most intimate part of the scene if you need to go to it.
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ah, i learned something today, nice, lol. thanks for clearing that up. i had a feeling that's what he meant but i just didnt understand why. :thumbup:
 
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
In Walter Murch's book The Blink of an Eye (required reading) he says one rule of thumb is to ask if you can see the actor's eyes or not. If not there may be no reason to go tighter.
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I don't get this part - can you explain it? It may just be a grammatical thing, I dunno.

Also thanks for the rest of the post, that's some good thinking. I'll definitely start keeping it in mind for my compositions.
 
FilmBoy77 said:
ah, i learned something today, nice, lol. thanks for clearing that up. i had a feeling that's what he meant but i just didnt understand why. :thumbup:
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heheh no prob.

mrWr0ng said:
Jack Daniel Stanley said:
In Walter Murch's book The Blink of an Eye (required reading) he says one rule of thumb is to ask if you can see the actor's eyes or not. If not there may be no reason to go tighter.
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I don't get this part - can you explain it? It may just be a grammatical thing, I dunno.

Also thanks for the rest of the post, that's some good thinking. I'll definitely start keeping it in mind for my compositions.
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EDIT: DO'H! Yeah it was a grammatical thing, heheh, I mean to write:

"In Walter Murch's book The Blink of an Eye (required reading) he says
one rule of thumb is to ask if you can see the actor's eyes or not.
If you can there may be no reason to go tighter."

Not
"If not there may be no reason to go tighter"

which makes no sense indeed :) woops! So that's all I would have really needed to say to answer your confusion I see. But here's the looooong answer I typed anyway, lol. END EDIT.

Basically, of course the closer the shot the more of the actor's eyes you can see and t
he further away the less. If you look at a medium shot (somewhere from below the waist or above the belly button at the bottom of the frame and a little room above the head in the top) to a medium closeup (chest up to a little room above the head) there will not be much difference in how visible the actor's eyes are. But if you look at extremes - an extreme wide shot two (say, ant size people fighting in the middle of the desert shot from hundreds of feet away) to an extreme closeup (most of the face cropped, chin, maybe even mouth at the bottom and most of the forehead cropped at the top, so the whole screen is basically eyes) then you really get how visible or not the eye can be based on the proximity of t he shot.

What I basically meant in my comment is that before you go closer for the sake of going closer ask if you can really see the actor's eyes. What I mean by "seeing them" is are they lit enough and of sufficient size in the screen to really read what the actor is thinking or going through emotionally. If it is framed relatively wide, say mid calf at the bottom and some space above the head, but you can clearly see the actors eyes to the point that you know what's going on then you may not need to cut closer.

There are two principles that this assumes.
1) the eyes are how we identify with, empathize with the actor, and follow their inner monologue and motivations
2) the closer the shot the more intimate. this mirrors the way we see people in real life. Who do you see from the feet up? Strangers on the street. We see friends from the ribs up at dinner or lunch, you see your family in closeup for hugs and kisses, and you only see your lover in extreme closeup - face so close you can only see part during pillow talk. Of course you see family head to to also, but you don't see co-workers in extreme closeup unless they are your lover too. Think about the 1st time you go to dinner with someone, a boss, a co-worker, a new friend, you may be conscious that you are seeing them in a new way. Subconsciously, if not consciously you may also be aware of a new level of intimacy in the relationship, as there certainly is a new level of familiarity. Chit chatting at work or school is one level of intimacy, sharing a meal another, spending the night another.

Two other factors that effect intimacy in the shot are how on axis the shot is and movement. Again because of the eye.

The closer to the axis line the camera is the more intimate the shot, because you are looking at the eyes more and more straight on and thus seeing more of them.

Then movement to or away from the actor increases or decreases the sense of intimacy. This is why a slow dolly shot in feels like it draws us into the world or feelings of the character.

Watch the scene in Silence of the Lambs where Clarice looks at the bulletin board with the newspaper clippings for the first time. You will see all three methods used to become more and more intimate with Calrice's thoughts as she looks at the board. The camera starts fairly wide on her and static. It's also pretty off axis, or to one side. When she turns and sees the board the camera starts to push in. As the scene intercuts between her and the board the move the dolly track closer and closer to her eyeline. So the camer starts far away to one side and winds up close and directly on axis as the contents on the bulletin board sink in anf effect her.

I studied this scene and stoled heavily from it for my for the bulletin board scene in Rekindled. If you want to take a look someone attempting this and don't have a copy of silence of the lambs, Rekindled is linked in my sig.

