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Home , American shot, Camera coverage, Dutch angle, Follow shot, Forced perspective, Master shot

Prepared by I. M. IRENEE [email protected] 0783271180/0728271180

1. Introduction

Cinematographic techniques such as the choice of , and movement, can greatly influence the structure and meaning of a .

2. Size of shot

Examples of shot size (in one filmmaker's opinion)

The use of different shot sizes can influence the meaning which an audience will interpret.

The size of the subject in frame depends on two things: the distance the camera is away from the subject and the of the camera lens.

Common shot sizes:

• Extreme close-up: Focuses on a single facial feature, such as lips and eyes. • Close-up: May be used to show tension. • : Often used, but considered bad practice by many directors, as it often denies setting establishment and is generally less effective than the Close-up. • Long shot • : Mainly used at a new location to give the audience a sense of locality.

Choice of shot size is also directly related to the size of the final display screen the audience will see. A Long shot has much more dramatic power on a large theater screen, whereas the same shot would be powerless on a small TV or computer screen.

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3. Mise en scène

Mise en scène" refers to what is colloquially known as "the Set," but is applied more generally to refer to everything that is presented before the camera. With various techniques, film makers can use the mise en scène to produce intended effects.

4. Camera view, angle, movement, shot

A.

Dutch , Dutch angle, oblique angle, German angle, canted angle, or Batman Angle are terms used for a cinematic tactic often used to portray the psychological uneasiness or tension in the subject being filmed. A Dutch angle is achieved by tilting the camera off to the side so that the shot is composed with the horizon at an angle to the bottom of the frame. Many Dutch angles are static shots at an obscure angle, but in a moving Dutch angle shot the camera can pivot, pan or track along the director/'s established diagonal axis for the shot.

Examples of usage in movies

Dziga Vertov's 1929 experimental documentary is known to contain one of the first usages of the Dutch angle, among other innovative techniques discovered by Vertov himself.

The angle was widely used to depict madness, unrest, exoticness, and disorientation in German Expressionism, hence its name (Deutsch, meaning German, was often conflated with the

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etymologically identical word Dutch; compare Pennsylvania Dutch). Montages of Dutch angles are structured in a way that the tilts are almost always horizontally opposite in each shot, for example, a right tilted shot will nearly always be followed with a left tilted shot, and so on.

The 1949 film makes extensive use of Dutch angle shots, to emphasize the main character's alienation in a foreign environment. An anecdote of cinema lore alleges that once filming was completed, the crew presented director Carol Reed with a spirit level, to sardonically encourage him to use more traditional shooting angles.

Dutch angles were used extensively in the original TV series and 1966 film of Batman, where each villain had his or her own angle. Scenes filmed in any villain's hideout, when only the chief villain and his or her henchmen were present, were invariably shot at an angle departing extremely from the horizontal. This was to show that the villains were crooked.

Dutch angles are frequently used by film directors who have a background in the visual arts, such as Tim Burton (in , and Ed Wood), and (in Brazil, , Twelve Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Tideland) to represent madness, disorientation, and/or drug psychosis. In trilogy, Sam Raimi used Dutch angles to show that a character had become possessed.

The Dutch angle is an overt cinematographical technique that can easily be overused. The science-fiction film Battlefield Earth (2000), in particular, drew sharp criticism for its pervasive use of the Dutch angle. In the words of film critic Roger Ebert, "the director, Roger Christian, has learned from better that directors sometimes tilt their , but he has not learned why."

James Cameron 'Dutched' the camera during the final stages of the sinking in his film Titanic, but here the intent was not to produce a sense of unease, but rather to exaggerate the slant of the deck, which -- because of its length, and the need for sections of it to submerge -- could only be tilted by an angle of about 6 degrees.

The Cable Guy (1996) uses the Dutch Angle to foreshadow the disturbed personality of Chip Douglas (Jim Carrey).

Fay Grim (2006), was shot almost entirely in Dutch angles.

B. Establishing shot

An establishing shot in film and television sets up, or establishes the context for a scene by showing the relationship between its important figures and objects. It is generally a long- or extreme-lon g shot at the beginning of a scene indicating where, and sometimes when, the remainder of the scene takes place.

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Establishing shots may use famous landmarks to indicate the city where the action is taking place or has moved to, such as Big Ben to identify London, the Statue of Liberty to identify New York, the Sydney Opera House to identify Sydney, the Eiffel Tower to identify Paris or the Las Vegas Strip to identify Las Vegas

Sometimes the viewer is guided in his understanding of the action. For example, an exterior shot of a building at night followed by an interior shot of people talking implies that the conversation is taking place at night inside that building - the conversation may in fact have been filmed on a studio set far from the apparent location, because of budget, permits or time limitations.

Alternatively, an establishing shot might just be a long shot of a room that shows all the characters from a particular scene. For example, a scene about a murder in a college lecture hall might begin with a shot that shows the entire room, including the lecturing professor and the students taking notes. A close-up shot can also be used at the beginning of a scene to establish the setting (such as, for the lecture hall scene, a shot of a pencil writing notes).

Establishing shots were more common during the classical era of than they are now. Today's filmmakers tend to skip the establishing shot in order to move the scene along more quickly. In addition, scenes in mysteries and the like often wish to obscure the setting and its participants and thus avoid clarifying them with an establishing shot.

