Levels of Identification

[AstroBranden]

I'm hung up on a concept presented in a book I'm reading. They state "generally speaking, the closer the line of sight of a player in CU is to the camera, the greater the degree of viewer identification." They give an example of a two shot with a man and woman, cutting on the man's look to the CU of the woman. They proceed to show examples of varying lines of sight. In the first example, the woman is looking directly at the camera, and in the last she is looking about 60 degrees away from the sight line. In the book they write that the CU of the woman looking directly into the camera lets us identify with her, while the CU of her looking 60 degrees away lets us identify with the man. This seems backwards to me...if we are looking at the woman through the mans POV and she is looking directly at the camera, wouldn't we identify with the man, since that's the position we are in and being spoken too? Also, isn't that sort of shot too confrontational for us to identify with the woman?

 

[john threat]

That book sounds dumb. Read it - then ignore it.

 

[Doc Bernard]

It's a personal relationship the actor achieves with the viewer, assisted by the angle. The closer the shot, with the subject looking into camera, the closer the interaction with the viewer. Or so it's supposed to achieve. You cannot see the off-camera actor's emotions because the shot is to be their POV. You gather another person's emotion's from their facial expression, stance, the way they talk. You cannot get that from a 1st person POV about the 1st person. You get that in the turn around.

CU's are your chance to help the audience to understand the actor/role. The more personal, the more they understand the character.

Pretty standard cinematography.

 

[RyanT]

That book sounds dumb. Read it - then ignore it.

:/

Just think about how shooting someone profile and what that feels like. You don't feel very involved, you're not part of the conversation. As you come more around closer to the line created by the two people talking, the more personal it comes, the more you're included on whats going on.

 

[Rolf Silber]

I think the authors make a bit of a mistake, when they make no distinction between "feeling involved" and "identifying". Setting your camera more to the dramatic axis may help you to make the audience feel more involved. I say "may" because this is only one of the ways to achieve that. Identification is a much, much complexer process.

If you'd be in a situation when she talks to her killer, very probably you won't start identifying with him (unless you are somewhat deranged) when you would do the reverse shot towards him in the same manner. But, yes, you may feel to be really "in" the situation more.

With whom you will identify has much more to do with the story and the casting.

 

[john threat]

i think learning to direct from a book is silly. get with a camera and practice with people and bringing emotion and feelings out.
if you dont grok what it says and connect to it - get another book.
or better yet - shoot something
hope i dont sound like a jerk

 

[tom_wise]

I'm hung up on a concept presented in a book I'm reading. They state "generally speaking, the closer the line of sight of a player in CU is to the camera, the greater the degree of viewer identification." They give an example of a two shot with a man and woman, cutting on the man's look to the CU of the woman. They proceed to show examples of varying lines of sight. In the first example, the woman is looking directly at the camera, and in the last she is looking about 60 degrees away from the sight line. In the book they write that the CU of the woman looking directly into the camera lets us identify with her, while the CU of her looking 60 degrees away lets us identify with the man. This seems backwards to me...if we are looking at the woman through the mans POV and she is looking directly at the camera, wouldn't we identify with the man, since that's the position we are in and being spoken too? Also, isn't that sort of shot too confrontational for us to identify with the woman?

Good One! Is the Woman in question Sharon Stone? If so I'm identifying with ME!

I think it is really hard to know that answer patently, and I'll tell ya why. If we are the Man via the camera lens We may or may not empathize with him enough to identify with him, or we may look at her and think, gees woman, get outta here, He's crazy, which means we identified with her, right? If the production team has done a good job of Character building, we may even like a Mass murderer some times. I agree with your book and it's premise definitely. The reason I do is simple: When looking someone in the eyes we are speaking/listening to and through the soul; the eyes have it (in your books case: Her eyes!). But I also use and am well aware of the phrase/cliche: Text-book. So there's your Challenge and it is a challenge many producers probably play to, make the audience do what they ordinarily would not do.

 

[Nick Wernham]

i think learning to direct from a book is silly. get with a camera and practice with people and bringing emotion and feelings out.
if you dont grok what it says and connect to it - get another book.
or better yet - shoot something
hope i dont sound like a jerk

People learn in different ways. I'm more of a "learn by doing" kind of guy as well and I agree that at a certain point everyone needs to just "shoot something", but some people can get a lot out of reading about the theory before they attempt to apply it.

As for the question at hand, the closer the lens is to the eye line, the more subjective the shot typically is. The further away the lens is, the more observational the shot is.

