Every shot has meaning?

I honestly don't understand the Shyamalan worship thing. He's got some great talent, but his filmography is short and uneven. However, If he could manage to supress his penchant for twist endings and ever-lengthening cameos, I'd love to see where it takes him.

For my money, the best of Hitchcock's films like Vertigo and Notorious are very tight with each shot moving the story along or revealing something significant about a character. I'd be hard-pressed to think of any shots I'd cut out of Hitch's best stuff.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a trend these days of massively overshooting and making films longer and longer--and it can be really fatiguing for the audience. I've noticed a big problem with subplots and backstory that are incompletely edited out of the final cut leaving some head scratching about characters that get introduced, but never developed and unresolved plot branches.
 
Barry_S said:
I honestly don't understand the Shyamalan worship thing. He's got some great talent, but his filmography is short and uneven. However, If he could manage to supress his penchant for twist endings and ever-lengthening cameos, I'd love to see where it takes him.

For my money, the best of Hitchcock's films like Vertigo and Notorious are very tight with each shot moving the story along or revealing something significant about a character. I'd be hard-pressed to think of any shots I'd cut out of Hitch's best stuff.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a trend these days of massively overshooting and making films longer and longer--and it can be really fatiguing for the audience. I've noticed a big problem with subplots and backstory that are incompletely edited out of the final cut leaving some head scratching about characters that get introduced, but never developed and unresolved plot branches.
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Well, I personally believe everyones got one director too look up to, that one director for me is M Night Shyamalan.

Yes, you're right about Hitchcock, also on my top 5 best movie makers lf all time, every shot has meaning.

I also have to mention Darren Aronofsky, I personally though his two films were great, and every shot had a meaning, meaning if any of the shots were taken out, wed probably be confused.
 
vitaluminosa said:
I was wondering, is there a director whose works feature great symbolism, meaning and significance in every single shot? As in, there are no wasted/excess/unnecessary shots.
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Often this is achieved with the help of the EDITOR, not necessarily by the director alone!
 
But the Director is telling the Editor what to chop.

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M Knight is a testament to the old school and I love him.

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Tarantino does not seem to waste a shot

Speilberg

Ridley Scott
 
Scorsese of old (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) always seemed to infuse some sort of intent or perspective into his camera work. On my laserdisc (remember those?) for Taxi Driver he describes the motivation for shots such as the opening shot of the taxicab driving thru a cloud of steam to be that of "the taxi emerging from Hell". and the scene where travis bickle calls betsy from a payphone -- he's getting rejected by her and the camera tracks right to an empty hallway. Scorsese said his intention for that move was that travis's pain at this moment was too difficult watch, so we (represented by the camera's pov) look away.

It was Scorsese that fostered my early cinematic education. It was thru his films that i learned to understand a cinematic language that went beyond the technical.
 
I would agree with Barry_S above about Notorious. In terms of every shot having a place in the picture, that is just about a perfect movie.
 
cygnet74 said:
Scorsese of old (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) always seemed to infuse some sort of intent or perspective into his camera work. On my laserdisc (remember those?) for Taxi Driver he describes the motivation for shots such as the opening shot of the taxicab driving thru a cloud of steam to be that of "the taxi emerging from Hell". and the scene where travis bickle calls betsy from a payphone -- he's getting rejected by her and the camera tracks right to an empty hallway. Scorsese said his intention for that move was that travis's pain at this moment was too difficult watch, so we (represented by the camera's pov) look away.

It was Scorsese that fostered my early cinematic education. It was thru his films that i learned to understand a cinematic language that went beyond the technical.
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That is an awesome tidbit !

I love Scorsese and cannot for the life of me believe he has never won the big one. What a sham

He wasnt even nominated for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull lost to Ordinary People ? huh ? As much as I love Dances With Wolves Goodfellas should have nailed it for him
 
John_Hudson said:
That is an awesome tidbit !

I love Scorsese and cannot for the life of me believe he has never won the big one. What a sham

He wasnt even nominated for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull lost to Ordinary People ? huh ? As much as I love Dances With Wolves Goodfellas should have nailed it for him
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I agree, it's definately sad that Scorcese hasn't walked up to that podium yet.

I think Robert Rodriguez is very deliberate in what shots he uses. There might be tidbits here and there that don't work, but I think his overall style is to use every shot effectively. If you've read his book, that's the way he learned to make movies, with a certain precision.
 
Krzysztof Kieslowski is one of my favorite directors and in trois couleurs, I think the director picks the right shots for all three films, I highly recommend them to anyone who's directing or thinking about directing.
 
if this would happen:Every shot has meaning the film would be too hard, too difficult to understand
 
Danny,

A great director will have a justifcation for each and every shot. That takes a lot of planning and forethought, a mastery of storytelling. It's not that each shot has to have some hidden symbolism (though many will), but that each shot advances the story and highlights the emotion of that moment. If you can advance the story and have subtle visual subtext, all the better.

It's a good exercise that I am working through on a project right now. As the DP, I'll sit down with the director and review shot for shot and have him explain why we are looking at this subject at this moment, and how the composition, camera movement, angle, etc. relate to the emotion. It's not combative, just good practice to have a reason for everything you do.

Josh
 
John_Hudson said:
That is an awesome tidbit !

I love Scorsese and cannot for the life of me believe he has never won the big one. What a sham

He wasnt even nominated for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull lost to Ordinary People ? huh ? As much as I love Dances With Wolves Goodfellas should have nailed it for him
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He is truly amazing. Scorcese is often overlooked due to his violence quota, but he's just "showing it like it is."

If you want some cool Scorcese stuff, rent A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies or see the companion book. Martin really knows his history as well as his technique.
 
Currently, the book on film directing I'm reading uses Hitchcock's Notorious to demonstrate the deliberate process the director uses in choosing camera angles, composition, narrative beats, and acting beats. Dissecting this film with the help of my book has been a great eye opener for me. I look back at the narrative stuff I've shot in the past and cringe at some of the random/haphazard decisions I made with my camera and now, I've been scripting much shorter works to film because I realize how much more work I'm going to have to spend on preparation and planning. Check out Notorious!

Another personal favorite of mine is Dario Argento's old giallo films. Argento is another filmmaker who has a very intense vision and a certain decisiveness in his deliberate use of the camera (albeit with mixed results in the final product). I recommend his earlier works if you're not put off by some rather graphic albeit stylized portrayals of violence.
 
Orson Wells did alot of this in Citizen Kane too. It was as if his characters would change in size in comparison to other characters depending on their moral standing at any particular moment. Alot of his shots were really amazing.
 
Cineaste said:
Krzysztof Kieslowski is one of my favorite directors and in trois couleurs, I think the director picks the right shots for all three films, I highly recommend them to anyone who's directing or thinking about directing.
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Great example. Kieslowski was a master of making every shot matter. I loved the Three Colors trilogy.
 
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