An establishing shot may also establish a concept, rather than a location. For example, opening with a martial arts drill visually establishes the theme of martial arts. A shot of rain falling could be an establishing shot, followed by more and more detailed look at the rain, culminating with individual raindrops falling. A film maker is colluding with his audience to provide a short hand learned through a common cinematic cultural background.

An establishing shot should be two or three seconds - long enough for viewers to appreciate the scene.

C.

Follow shot or is a specific camera shot in which the subject being filmed is seemingly pursued by the camera. The follow shot can be achieved through tracking devices, , the use of a crane, and zoomlenses resulting in different qualitative images but, nevertheless, recording a subject (performer) in motion.

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D. Forced

Unintentional effect in this U.S. Navy photograph. The CH‐47 Chinook helicopter at left is more than eighteen feet tall and almost one hundred feet long.

The Potemkin Stairs in Odessa extend for 142 meters, but give the illusion of greater depth since the stairs are wider at the bottom than at the top

Forced perspective is a technique that employs to make an object appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is. It is used primarily in , filmmaking and architecture. It manipulates human through the use of scaled objects and the correlation between them and the vantage point of the spectator or camera.

Forced perspective in filmmaking

Examples of forced perspective:

• A scene in an action/adventure movie in which dinosaurs are threatening the heroes. By placing a miniature model of a dinosaur close to the camera, the dinosaur may look monstrously tall to the viewer, even though it is just closer to the camera.

• A scene in which two characters are supposed to be interacting in the foreground of a vast cathedral. Instead of actually filming in a cathedral, the director mounts a large painting of a cathedral's interior in a studio and films the actors talking in front of the painting. This gives the effect on film that the characters are in the foreground of a large room, when in reality they are standing next to a flat surface.

Movies (especially B-movies) in the 1950s and 1960s produced on limited budgets sometimes feature forced perspective shots which are completed without the proper knowledge of the

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physics of light used in , so foreground models can appear blurred or incorrectly exposed.

Forced perspective can be made more believable when environmental conditions obscure the difference in perspective. For example, the final scene of the famous movie Casablanca takes place at an airport in the middle of a storm, although the entire scene was shot in a studio. This was accomplished by using a painted backdrop of an aircraft, which was "serviced" by dwarfs standing next to the backdrop. A downpour (created in-studio) draws much of the viewer's attention away from the backdrop and extras, making the simulated perspective less noticeable.

Role of light

Early instances of forced perspective used in low-budget motion pictures showed objects that were clearly different from their surroundings: often blurred or at a different light level. The principal cause of this was geometric. Light from a point source travels in a spherical wave, decreasing in intensity (or illuminance) as the inverse square of the distance travelled. This means that a light source must be four times as bright to produce the same illuminance at an object twice as far away. Thus to create the illusion of a distant object being at the same distance as a near object and scaled accordingly, much more light is required.

Opening the camera's iris lets more light into the camera, allowing both near and far objects to be seen at a more similar light level, but this has the secondary effect of decreasing . This makes either the near or the far objects appear blurry. By increasing the volume of light hitting the distant objects, the iris opening can be restricted and depth of field is increased, thus portraying both near and far objects as in focus, and if well scaled, existing in a similar lateral plane.

Since miniature models would need to be subjected to far greater lighting than the main focus of the camera, the area of action, it is important to ensure that these can withstand the significant amount of heat generated by the incandescent light sources typically used in film and TV production, as they may be prone to combustion.

Nodal point: forced perspective in motion

Peter Jackson's film adaptations of employ an almost constant forced perspective. Characters apparently standing next to each other would be displaced by several feet in depth from the camera. This, in a still shot, makes some characters appear unnaturally small (for the dwarves and Hobbits) in relation to others.

A new technique developed for The Fellowship of the Ring was an enhancement of this principle which could be used in moving shots. Portions of sets were mounted on movable platforms which would move precisely according to the movement of the camera, so that the optical illusion would be preserved at all times for the duration of the shot. The same techniques were used in the Harry Potter movies to make the character Hagrid look like a giant. Props around Harry and his friends are of normal size, while seemingly identical props placed around Hagrid are in fact smaller.

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The techniques developed centred around a nodal point axis, so the camera's panning axis was at the point between the lens and aperture ring where the light travelling through the camera met its axis. By comparison, the normal panning axis would be at the point at which light would strike the film (or CCD in a TV camera).

Peter Jackson enhanced this known effect by adding moving jigs to extend the pan to be effective outside the camera during motion, which is not possible to show in a still photograph.

The position of this nodal point can be different for every lens. However, on wide angle lenses it is often found between the midpoint of the lens and the aperture ring.

Digital effects

Another method is to film the actions of the "smaller" character on a set with normal-sized props, film the matching actions of the "large" character on an identical but smaller set, then combine the digitally. This is the most straightforward modern technique, and is most likely to be used with bluescreen filming in TV production due to its lower cost and quality requirements.

"Comedic" effects

Forced perspective of giant beer can model shown "perched" on top of a person's hand.

As with many film genre and effects, forced perspective can be used to visual-comedy effect. Typically, an object or character is portrayed in a scene, its size defined by its surroundings. A character then interacts with the object or character, in the process showing that the viewer has been fooled and there is forced perspective in use.

The 1930 Laurel and Hardy movie Brats used forced perspective to depict Stan and Ollie simultaneously as adults and as their own sons.

