Cinematography (Chapter 2)

Note: This summary is directly from our textbook, Film: an Introduction.

Cinematography involves the choice and manipulation of film stock, lighting, and cameras. Some of the main issues in cinematography are film grain, color, lenses, camera distance and angle from the subject, and camera movement.

Film Stock

Film stock, which is unexposed and unprocessed motion-picture film, influences the film's finished look, including its sharpness of detail, range of light and shadow, and quality of color. Sometimes cinematographers use different parts of the same film to heighten certain effects.

Generally, the wider the film gauge, the larger the film frames and the sharper the projected images.

Slow film stock, which requires more light than fast film stock, can produce a detailed, nuanced image. In older films, fast film stock usually produces more graininess then slow film stocks.

Color associations vary from culture to culture, and a color's impact depends on context where and how the color is used. In most Western societies, warm colors (reds, oranges, and yellows) tend to be thought of as hot, dangerous, lively, and assertive. Greens, blues, and violets are generally characterized as cool. In Europe and the United States, these colors tend to be associated with safety, reason, control, relaxation, and sometimes sadness or melancholy.

Color may be saturated (intense, vivid) or desaturated (muted, dull, pale).

Lighting

Hard lighting comes directly from a source, whereas soft light comes from an indirect source. Hard lighting is bright and harsh and creates unflattering images. Soft lighting is flattering because it tends to fill in imperfections in the subject's surface and obliterate or lessen sharp lines and shadows.

Low-key lighting involves little illumination on the subject and often reinforces a dramatic or mysterious effect. High-key lighting entails bright illumination of the subject and may create or enhance a cheerful mood.

The direction of light reaching the subject can change an image's moods and meanings.

Like light, shadows can be used expressively in countless ways- for example, to create a mysterious or threatening environment.

The Camera

During filming, one of three types of lenses is used: wide-angle, normal, or telephoto. Often all three are used at different times within the same film. Each type of lens has different properties and creates different images.

Choice of lens, aperture (or opening), and film stock largely determine the depth of field, or distance in front of the camera in which all objects are in focus.

Diffusers may be placed in front of a light source or in front of a camera lens to soften facial lines, to glamorize, or to lend a more spiritual or ethereal look.

Camera distance helps determine what details will be noticeable, what objects will be excluded from the frame, and how large the subject will appear within the frame.

By changing the camera lens and the camera distance between shots or during a shot, filmmakers can change perspective: the relative size and apparent depth of objects in the photographic image.

The angle from which the subject is filmed influences the expressiveness of the images. There are four basic camera angles: bird's view, high angle, eye-level angle, and low angle. There are also countless angles in between.

In point-of-view (p.o.v.) shots, the camera films a subject from the approximate position of someone in the film. Such camera placements contribute to the viewer's identification with one of the subjects and sense of participation in the action.

A motion-picture camera may remain in one place during filming as it is pivoted up or down (tilting) or rotated sideways (panning), or it may be moved through space.

Panning too quickly causes blurred footage: such a result is called a swish pan. Ways to move the camera around during filming include dollying, tracking, using a crane, and employing a Steadicam. Like other aspects of cinematography, camera movements can be used in countless expressive ways.

Digital Cinematography

Film images can be scanned into a computer, changed there, then transferred back to film. Such computer manipulation can correct errors or change the images in ways impossible or more troublesome and costly to do with film alone.


a couple of Frey's students