 

[David G. Smith]

I am not going to dis reading up on filmmaking technique, at all. However, I would also suggest getting you top five or ten favorite films and studying them, frame by frame, over and over, and see how the makers of those films handle the techniques that you encounter in the filmmaking books. Try to get copies of the screen plays to your favorite movies and compare how they were written to how they end up being shot and edited. Of course, going out and making your own movie will teach you more than anything, but between flicks, I support study, for sure, but not just books.

 

[Nick Wernham]

I am not going to dis reading up on filmmaking technique, at all. However, I would also suggest getting you top five or ten favorite films and studying them, frame by frame, over and over, and see how the makers of those films handle the techniques that you encounter in the filmmaking books. Try to get copies of the screen plays to your favorite movies and compare how they were written to how they end up being shot and edited. Of course, going out and making your own movie will teach you more than anything, but between flicks, I support study, for sure, but not just books.

Quite right. Studying the theory of filmmaking requires more than just books, but books can be a useful part of the equation for many people. I was just responding to john threat's specific beef with books about directing by saying that while I can kind of understand and sympathize with his point-of-view (which I took to be that some spend too much time focusing on the theory and not enough time actually out there shooting stuff), books can be helpful.

[EDIT]Also, as an only somewhat related addendum to your post I would suggest that doing the kind of exercise you are describing is tremendously useful both as a learning aid early on and later when working on individual projects. In essence, whenever you start a project you consider which films function best as influences for different elements of your piece. A film might be useful for references in terms of shot selection, but it also might make a good reference for something like lighting or production design or colour correction. You would start by picking out the films that function well as references for your piece. Then you study those films carefully, paying particular attention to the parts of each work that you believe your project should attempt to emulate. You can then meet with your various creative collaborators and discuss with them the best way to emulate the aspects of those references that you want to work into your film.

 

[Rolf Silber]

Learning from a book? Why not. As an accessory it may give you hints. Tips. Nothing more. Yes, we learn making a movie by making a movie - but until we get there, I recommend highly instead of just reading:

Watch more films. And please - do try to watch also bad films. Not the outright terrible ones. But movies that do work for some time and suddenly stop working. And ask yourself: Why did THAT happen? And how can I avoid that it will happen to me one day? Perfect films are rather hermeneutic beasts and it can be rather complicated to really decipher why they work at times. The not-so-good ones can be more helpful.

Listen to music and try to build a story - any story - just as an exercise from or around what you hear. Don't listen to the words so much, listen to rhythm, structure, changes in pace, try to find out what the music tells you in a sub text and do it only in your mind. And listen to all kinds of music because Fatboy Slim, Mozart and the Maitre du Tambour du Burundi have one thing in common: They communicate through non verbal means.

The same applies to next to anything in performing arts. You want to become a sci-fi director? Better watch a bit of ballet dancing to come to grips with complex movements of a lot of elements and people (and music) - in other words: choreography. Your space battle scenes will greatly profit from this.

Learn cooking. Try to find out how you can make different tastes work together or instead contrast to each other, learn how to process food, how to find out how to find out how to find the best ingredients and learn what you still can manage when the fridge is near empty and learn that what may be great food for you may be junk for others. And accept that this will be exactly your later experience as a director too.

Travel much more with bus and tube. Watch the people coming in, look how they inter-act, what movements they make, why this guy sits there stiff like a robot that ran out of energy and why the fat lady in the back is sobbing and the shouting driver gesticulates like mad and ask yourself what their story, their background, their social status, their income, their family life, their past and their future will be - and how you, as a director, would try to convey this to an audience, how you would set up this scene, who you would like to play the parts.

Do it often. Try to make things like this a routine. Do not expect that your next award winning movie will come out of that but that what you do is exercise your mind. Because: It's happening. Every second. Around us. It's rich and we only need to open our eyes and ears and minds to find out how to transpose it into a story and a moving picture. It's called life. And yes.... it' Sunday morning here, time for deep thoughts..... ;-)

 

[Allan Black]

To start learning pictures, turn the sound off .. to learn sound turn the pictures off.

Cheers.

 

[john threat]

Can someone name a director they like that said they read a book to learn how to direct?
Oscar wilde once said: "Anything worth learning cant be taught"
Good luck trying to learn camera angles and emotion from a book.

 

[Doc Bernard]

Can someone name a director they like that said they read a book to learn how to direct?
Oscar wilde once said: "Anything worth learning cant be taught"
Good luck trying to learn camera angles and emotion from a book.

