a sense of place

HerzogisGod

HerzogisGod

Well-known member
what i notice above all else in amateur, or "first timer' films, is a total absence of a "sense of place". Even the subtlest of lighting can create a strong sense of place; an interesting object, piece of furniture, something interesting to look at within the scene. Any of these things will suck a viewer in ten fold. Yet what I see it over and over: boring, flat, every day, common surroundings. Blah!

Is it that some people have a naturally refined aesthetic, while others don't? Good taste vs. bad, or mediocre taste?

Think of all the movies you love so much...probably most of the reasons you love them is cause they transport you to strange, "make believe" environments. Somewhere fantastical, or simply different or mysterious in some indefinable way.

A sense of place.....so important!!! And so lacking in amateur film making
 
Funny, I was just talking about this with a co-worker of mine.

We were discussing WKW's method of filmmaking, how Chunking Express was shot in Christopher Doyle's apartment and how the whole cast and crew basically lived in the hotel in ITMFL. I described it as 'Method Art Direction' or 'Method Cinematography'.

What really captivates you about a film (be it fiction or non-fiction) is that it transports you to a place. An empty apartment with bare walls doesn't have that sense of place; it doesn't feel real.
 
I know....or poorly decorated, or poorly lit. The place itself, when it becomes a character, can really help being the viewer in. Of course, this usually costs some money, but a filmmaker can get creative with very little.
 
Well, first time filmmakers tend to be more concerned with the techie side of things and perhaps (but not that often) the acting.

Production Value is what's missing and Art Direction is a big part of it, but so is the choice of location.

It's easy for the first timer to convince himself to buy a new gadget but it's much harder for him to put money into props and set design or even obtaining a location.
 
I think you don't see it because, like most of the intangible parts of the process of filmmaking, you can only really learn it by getting it wrong a lot. And maybe not even then.

I'm a big believer in 'It's what you don't see that matters,' so when I think of design I put a lot of thought into what needs to leave a particular set or shot for it to work.
 
I think the phrase is mise en scene, 'placed on the stage.' It's the sum of what you put before the camera, sets, props, actors, etc.

Although in truth the right lighting and composition can make a bare-room setting compelling.

Boring as that is, for the Art Department.
 
Personally, I think art direction is one of the greatest challenges for low budgets films simply because of its complexity.

The difference between shooting in an uncleaned room with random junk lying around vs. a set with carefully selected and placed props is subtle and hard to spot. Bad sound, lighting, story, and acting can all be spotted pretty quickly by 95% of people with even a passing interest in film.

Bad art direction can be spotted by 5% and probably 1% really know how to fix it.
 
Poor art direction is every bit as conspicuous as poor acting or camera work. The difference is that it's less likely that as many viewers will articulate it.
 
Yes, the movie will look like homemade crap, but they can't put their finger on what looks so cheap and half-assed about it. Especially if the pix and sound appear to be of reasonable quality. HD will definitely make tossed-off art direction look AWFUL.

Are people just blind to art-direction ? Or are they trying to do it Dogme 95 style....?

I storyboard everything, and I try to pick interesting locations people haven't seen too much before. E.g. I have an aviation project set in some rusty WW2 hangars and a beat-to-hell looking flight-school office. It looks authentic because it is.

There's a lot to be said for hunting-down interesting architecture, such as the downtown office lobby (dressed as a bank) that appeared in "Rain Man." For us guerrillas these gems are free for the taking, IMO.

Lots of times the production design really elevates a so-so film for me, and boring locations can make an ordinary story deadly dull.

I offer as example Neil LaBute's "Your Friends and Neigbors" which bored me to tears, and I don't think was a Dogme film.... at the other extreme I find "Out of Africa" watchable largely because it was gorgeously filmed in Africa.

Just my $0.02 :beer: Jeff
 
The parent art of cinema is photography, and generally speaking architecture offers so many compositional possibilities that finding the right locations - which will almost invariably be cheaper than constructing or convincingly posting sets - is one of the relatively accessible ways to really elevate the look of a film.

There's a reason that the art department always starts first.
 
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