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An example used for comic effect can be found in the slapstick comedy Top Secret! in a scene which appears to begin as a close up of a ringing phone with the characters in the distance. However when the character walks up to the phone (towards the camera) and picks it up it becomes apparent that the phone is extremely oversized instead of close to the perspective of the camera. Another scene in the same movie begins with a closeup of a wristwatch. The next shows that the character actually has a gargantuan wristwatch.

The same technique is also used in the Dennis Waterman sketch in the British BBC sketch show Little Britain. In the television version, oversized props are used to make the caricatured Waterman look just three feet tall (or even smaller in some cases, such as in an episode in series two in which he is in a set design that is a shoebox and his size corresponds to those of the objects). In real life, Waterman is of average height, at 5'9".[1]

Use of forced perspective with the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

In the Channel 4 comedy Father Ted, the idea of forced perspective causes confusion. Father Ted attempts to explain to Father Dougal that the small plastic cows he is holding look larger than the real cows Dougal can see in the field because the real cows are 'far away'. Father Ted is unsuccessful as Father Dougal is unable to understand the concept of perspective.

In The History of the World, Part I, while escaping the French peasants, Mel Brooks' character, Jacques, who is doubling for King Louis, runs down a hall of the palace, which turns into a ramp, showing the smaller forced perspective door at the end. As he backs down into the normal part of the room, he mutters, "Who designed this place?"

Perhaps one of the most famous usages of forced perspective involves the Leaning Tower of Pisa where a person stands in the foreground with the tower in the background and appears to be holding it up.

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One of the recurring Kids in the Hall sketches featured Mr. Tyzik, "The Headcrusher", who used forced perspective (from his own point of view) to "crush" other people's heads between his fingers.

In the making of Season 5 of Red versus Blue, the creators used forced perspective to make the character of Tucker's baby look small. In fact in the game, the alien character used as the baby is the same height as other characters.

A FoxTrot Sunday comic strip showed Jason building an adult sized snow sculpture that when seen from the front looks like a giant snowman getting ready to stomp his foot. Jason remarks that forced perspective is "an underrated art form".

Forced perspective in architecture

Forced perspective in the Roman Emperor's Aula Palatina: The windows and the coffer in the apse are smaller, and the apsis has a raised floor.

On the outside, the true size of the apsis windows is apparent.

In architecture, a structure can be made to seem larger, taller, farther away or otherwise by adjusting the scale of objects in relation to the spectator, increasing or decreasing perceived depth.

For example, when forced perspective is used to make an object appear farther away, the following method can be used: By constantly decreasing the scale of objects from expectancy and convention toward the farthest point from the spectator, an illusion is created that the scale of said objects is decreasing due to their distant location. In contrast, the opposite technique was sometimes used in classical garden designs and other "follies" to shorten the perceived distances of points of interest along a path.

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The Statue of Liberty is built with a slight forced perspective so that it appears more correctly proportioned when viewed from its base. When the statue was designed in the late 19th century (before easy air flight), there were few other angles from which to view the statue. This caused a difficulty for special effects technicians working on the movie Ghostbusters II, who had to back off on the amount of forced perspective used when replicating the statue for the movie so that their model (which was photographed head-on) would not look top-heavy. This effect can also be seen in Michelangelo's statue of David.

Forced perspective is extensively employed at theme parks and other such (postmodern) architecture as found in and Las Vegas, often to make structures seem larger than they are in reality where physically larger structures would not be feasible or desirable or to provide an optical illusion for entertainment value.

D. Freeze frame shot

A freeze frame shot is used when one shot is printed in a single frame several times, in order to make an interesting illusion of a still photograph.

"Freeze frame" is also a drama medium term used in which, during a live performance, the actors/actresses will freeze at a particular, pre-meditated time, to enhance a particular scene, or to show an important moment in the play/production[like a celebration]. The image can then be further enhanced by spoken word, in which each character tells their personal thoughts regarding the situation, giving the audience further insight into the meaning, plot or hidden story of the play/production/scene. This is known as thought tracking, another Drama Medium.

A very memorable freeze frame is the end of François Truffaut's The 400 Blows, a New Wave film from 1959. Director George Roy Hill frequently made use of the technique when depicting the death of a character, as in The World According to Garp (1982) and in the memorable ending to the classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), with Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Hong Kong director John Woo also makes extensive use of freeze frames shots, usually to gain a better focus on to a character's facial expression or emotion at a critical scene. An early use of the freeze frame in classic Hollywood cinema was Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life where the first appearance of the adult George Bailey (played by James Stewart) on-screen is shown as a freeze frame. This technique is used quite a lot in the film Pieces of April. The director uses this to capture special moments that are very significant. Tim Davis' infamous 'wink' at the conclusion of Cocoon: The Return is widely regarded as an unsuccessful use of this technique; Roger Ebert, in his review of the film, remarked of its conclusion, "who is this guy and why is he winking after apparently killing the protagonists?!" A recent use of this techniques is in the opening titles of the movie X- Men Origins: Wolverine.

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E. High-angle shot

In film, a high angle shot is usually when the camera is located above the eyeline.

With this type of angle, the camera looks down on the subject and the point of focus often get "swallowed up" by the setting.

High angle shots also make the figure or object seem vulnerable or powerless.

High angle shots are usually used in film to make the moment more dramatic or if there is someone at a high level that the character below is talking to.

F. Long shot

In photography, film and video, a long shot (sometimes referred to as a full shot or a ) typically shows the entire object or human figure and is usually intended to place it in some relation to its surroundings. It has been suggested that long-shot ranges usually correspond to approximately what would be the distance between the front row of the audience and the stage in live theatre. It is now common to refer to a long shot as a "wide shot" because it often requires the use of a wide-angle lens. When a long shot is used to set up a location and its participants in film and video, it is called an establishing shot.