So basically close ups are intimate, but usually compositionally uninteresting. One way to think about them would be as exclamation points and if overused they will lose their effect. Another way would be to remember the intimacey thing. You can't go up and kiss someone on the street just because you are lonely. So in that sense you can think of them as something to be earned in a scene. OK, we've had some foreplay with some establishing shots or mediums, this next part is a pivotal moment for the character so now I am going to really move in tight.

Closeups are not bad. Just if you can get the story and do not feel distanced from the actor in a wider shot, consider the above before going closer in your edit. Because, and this is the main thing - you want every cut to be motivated.

In my shorts I had plenty of coverage for Shed and Odd Squad and Rekindled for the most part, but did not have enough coverage for Bone Hand and as a result much of the interiors are played in medium close, and closeup and as a result the movie feels somewhat claustrophobic.
pywl said:
Jason Epperson is on this board. His member name is Eppdidit. He hasnt posted in a while, but I can imagine he has been pretty busy.
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Cool, I did not know that.

Also Spidey just mentioned that he got pretty far along in the contest prior to the show.
 
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And sometimes, claustrophobia is necessary in a film... but all good points Jack... thanks for your detailed post! I learned some new things there!
 
yeah they are all tools to use to one end or another

I think maybe careful with claustrophobia though, may work great for a scene or a whole movie, but if you really go for it in a scene you may want to open things up in the next exterior or scene, especially since we expect movies to feel big.
 
Agreed... and it's not about expansive epic shots either, it's just about letting the audience breath sometimes...
 
Thanks, JDS. That makes a lot of sense and it's good to put some theory behind the instinct. Hopefully I will get to put some of this to use pretty soon.

Generally I've been thinking "Closer! Closer!" for as many of my shots as I can, trying to get in close and get better composition, but haven't been noticing an overall improvement in the feel of the shot. I think your post helps explain some of that, and serves as a good reminder to me to go wider if I want to get more cinematic.
 
JDS, nice post. I remeber hearing about Walter Murch's book not long ago. Thank you for reminding me about it.

One thing I have been wanting to try with a film is something sort of like what Sergio Leone does, which is going from a wider shot like a landscape to an extreme close-up of a gunfighter's face, but taking it even further. For example, a size comparison would be seeing a wide shot filled with swarms of bugs, then cutting to one of the bugs in a close up showing just that particular bug. Lots of different combinations could be created. This wouldn't work with every scene or film obviously, but it is something I have always wanted to play with, that extreme juxtaposition of going from the extremely macro to the extremely micro.

In one of the previous On the Lot episodes, Garry Marshall also made a similar comment about too many close ups. I can't remember the director's name but it was the film about the young man taking his girlfriend to meet his annoying parents. I thought that the close up/claustrophobic style worked well because to me it mirrored the character's feeling of being uncomfortable and not able to escape from these obnoxious people.

I have to say, I have not been very impressed with the visuals of the On the Lot films so far. None of them have any great memorable images or stories really. Yes they may be entertaining but they don't seem to go beyond that too much overall.
 
Nektonic said:
In one of the previous On the Lot episodes, Garry Marshall also made a similar comment about too many close ups. I can't remember the director's name but it was the film about the young man taking his girlfriend to meet his annoying parents.
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"Molly McSalt? If I wanted an Irish girl on my food, I'd have Kelly straddle a briscuit."

OK, I gotta admit, I thought that line was hysterical. And now I can't remember the director's name either.

Looking forward to reading JDS's detailed post tomorrow when I have more time.
 
Deepfocus88 said:
"Molly McSalt? If I wanted an Irish girl on my food, I'd have Kelly straddle a briscuit."

OK, I gotta admit, I thought that line was hysterical. And now I can't remember the director's name either.

Looking forward to reading JDS's detailed post tomorrow when I have more time.
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Yeah, JDS wrote a very detailed and well thought out post. But my personal theory is that Garry Marshall just doesn't like too many close ups. Not that there is anything wrong with it, everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Now I have to go rent some Garry Marshall films and tally up how many close ups he uses per scene and then throughout the entire movie to see if there is any weight to this theory.
 
I actually watched the rest online the other day. The eliminations of the 3 rows was dumb you knew the first 3 that got called were in but they still acted like they were scared they would be booted off. Carrie Fisher just has no good input does she. Its like she gets put on the spot every time they call on her. Think of something smart to say! Michael Bay was just like make it look good, make it look good. I think the smartest person on there is the host.
 
i think i might jus stop watching this show and let them build up on my DVR and then just watch them all at once. they probably need about 10 more episodes in order to get to the point. they're going to eliminate like 1 person per episode? all the way until they get down the line?? zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........

:violin:
 
my bet is that the elimination #'s will be sped up and this show order will be shortened from whatever was the original intent.
 
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