In principle I agree that books cannot teach you like experience can. But books and education give you the tools, and explain the tools. Without knowing your tools, you flounder and flop around until you happen upon the right thing by chance.

Take someone that wants to be a mechanic, but has never done the work. A book will show them what a wrench is, and how to use it. And how not to use a hammer, when a screwdriver is needed. What the book won't show is how that wrench feels like in your hands. It won't explain what the torque you need feels like when you apply it. That comes from actually holding the wrench and putting it to use.

Too many people think reading is over-rated, and only getting out and doing it is the only way to learn. And I disagree. Coupling experience with reading books is a faster way to learn what works and what doesn't for a new film-maker. I am not saying there haven't been good suggestions here, but when you tell a film-maker to throw out his books, you are actually hindering them from learning faster. They will find out what works for them, but they will understand the basics from their learning and self-study. Books cannot teach the "artistic" side, though.

But there is a technical side to directing as well, and that involves learning what you can, however you can. A books are a part of that equation. To discount that means you are not using all the tools available at your disposal to learn your craft. Once you have the tools in your toolbox, and you know how to use them properly, then you can appreciate going out of the box better.

We see a ton of stuff on Youtube, from individuals that feel the only way to learn is doing it themselves. They have ignored what tools they have at their disposal to assist them. They really don't have a clue about framing conventions or composition. And it really shows, despite their confidence in their work. Eventually they will improve and learn from "doing". But by picking up a book (more than one, actually) and practicing what you learned (and making it "yours"), you will be ahead by leaps and bounds about what to avoid, knowing framing, and composition.

Some may argue that these things are more in the cinematographer/DP's purview. A director and DP must have a lot of the same knowledge, as they both impact the visual representation of the film. The director may want a certain emotion from their lead actor: how do you show that emotion in film? Is it just pointing the camera at the actor? Kind of. But there is a lot more to it. How do you frame the shot to further show that conflict? How do you light the shot to convey that emotion? Like I said, the DP and the director need to have a lot of the same knowledge in order to really "sell" what is going on in the scene.

And if you are like a lot of small crews, you might be both the DP and director at the same time, so it is even more important to learn as much as you can.

But without knowing what the tools are to do that, you will be a lot slower in your progressing as a film-maker. Yes, the art comes from within, but how to show that art, that is more on the technical side.

 

[john threat]

Take someone that wants to be a mechanic, but has never done the work. A book will show them what a wrench is, and how to use it. And how not to use a hammer, when a screwdriver is needed. What the book won't show is how that wrench feels like in your hands. It won't explain what the torque you need feels like when you apply it.

if you need a book to figure out how to use a wrench - you probably should leave cars alone. mechanical apptitute isnt a good anology for the craft of film - at least at the director level. know when you look at a book for cars? when you need a technical layout of how its put together - the anology would be reading the script from my worldview.

They really don't have a clue about framing conventions or composition. And it really shows, despite their confidence in their work. Eventually they will improve and learn from "doing". But by picking up a book (more than one, actually) and practicing what you learned (and making it "yours"), you will be ahead by leaps and bounds about what to avoid, knowing framing, and composition.

Some will get better - most won't. You have to practice by watching and expirmenting and finding things that work thru that process. Generally - I think most people would agree with this - you kinda either have the eye or you don't.

How people get the eye?

I cant say - we all see the world differently - some combination of genes and environment that lets dreamers bring their cinematic thoughts to life. There are a lot of directors out there who cant seem to realize they would be better off writing and some writers who would be even better directors (although you see more writers become directors than the other way around). Who wants to copy the techniques from a book from a guy who never directed anything anybody wants to see.

Also comes in here, the magic of directors finding a good cinematogpher to collaborate with - did the DP point and shoot? Or did he bring his experience and expirements to the table as well? Or did he do all the framing and mood setting - based on verbal directions from his Director? Where does that play into this?

I like to read interviews with directors who did work I like - i almost never read a book they made about a film because why would I want to copy directly their style? I never really learn anything from those interviews technically actually - it's usually more about thier thinking process that might make me expand my thoughts about small minutae in a scene or in a story arc for character development - often times the interviews explain what I am saying here - great scenes are often time the result of a coming together of a huge amoung of planning that gets supplanted with a bit of inguenity on the day of shooting and amazing good luck.

framing from a book - thats a good one.

 

[Doc Bernard]

if you need a book to figure out how to use a wrench - you probably should leave cars alone.

That assumes you know what a wrench is in the first place. What if you don't? How do you learn what it is?