A related notion is that of an extreme long shot. This can be taken from as much as a quarter of a mile away, and is generally used as a scene-setting, establishing shot. It normally shows an exterior, eg the outside of a building, or a landscape, and is often used to show scenes of thrilling action eg in a war film or disaster movie. There will be very little detail visible in the shot, as it is meant to give a general impression rather than specific information.

G.

A long take is an uninterrupted shot in a film which lasts much longer than the conventional editing pace either of the film itself or of films in general, usually lasting several minutes. It can

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be used for dramatic and effect if done properly, and in moving shots is often accomplished through the use of a dolly or . Long takes of a sequence filmed in one shot without any editing are rare in films.

The term "long take" is used because it avoids the ambiguous meanings of "long shot", which can refer to the framing of a shot, and "long cut", which can refer to either a whole version of a film or the general editing pacing of the film. However, these two terms are sometimes used interchangeably with "long take".

When filming Rope (1948), intended for the film to have the effect of one long continuous take, but the cameras available could hold no more than 1000 feet of 35 mm film. As a result, each take used up to a whole roll of film and lasts up to 10 minutes. Many takes end with a dolly shot to a featureless surface (such as the back of a character's jacket), with the following take beginning at the same point by out. The entire film consists of only 11 shots. (For a complete analysis of Hitchcock's hidden and conventional cuts in Rope, see David Bordwell's text "Poetics of Cinema" 2008.)

The length of a take was originally limited to how much film a camera could hold, but the advent of digital video has considerably lengthened the maximum length of a take. At least two theatrically-released feature films, Russian Ark and PVC-1 are filmed in one single take; others are composed entirely from a series of long takes, while many more may be well-known for one or two specific long takes within otherwise more conventionally edited films.

Sequence shot

A sequence shot involves both a long take and sophisticated camera movement; it is sometimes called by the French term plan-séquence. The use of the sequence shot allows for realistic and dramatically significant background and middle ground activity. Actors range about the set transacting their business while the camera shifts focus from one plane of depth to another and back again. Significant off-frame action is often followed with a moving camera, characteristically through a series of pans within a single continuous shot. An example of this is the first scene in the jury room of 12 Angry Men, where the jurors are getting settled into the room.

Average shot length

Films can be quantitatively analyzed using the "ASL" (average shot length), a statistical measurement which divides the total length of the film by the number of shots. For example, Bela Tarr's film Werckmeister Harmonies is 149 minutes long, and made up of 39 shots. Thus its ASL is 223.7 seconds.

The ASL is a relatively recent metric, devised by film scholar Barry Salt in the 1970s as a method of statistically analyzing the editorial patterns both within films and across groupings of them. Noted practitioners of ASL studies include David Bordwell and Yuri Tsivian. Tsivian used the ASL as a tool for analysis of D. W. Griffith's Intolerance (ASL 5.9 seconds) in a 2005

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article.Tsivian helped launch a website called Cinemetrics, where visitors can measure, record, and read ASL statistics.

H. Low-angle shot

In cinematography, a low-angle shot, is a shot from a camera positioned low on the vertical axis, anywhere below the eyeline, looking up

G.

A master shot is a film recording of an entire dramatized scene, from start to finish, from an angle that keeps all the players in view. It is often a long shotand can sometimes perform a double function as an establishing shot. Usually, the master shot is the first shot checked off during the shooting of a scene—it is the foundation of what is called , other shotsthat different aspects of the action, groupings of two or three of the actors at crucial moments, close-ups of individuals, shots of various props, and so on.

Historically, the master shot was arguably the most important shot of any given scene. All shots in a given scene were somehow related to what was happening in the master shot. This is one reason why some of the films from the 1930s and 1940s are considered "stagey" by today's standards. By the 1960s and 1970s, the style of film shooting and editing shifted to include radical angles that conveyed more subjectivity and intimacy within the scenes[1] Today, the master shot is still an extremely important element of film production, but scenes are not built around the master shot in the same way that they were when professional filmmaking was in its infancy.

H. Matte

Mattes are used in photography and special effects filmmaking to combine two or more image elements into a single, final image. Usually, mattes are used to combine a foreground image (such as actors on a set, or a spaceship) with a background image (a scenic vista, a field of stars and planets). In this case, the matte is the background painting. In film and stage, mattes can be physically huge sections of painted canvas, portraying large scenic expanses of landscapes.

In film, the principle of a matte requires masking certain areas of the film emulsion to selectively control which areas are exposed. However, many complex special-effects scenes have included dozens of discrete image elements, requiring very complex use of mattes, and layering mattes on top of one another.

For an example of a simple matte, we may wish to depict a group of actors in front of a store, with a massive city and sky visible above the store's roof. We would have two images—the actors on the set, and the image of the city—to combine onto a third. This would require two masks/mattes. One would mask everything above the store's roof, and the other would mask everything below it. By using these masks/mattes when copying these images onto the third, we

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can combine the images without creating ghostly double-exposures. In film, this is an example of a static matte, where the shape of the mask does not change from frame to frame.

Other shots may require mattes that change, to mask the shapes of moving objects, such as human beings or spaceships. These are known as traveling mattes. Traveling mattes enable greater freedom of composition and movement, but they are also more difficult to accomplish. Bluescreen techniques, originally invented by Petro Vlahos, are probably the best-known techniques for creating traveling mattes, although rotoscoping and multiple motion control passes have also been used in the past.

