Les Misérables: Wide Open Lenses and Lost Horizons

[Chris Adler]

I think there's a big difference between the average audience member's impression of the film and that of a filmmaker watching the same film. I was keenly aware of the cinematography, etc. at the beginning, but the story pulled me in and I stopped focusing on the choices and watching the performances. Everyone's experiences are their own. The movie is doing great at the box office and at the awards podium, and it's not for cinematography. I'm glad they shot it the way they did. It totally worked for me given the story they were trying to tell, and the way they were trying to tell it.

 

[bruce southerland]

And you were on set and know first-hand that this is what they were doing?

These filmmakers were attempting something never done before--recording the vocals live during the takes. They decided
to give the actor the freedom to express themselves, by not giving them marks to hit. So the actors were moving freely within
a given space,
hence the soft focus at certain points. The filmmakers traded the focus for the emotion thru free movement.

 

[Gary Huff]

That's fine and all...but you could alleviate a lot of these issues by pulling back a bit and stopping down the aperture without changing anything else.

 

[j1clark@ucsd.edu]

These filmmakers were attempting something never done before--recording the vocals live during the takes. They decided
to give the actor the freedom to express themselves, by not giving them marks to hit. So the actors were moving freely within
a given space,
hence the soft focus at certain points. The filmmakers traded the focus for the emotion thru free movement.

Uh? No...

From http://www.reelclassics.com/Musicals/Fairlady/fairlady.htm
----
Despite the fact that Harrison's singing voice was closer to speaking on pitch than actual singing, the actor refused to pre-record his musical numbers for the film, explaining that he had never sung the songs the same way twice and thus couldn't pre-record them and convincingly lip-sync to a playback during filming as musical stars had been doing in Hollywood since the dawn of talking pictures. (For more information on lip-syncing, read the Tech Talk article on Recording Musical Numbers for Musical Films.) In order to permit Harrison to sing his songs live during filming, the Warner Bros. Studio Sound Department, under the direction of George Groves, implanted a wireless microphone in Harrison's neckties, marking the first time in film history that a wireless mic was used to record sound during filming. Both the sound department and Harrison earned Academy Awards for their efforts.
----

 

[CharlesPapert]

I think there are number of instances of this sort of thing. One that comes to mind was the music video for the song "Streets of Philadelphia" (from the movie Philadelphia). I recall reading that Bruce Springsteen was recorded live singing the track as he walked around the streets.

 

[jax_rox]

I think the point is that it's the first time that all of the cast were singing all of the songs live on set.

Either way, I would've preferred an in-focus, but still shallow T2.8 than an out of focus T1.3 but hey, who knows what was going on, on set. What I do find interesting is that a lot of The Social Network was shot wide open on Master Primes and the focus never missed a beat. I think coupling complete actor freedom, including freedom of movement with complete freedom of camera movement, all the while shooting wide open without marks, was, well, an interesting choice. Bold, for sure, and I think I would've loved it had the focus been on point the whole thing, but as it was I think it would've worked even better slightly stopped down as it still would've been shallow, but it would also have probably been more consistently sharp.

I am glad however that they didn't opt to go digital to make it a bit easier on the pullers or any other reason.

 

[Guest]

I just got back from seeing this movie, and while I appreciated the technical development of capturing the vocals live on set, it seemed that the visuals took a step backward throughout the entire film.

First, the film was shot completely on a Steadicam. Tough for anyone to go for long takes, but even so, there was a lot of bad composition and breaking of the 180 degree rule. If you have three actors, cutting between three shots, it's unnerving to see them all scrunched up against the left side of the screen. There was also a lot of shots where the actors eyes were positioned near the top of the screen, cutting off about mid-forehead or even slightly lower.

On top of that, either Tom Hooper or Danny Cohen made the decision to shoot with wide-open lenses (and fast ones at that). Shot in 35mm, it had the shallow DOF I've seen from Full Frame cameras, and it was way too distracting. Anne Hathaway's big moment was ruined for me because you'd have her nose in focus, and the rest of her face dropping out of focus, and every time she would adjust her position a bit, she'd go completely out of focus, necessitating a focus pull. This happened far too often in her single shot moment at the beginning. Why the hell did someone okay the idea to shoot with fast primes wide open on a Steadicam rig for single take moments while the actors are also probably ad-libbing what they are doing? This led to a lot of focus hunting within shots, and there were entire shot lengths where the actor never came into focus. The constant need to adjust focus and focus hunting took me out of the moment, even during the great moments of the film. Setting the primes to f/3.5 or 4 isn't going to kill anyone, and gives your focus pullers a frickin' chance to get it right in that situation.

Then there were the dutch angles, completely unmotivated from what I could tell, and issues with the Steadicam operation where the horizon would constantly go off level (there was even a shot where the horizon starts to tilt and apparently the operator caught it and corrected suddenly, a very odd moment).

Frankly, it made me angry that it the cinematography was so poorly planned, as I found it consistently distracting. Normally I don't notice the technical issues unless the film isn't captivating, but this time it was like the technical issues were so in my face (probably exacerbated by the Sony 4K projection at the Alamo) that I couldn't help but notice, and it consistently took me out of the story.

A shame because the opening shot is so amazing.

Having worked on Indies were there seemed no apparent reason for shooting at T1.3, I wholeheartedly appreciate this post. Bravo!

 

[bruce southerland]

Uh? No...

From http://www.reelclassics.com/Musicals/Fairlady/fairlady.htm
----
Despite the fact that Harrison's singing voice was closer to speaking on pitch than actual singing, the actor refused to pre-record his musical numbers for the film, explaining that he had never sung the songs the same way twice and thus couldn't pre-record them and convincingly lip-sync to a playback during filming as musical stars had been doing in Hollywood since the dawn of talking pictures. (For more information on lip-syncing, read the Tech Talk article on Recording Musical Numbers for Musical Films.) In order to permit Harrison to sing his songs live during filming, the Warner Bros. Studio Sound Department, under the direction of George Groves, implanted a wireless microphone in Harrison's neckties, marking the first time in film history that a wireless mic was used to record sound during filming. Both the sound department and Harrison earned Academy Awards for their efforts.
----

Sorry, I should have worded that differently. The "something never done before" was not that they recorded vocals live on set,
but that they made the decision to record every vocal part possible on set, when over 90% of the dialog is narrative song.

 

[refocusedmedia]

This is being similarly discussed here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?300232-Tom-Hooper-and-the-Art-of-Cinematic-Affectation

If you haven't read it, I urge you to.

If you haven't already, I encourage everyone to read this article (from the thread I posted above). I can't stress enough how appropriate it is for this discussion:

http://badassdigest.com/2013/01/09/...-tom-hooper-and-art-of-cinematic-affectation/

Here it is reformatted for easier reading for those who might appreciate that (thanks to Egg Born Son):

http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/attachment.php?attachmentid=65217&d=1358043635

Any of you guys take a look at this? It's a really great and appropriate read.