Mixing locked off shots with dolly shots

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young_fast_&_scientific

Active member
I'm currently working a short horror/comedy and have just done a rough cut of a short scene that's been giving me some troubles. I was hoping to get some opinions.

The scene is a CB radio conversation between a man in a van and a dispatcher in an office. All of the van shots are locked off. On the dispatchers end, I ended up getting lots of coverage; some on a dolly slowly pushing in/pulling out and some locked off in a medium shot and close up. Of course, this lead to different pieces of the performance that I liked best being covered in different ways. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on the cutting back and forth between a locked off shot (van) and a moving shot (office), and the use of a dolly in/out in this scene.

Aesthetically, I tend not to indulge in movement as much as most. I like locked off shots and only use the dolly if I think it works for the scene. In this case, I've got a bit of both and am just unsure if it works.

Here's the clip (a rough cut):

http://vimeo.com/2367604

password: colourblind666

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
 
I watched it and the switching between the two at first bothered me because I was focusing on the cuts, but once I started paying attention to the story the switching did not bother me one bit. I feel that shots like this used to be a problem but once MTV came out and completely changed how people watch stories filmmakers were given a lot of technical leeway.

That being said, there were 2 points that stood out at me a little more than the others.
The first was at 0:53 , the dolly begins to move out. It goes against all the rest of the scene and the story.
The second was at 1:03, there is a jump cut mid sentence in the van. Your actor is obviously facing a different direction mid sentence.


Hope this helps, the picture looks wonderful, what was this shot on?
 
KKeller:

I am in total agreement with you on the two points you mentioned. The jump cut is HOPEFULLY temporary until I sift through more of my footage and look at my options. (I'm still shooting this short. I like to do rough cuts of scenes to see how things come together and give the actors and crew something to look at.)

The different dolly directions is also something I've been trying to deal with. It comes down to trying a few different things on set and the actor's performance hitting high points in more than one type of take. I was first trying to cut the line deliveries that I liked the best, but I haven't been totally thorough in terms of going through all of my footage yet. Hopefully I can align the best takes with the consistency of camera movement.

This was shot on the HVX 200.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
 
I watched the scene twice and other than the jump cut, it seems to work for me. I like the mix of shots, moving and locked. Admittedly I am a part of the MTV generation.:)

Beyond that this clip makes me curious about the rest of the film. Good job!
 
My only problem was with the dispatch end, there was too much movement. Slow dolly in, slow dolly in, slow dolly out, close up, medium close up... just a bit too much. Either in or out, but not both.
 
warau: Thanks for the input. Here's a 'teaser' for the rest of the film, if you're interested: http://vimeo.com/2088140

Capt_Quirk: I agree. I'm going over my footage and hoping to be able to piece it together with some consistency. I've also flopped the dispatcher footage so they're eye lines are facing each other. Looks much better.
 
the main thing that stuck out was when the dolly changed directions and started moving backwards. that was very amaturish (not trying to be rude) and completely pulled me out of it and made me become particularly aware of the cameras presence.

the other part that struck me was the camera angles on the man. i can't put my finger on it, but the angle and composition didn't seem right. especially in relationship with the woman that it was juxtaposed to.
 
My take:

The pushing in seemed to imply that the scene/film was about the woman. The content implies that it's about the man.

The pulling out seemed random.

The other movement seemed to be just for the sake of making a dull talking head scene seem more 'fascinating.' The main thing is that there is nothing going on except the conversation. Nothing in the backgrounds comes into play the entire time. That makes it sort of flat, despite the camera movement. I think the scene needs one or two additional elements, perhaps one on the boy side, one on the girl side, even if it's just something going on in the background. Perhaps something the woman is doing on her computer, or something going on around the man's vehicle, so it doesn't play as soap opera.
 
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