Mattes are a very old technique, going back to the Lumière brothers. A good early American example is seen in The Great Train Robbery (1903) where it is used to place a train outside a window in a ticket office, and later a moving background outside a baggage car on a train 'set'.

I. Medium shot

In film, a medium shot is a camera shot from a medium distance. The dividing line between "long shot" and "medium shot" is fuzzy, as is the line between "medium shot" and "close-up". In some standard texts and professional references, a full-length view of a human subject is called a medium shot; in this terminology, a shot of the person from the knees up or the waist up is a close-up shot. In other texts, these partial views are called medium shots. (For example, in Europe a medium shot is framed from the waist up). It is mainly used for a scene when you can see what kind of expressions they are using.

There is no evident reason for this variation. It is not a distinction caused by, for example, a difference between TV and film language or 1930s and 1980s language.

Medium shots are relatively good in showing facial expressions but work well to show body language.

Depending where the characters are placed in the shot, a medium shot is used to represent importance and power.

J.

In film or video, an over the shoulder shot (also over shoulder, OS, OTS, or third-person shot) is a shot of someone or something taken over the shoulder of another person. The back of the shoulder and head of this person is used to frame the image of whatever (or whomever) the camera is pointing toward. This type of shot is very common when two characters are having a discussion and will usually follow an establishing shot which helps the audience place the characters in their setting. It is an example of a .

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K. Pan shot

L. Point of view shot

A point of view shot (also known as POV shot or a subjective camera) is a short film scene that shows what a character (the subject) is looking at (represented through the camera). It is usually established by being positioned between a shot of a character looking at something, and a shot showing the character's reaction (see shot reverse shot). The technique of POV is one of the foundations of .

A POV shot need not be the strict point-of-view of an actual single character in a film. Sometimes the point-of-view shot is taken over the shoulder of the character (third person), who remains visible on the screen. Sometimes a POV shot is "shared" ("dual" or "triple"), i.e. it represents the joint POV of two (or more) characters. There is also the "nobody POV", where a shot is taken from the POV of a non-existent character. This often occurs when an actual POV shot is implied, but the character is removed. Sometimes the character is never present at all, despite a clear POV shot, such as the famous "God-POV" of birds descending from the sky in Alfred Hitchcock's film, The Birds. Another example of a POV shot is in the movie Doom, which contains a fairly long POV shot which resembles a head-up display in a first-person shooter video game, with the viewer watching through a character who is venturing through hallways shooting and killing aliens.

A POV shot need not be established by strictly visual means. The manipulation of diegetic sounds can be used to emphasize a particular character's POV.

It makes little sense to say that a shot is "inherently" POV; it is the editing of the POV shot within a sequence of shots that determines POV. Nor can the establishment of a POV shot be isolated from other elements of filmmaking — mise en scene, acting, camera placement, editing, and special effects can all contribute to the establishment of POV.

With some POV shots when an animal is the chosen character, the shot will look distorted or black and white.

Leading actor POV

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Subjective viewpoint is what it is called when the leading actor is the subject of the POV. The audience sees events through the leading actor's eyes, as if they were experiencing the events themselves. Some films are partially or totally shot using this technique. In fact, there is an entire genre of pornography dedicated to videos seen through POV.

One of the first films to use this technique was Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Everything is seen through Jekyll's eyes, as he leaves his house to go to the medical lecture. Then, as he begins to speak, Jekyll is seen for the first time. When Jekyll first transforms himself into Hyde, Mamoulian once again uses the subjective camera to record his agonized reaction to his own drugged drink.

Film, directed by Alan Schneider written by Samuel Beckett and starring Buster Keaton also uses POV extensively, switching between the main character's point of view and the view of the camera as a way to illustrate Berkeley's quote "to be is to be perceived and to perceive". Interestingly, Film is also said to refer to the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

In the Dark Passage, the protagonist has plastic surgery, and when his bandages are removed, he is revealed to be Humphrey Bogart. But until that moment, everything is seen through his eyes and the viewer has no idea what he looks like.

In another film noir, Lady in the Lake, directed by and starring Robert Montgomery as Raymond Chandler's detective Philip Marlowe, the entire film is shot from a subjective viewpoint, and Montgomery's face is seen only when he looks in a mirror. The film was not a critical or popular success.

The Plainclothesman, a moderately popular crime series aired on the DuMont Television Network from 1949 to 1954, used the technique. According to David Weinstein's book The Forgotten Network, the show was even used in police training in some cities.

The British sitcom Peep Show is shown mostly through the viewpoints of the characters and even lets you hear the two lead character's thoughts in the scenes.

In Gaspar Noé's 2010 film Enter the Void the beginning of the movie is shot in first-person.

M. Rack focus

Racking focus is the practice of shifting the attention of a viewer of a film or video by changing the focus of the lens from a subject in the foreground to a subject in the background, or vice versa. It dated back to the time when cameras did not have reflex lenses so the operator would have to "rack focus" the camera by looking through the viewfinder, then sliding the camera over so that the shot would be in focus. American director Richard Rush claims that he and cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs invented the technique, first used in the 1968 motorcycle film The Savage Seven. Rush owns the patent on a lens used in the technique.

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N.