I understand what you are saying John, and it may have worked for you. But where did you learn what the different shots were and what they were called? And the no-no's of crossing the 180? And how/where you can cross the line without confusion? And how do you re-establish a new plane?

Some people learn best with no instruction, others with a combination of learning and doing. And yes, you can learn what a MCU/ECU/Wide/Single/2 shot/3shot........etc is from a book (also known as the "Tools"). But once you know what it is supposed to look like (a two shot is just 2 actors in frame and not 3), you tailor it for your use and incorporate into that the art. You set the camera on the angle you feel captures the scene the best. But you are still using the tools. That basic information is better given from learning it and having that knowledge prior to even setting up a camera. Otherwise a film-maker is floundering on set, trying to find out what to do. They may get lucky, but chances are they won't be, and the shot will be found unusable once you get into the editing. And this goes to having a "shot list" prior to stepping on set. Or they take a shotgun approach and get the same scene framed a million ways, and it takes forever to get one shot that will be usable.

And a better question is "How long did it take you to learn basic film-making and the tools of film-making?" I think the OP is on the right track by learning wherever and however they can to pursue their craft and not ignoring any source of that learning. They will get up to speed faster, so the artistic side can have a better influence on what they learned.

And having the "eye", I completely agree. Some have it, others don't. But that does not really come into play in this conversation. It is a moot point here. We like to assume, if you are drawn into film-making and you are trying to improve yourself as a film-maker, you are doing because you think you have it. And that is not for any of us to say if an individual has it or not. We just try to help them however we can.

 

[Drew Ott]

I'm a big advocate of learning from books. I see so many filmmakers around me who simply aren't getting better. They've graduated film school and assumed their learning phase is over.

Tipota is correct that you need to compliment this more formal education with a healthy dose of wisdom. Traveling, observing, learning. These are the things that make you a good storyteller.

Learn-by-doing is a gigantic piece of the puzzle, but if that'sall you do, you should be careful to avoid plateauing.



To go back to the OP's original question, different types of shots are inherently more objective or subjective than others. In general, the more on-axis the camera is, the more subjective. If we are viewing somebody in an over-the-shoulder, it will be more objective. Push the camera past the shoulder into a single and you'll see how subjective the shot gets. This is a good camera move too, if the story calls for it.

 

[john threat]

i think its more helpful to say dont trust your insincts to a book then to say read more books on filmmaking.
it's pretty funny actually if you stop and think about it.
I wonder if knowing the term 2 Shot is really honestly going to make someone an awesome director.

 

[Doc Bernard]

I wonder if knowing the term 2 Shot is really honestly going to make someone an awesome director.

LOL, nope. But not knowing it says a lot about the knowledge of that person (or lack thereof), when it comes to film-making and directing. If I ask a director if this is a "2 shot" so I can set up accordingly, and I get a blank stare in return......I can guess what level the final product is going to be at right then and there.

Being a "director" is becoming like being a "producer, yo" in the music industry. Too many people call themselves one without really being one or doing the study and work involved to actually know what they are doing. Or a DP, just because you have a couple of lights. Or a sound engineer, because you own a mic. There is more than just having gear to be able to call yourself something in this industry. And sadly, as a director, you don't even have to own any equipment, to call yourself a "director". Your knowledge base, coupled with experience, is what makes other people say you are a "director". People can call themselves whatever they want. I can call myself "Supreme Ruler", but unless other people believe it and I prove that I am one, it just a false title. It's what they really have to show that sets them apart and makes a person deserving of the title "director".

I am an armorer and a sound guy, not because I threw that label on myself. It is what I do and what I have done, that is what other people call me. I have directed scenes, but I do NOT call myself a director. I don't consider myself to be one, because that is not my forte, nor my education. That's the distinction here.

The OP is seeking more knowledge by reading, seeking advice, and studying. If he isn't a director now, he will be able to honestly have the title soon, IMO.

See what you did, you made me go off on a tangent. Bad John.

 

[Rolf Silber]

I'm a big advocate of learning from books.

Books about directing are a tool of learning in a set of tools one should be able to handle for the job. Nothing less but also nothing more. Books at times gave me an "opening" to a different way of thought, gave me new perspectives - but they can not be a surrogate to the other things a "director in becoming" has to study.

The same that is true for actors is even truer for directors: A lot of people want to be one - but only a few dare to really become one. And the "becoming" part only ends with the last film a director shoots in his work-life.

So if somebody starts the process of "becoming" with books - good. It's just one point a journey may start and books also can make good companions on the way. But if he sticks too much to this books - he will end becoming something else.