Add Depth to Your Shots (with the Foreground)
A new year just rolled in, and so we tacked on an extended title sequence to briefly recap the past few days!
Anyway:
Like paintings and photos, movies are a two-dimensional medium. It can be argued that "good" cinematography is a matter of tricking the viewer's eye into thinking they're seeing a three-dimensional image on a two-dimensional screen. Otherwise, your shots can look unintentionally flat and uninteresting, with little depth and distinction. One easy way to solve this problem is to place an object in your foreground. Because when a foreground is implied, the middle ground and the background naturally follow suit. This instantly creates a sense of depth and dimension.
These tips should be especially useful to anyone without the ability to use shallow focus (i.e. users with lower-end digital cameras), and can at least make a shot look more interesting if not necessarily better.
The same can be said about sound design as well, can’t it?
The Batman sting made me laugh. The passion ice tea made me cringe. The Hawk made me duck.
When I watch my videos, all I think is “smoother”. I want my camera tracks to be smooth as glass. I like the dolly shots you guys do but we just don’t plan that far ahead.
Your videos always give me idea though. Next time we are working I’m sure I’ll be paying attention to the foreground.
The clip from the early part of Citizen Kane is a good example of Welles and Toland’s “deep focus” orientation in that movie; Greg Toland actually used it in films before this, and both Welles and Toland used it after this.
By the way, sorry to hear about your jobs going vaporware…
Cheers!
(and happy 2009!)
Al Bouchard
@Greg: Sound design can indeed immerse the viewer into a scene. But that’s a separate (and arguably more ambiguous) craft from cinematography, though no less admirable.
@metalalien: You no like Passion Iced Tea? And the funny thing is that a lot of old movies (and come to think of it, some modern movies) seem to have oddly shaky dolly shots and pans. Most people, myself included, don’t seem to notice them unless you really try to pick out every bump.
@Al: Our job is only partly gone. We’ll be freelancing here and there.
And I’ve actually never sought out Toland’s work. It’s surprising that Citizen Kane was toward the end of his career. I wonder if ‘Kane’ was his watershed moment, or merely a culmination of what he already knew.
Looking at his filmography, it doesn’t surprise me that he did The Grapes of Wrath. I guess the deep focus gave that movie a kind of realism.
If no one’s gonna say it, I will – What’s with Peter and toilets? hehe
This was really educative, I’ll make sure I consider the foreground in my future shoots
I keep waiting for the video – “Peter Gets A Haircut”…LOL J/K
I hardly noticed, but it now takes a long time to shampoo this hair. I think I’ll get a haircut today, in fact. Alas, no episode out of it. I think Sean intends to post an entry about cameras today.