O. Sequence shot

P. Shot

In film, a shot is a continuous strip of motion picture film, created of a series of frames, that runs for an uninterrupted period of time. Shots are generally filmed with a single camera and can be of any duration. A shot in production, defined by the beginning and end of a capturing process, is equivalent to a clip in editing, defined as the continuous footage between two edits. Frames, shots, clips, scenes, and sequences form a hierarchy of units fundamental to many tasks in the creation of moving-image works.

The etymology of the term "shot" derives from the early days of film production when camera were hand-cranked. Hand-cranked cameras operated similarly to the hand-cranked machine guns of that era. Therefore, one "shot" film the way one would "shoot" bullets from a machine gun.[1]

Categories of shots

By field size

How focal length affects perspective: 18mm (ultra wide-angle), 34mm (wide-angle), and 55mm (normal lens) at identical field size achieved by different camera-subject distances. Notice that the shorter the focal length and the wider the , perspective distortion and size differences change.

The term shot is often incorrectly applied to the field size of an image which at times is also incorrectly referred to as framing. The field size defines how much of the subject and its surrounding area is visible within the camera's field of view, and is determined by two factors: Camera-to-subject distance and focal length of a lens. Note that the shorter a lens's focal length, the wider its angle of view (the 'angle' in wide-angle lens, for instance, which is "how much you see"), so the same idea can also be

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expressed as that the lens's angle of view plus camera-subject distance is the camera's field of view.

(Caution: In this context, the focal length value differs with each film gauge and CCD size for optical reasons, but the angle of view is the same for any of them, so it's easier comparing the angle of view with lenses for different formats than their focal lengths. Same angle of view does always give the same field size at the same camera-subject distance no matter what format you're using, same focal length does not. For in-depth informations behind the laws of optics regarding the influence that focal length and different formats have on field sizes, see 35 mm equivalent focal length, crop factor, image sensor format, and Digital photography: Sensor size and angle of view.)

An identical field size can be achieved at varied camera-subject distances by using a lens with a different focal length, and at varied focal lengths by choosing a different camera-subject distance. Field size differs from framing in that within professional environments where prime lenses are dominant, the latter applies only to camera placement (including camera angle), not focal length.

However, maintaining an identical field size at varying camera-subject distances and focal lengths must be handled with caution as it applies different amounts of perspective distortion to the image: Wide-angle lenses expand a perspective, while telephoto lenses compress a perspective (the famous , taken with a variable focal length lense, is a vivid, intuitive demonstration of this effect). Thus, it's more common in photography and cinematography to determine an image's field size by only changing one out of the two factors.

An extreme long shot An Italian shot A lon shot A full shot

A medium shot A close-up

The field size (along with the specific amount of perspective distortion) greatly affects the narrative power of a shot. There are a number of standardized field sizes, the names of which are commonly derived from varying camera-subject distances while not changing the lens. The four basic kinds of field sizes (see gallery above) are:

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• the long shot (often used as an establishing shot), • the full shot (also figure shot, complete view, or medium long shot), • the medium shot, • the close-up.

Three r arer used field sizes (see bar on the right) are:

• the extreme long shot (used for epic views and panoramas), • the (also 3/4 shot), a slight variation of the medium shot to also include OWB handgun holsters in Western movies, a characterization from French film criticism for a type of shot in certain American films of the 1930s and 1940s, • the "Italian shot" or Extreme Close Up (ECU or XCU), where only a person's eyes are visible, named after the genre of Italo-Westerns, particularly the Dollars Trilogy by Sergio Leone, that established this particular field size.

There are other variants, such as the medium close up (between medium and close up), and terms for mo v ing in (such as "lean-in") and moving out (such as "lean-out").

By camera placement

"Shots" referring to camera placement and angle rather than field size include:

• Camera angles: o the aerial shot, o the bird's eye shot (sometimes performed as a ), o the low-angle shot,

the over the shoulder shot,

the point of view shot,

the reverse shot is defined as a 180-degree camera turn to the preceding image, common in point of view and over the shoulder (in the latter, care must be applied to avoid a continuity error by violating the 180 degree rule),

the where two people are in the picture.

By other criteria

the establishing shot is defined by giving an establishing "broad overview" over a scene, whether performed by a wide shot with a fixed camera, a zoom, a series of different close-ups achieved by camera motion, or a sequence of independent close-angle shots edited right after each other,

the master shot is a scene done in one single take, with no editing,

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the freeze frame shot is created in editing by displaying a single frame for an elongated duration of time,

the insert shot is created in editing by replacing a picture with another while the audio stays the same (common in interviews to illustrate topics mentioned).

Film editing

Cutting between shots taken at different times is known as film editing, and is one of the central arts of filmmaking.

Duration

The length of shots is an important consideration that can greatly affect a film. The purpose of editing any given scene is to create a representation of the way the scene might be perceived by the "story teller." Shots with a longer duration can make a scene seem more relaxed and slower paced whereas shots with a shorter duration can make a scene seem urgent and faster paced.

The average shot length (ASL) of a film is one of its cinemetrical measures. For example, The Mist has a length of 117 minutes and consists of 1292 shots, so the ASL is 5.4 seconds, while Russian Ark is a single 96-minute long take, so an ASL of 96 minutes or about 5,760 seconds, a factor of 1,000 difference.

Shots with extremely long durations are difficult to do because any error in the shot would force the filmmaker to restart from scratch. They are thus only occasionally used. Films famous for their long cuts include Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather in which the entire first scene is a long take featuring Bonasera describing the assault of his daughter, and Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, which only cuts at the end of each reel, and does so surreptitiously so that it seems as if the whole film is one take. Orson Welles's Touch of Evil opens with a long tracking crane shot. A film that was actually a single take is the recent Russian Ark. Another prominent examples known for its extremely long takes are Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the works of Andrei Tarkovsky starting with Solaris. Joss Whedon's feature film Serenity introduces the main characters with a long take.

Q. Shot reverse shot

Shot reverse shot (or shot/countershot) is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.

Context

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Shot reverse shot is a feature of the "classical" Hollywood style of , which deemphasizes transitions between shots such that the audience perceives one continuous action that develops linearly, chronologically, and logically. It is an example of an .

R. SnorriCam

A SnorriCam (also chestcam, bodymount camera, bodycam or bodymount) is a camera device used in filmmaking that is rigged to the body of the actor, facing the actor directly, so when he walks, he does not appear to move, but everything around him does. A SnorriCam presents a dynamic point of view from the actor's perspective, providing an unusual sense of vertigo for the viewer.

History

The SnorriCam is named after two Icelandic photographers and directors, Einar Snorri and Eiður Snorri, who–although they are not related–worked together under the name Snorri Bros.

The concept of the SnorriCam has been around for decades. Various ad hoc versions of the device were implemented in films going as far back as Seconds, in 1966. However, the practicality of such a point-of-view device was limited by the weight of the camera. Since most 35mm motion picture cameras were simply too heavy to easily carry, there was no real point in developing such a device. However, with the emergence of the Steadicam and the manufacture of small, lightweight, soundproof cameras that could fit on the Steadicam platform, an added bonus of these newer, lighter cameras was the possibility of a point-of-view device such as the SnorriCam.

Uses in television

The "Sir Digby Chicken-Caesar" sketches in That Mitchell and Webb Look use a SnorriCam extensively. In Torchwood, the episode "Dead Man Walking" (Season 2 Episode 7) also has a sequence where the character Owen Harper is seen moving through a nightclub in a SnorriCam sequence with a slight speed up. The first episode of the second series of Skins features a SnorriCam being used in a party scene. The show Scrubs uses SnorriCam shots in a few episodes to show nervousness. In the Discovery Channel show Survivorman, Les Stroud will often employ this technique when walking, due to the limitations of not having a . The technique has also been used in episodes of the hit television series Lost. Season 1 of Dexter also features a SnorriCam shot at the start of episode 11 used on the main character, Dexter Morgan.

Uses in music videos

One of the first uses of a SnorriCam in music videos was in The Smashing Pumpkins video "1979" directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris in 1995. Other notable uses of the SnorriCam are in Spike Jonze's 1998 "Home" video for Sean Lennon, the Marcos Siega-directed System of a Down video for "Chop Suey!" (2001), Mick Jagger's "God Gave Me Everything"

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(2001) video by Mark Romanek, Siobhán Donaghy's "Overrated" (2003) video by Big TV!, Samuel Bayer's Green Day "Jesus of Suburbia" (2005) video, David Mould's video for Placebo's "Meds" (2006) and James Blunt's "Same Mistake" (2007) directed by Jonas Åkerlund. Adam Buxton/Garth Jennings's video to Radiohead's "Jigsaw Falling into Place" (2008) uses head cams in order to achieve the same effect that the SnorriCam provides.

S. Tilt (camera)

Tilting is a cinematographic technique in which the camera is stationary and rotates in a vertical plane (or tilting plane). A rotation in a horizontal plane is known as panning. Tilting the camera results in a motion similar to someone nodding their head "yes" or to an aircraft performing a rotation.

T. Tracking shot

In motion picture terminology, a tracking shot (also known as a dolly shot or trucking shot) is a segment in which the camera is mounted on a , a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails while the picture is being taken. One may dolly in on a stationary subject for emphasis, or dolly out, or dolly beside a moving subject (an action known as "dollying with").

The Italian feature film Cabiria (1914), directed by Giovanni Pastrone, was the first popular film to use dolly shots, which in fact were originally called "Cabiria movements" by contemporary filmmakers influenced by the film; however, some smaller American and English films prior to 1914 had used the technique prior to Cabiria.

The tracking shot can include smooth movements forward, backward, along the side of the subject, or on a curve. Dollies with hydraulic arms can also smoothly "boom" or "" the camera

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several feet on a vertical axis. Tracking shots, however, cannot include complex pivoting movements, aerial shots or crane shots.

Tracking shots are often confused with the long take -- such as the 10-minute takes in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) -- or sequence shots.

U.

The Trunk shot is a camera angle used in cinema when one or more characters need to retrieve something or someone from the trunk of a car. Though the trunk shot can be produced with great difficulty by placing the camera inside the trunk of a car and filming the action outside the trunk of the car, it usually is "cheated" by the art department by placing a trunk door and some of the trunk frame close enough to the camera to make it appear to be shot from within the trunk. This allows the considerable bulk of a movie camera and to have a free range of movement without risk of damage to the camera or operator, makes the shot logistically easier, and allows the normal crew and equipment used in filmmaking to be utilized.

This camera angle is often noted to be the trademark of film maker who disputes that he puts the shot in his films as a trademark and simply asks "Where would you put the camera?" Although he did not invent it, Tarantino popularized the trunk shot, which is featured in , , , and Kill Bill. In , Tarantino's traditional shot looking up at the actors from the trunk of a car is replaced by one looking up from under the hood. In a "trunk shot" is used two times when Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) crouches over a captured Nazi with one of his soldiers, cutting a swastika into their victim's forehead (the shot is supposed to be the victim's point of view).

Possibly the earliest trunk shot can be noted in the 1948 movie by Anthony Mann (though credited to Alfred L. Werker), He Walked by Night when the police are inspecting the contents of a murder suspect's trunk. Another use of the shot is in 1967 film In Cold Blood (directed by Richard Brooks) after the two outlaws cross the borders to Mexico by a stolen car. The technique also has been used in the film Goodfellas in 1990 where the characters of Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci are opening the trunk of their car, ready to kill the man within, as well as in the CW's Supernatural (TV series), where trunk shots can be seen looking up at the protagonists, Dean Winchester and Sam Winchester, in both the pilot episode, and the second season's finale. In the music video for Colombian pop-singer Shakira's single "Objection (Tango)," Shakira is

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shown from a trunk shot, smiling sadistically at her ex-boyfriend and his mistress, who are bound and gagged in the trunk of her car, which she then slams shut.

Beyond movies

The trunk shot also reached the video game world and was used in the 2003 game GTA: Vice City in a scene resembling the trunk shot scene of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. In it, Tommy Vercetti and Lance Vance pull weaponry from a car's trunk before storming in on Ricardo Díaz's mansion.

V. Two Shot

A Two shot is a type of shot employed in the in which the frame encompasses a view of two people (the subjects). The subjects do not have to be next to each other, and there are many common two-shots which have one subject in the foreground and the other subject in the background.

The shots are also used to show the emotional reactions between the subjects. For instance, in the movie Stand By Me, this shot is used multiple times to show these emotions.

An 'American two shot' shows the two heads facing each other in profile to the camera.

Similarly, a three shot has three people in the composition of the frame. In these shots the characters are given more importance; this type of image can also be seen in print advertising.

Four shot scenes are relatively uncommon, but when seen regularly comprise four persons within frame.

Five shot scenes, whilst more common, rarely have 5 people in them and typically have either 6 or 3.5 (the 0.5 allowing for a balance of dramatic irony and mise-en-scene).

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W. Video frame

A film frame, or just frame, is one of the many single photographic images in a motion picture. The individual frames are separated by frame lines. Normally, 24 frames are needed for one second of film. In ordinary filming, the frames are photographed automatically, one after the other, in a movie camera. In special effects or animation filming, the frames are often shot one at a time.

The term may also be used more generally as a noun or verb to refer to the edges of the image as seen in a camera viewfinder or projected on a screen. Thus, the camera operator can be said to keep a car in frame by panning with it as it speeds past.

The size of a film frame varies, depending on the still film format or the motion picture film format. In the smallest 8 mm amateur format for motion pictures film, it is only about 4.8 by 3.5 mm, while an IMAX frame is as large as 69.6 by 48.5 mm. The larger the frame size is in relation to the size of the projection screen, the sharper the image will appear.

The size of the film frame of motion picture film also depends on the location of the holes, the size of the holes, the shape of the holes. and the location and type of sound stripe.

The most common film format, 35 mm, has a frame size of 22 by 16 mm when used in a still 35 mm camera where the film moves horizontal but the frame size varies when used for motion picture where the film moves vertically (with the exception of VistaVision where the film moves horizontally).

In film, , animation, and related fields, a frame is one of the many still images which compose the complete moving picture. Historically, these were recorded on a long strip of photographic film, and each image looked rather like a framed picture when examined individually, hence the name.

When the moving picture is displayed, each frame is flashed on a screen for a short time (nowadays, usually 1/24th, 1/25th or 1/30th of a second) and then immediately replaced by the next one. Persistence of vision blends the frames together, producing the illusion of a moving image.

The video frame is also sometimes used as a unit of time, being variously 1/24, 1/25 or 1/30 of a second, so that a momentary event might be said to last 6 frames.

The frame rate, the rate at which sequential frames are presented, varies according to the video standard in use. In North America and Japan, 30 frames per second is the broadcast standard, with 24 frame/s now common in production for high-definition video. In much of the rest of the world, 25 frame/s is standard.

In film projection, 24 frame/s is the norm, except in some special venue systems, such as IMAX, Showscan and Iwerks 70, where 30, 48 or even 60 frame/s have been used. Silent films and 8 mm amateur movies used 16 or 18 frame/s.

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Showing film frames in animation and movies

Some humor in animation is based on the fourth wall aspect of the film frame itself, with some animation showing characters leaving what is assumed to be the edge of the film or the film malfunctioning. This latter one is used often in films as well. This hearkens back to some early cartoons, where characters were aware of the fact they were in a cartoon, specifically the fact they could look at the credits and be aware of something that isn't part of the story as presented. These jokes include -

• Split frames - Where the fourth wall is broken by two frames, the lower half of the previous frame and the upper part of the next frame, showing at once, with jokes involving them including a character crossing the frame itself. • Film Break - A famous form of joke, where the film either snaps or is deliberately broken, with often the fourth wall coming into play during this period when, rightfully, there should be nothing on screen. • Exiting the frame - This joke, an extension of the split frames joke, has characters depart from the sides of the frame, sometimes finding themselves falling out of the cartoon entirely.

X. Aerial shot

The Georgian terrace of Royal Crescent(Bath, England) from a hot air balloon

Aerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position. The term usually refers to images in which the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Cameras may be hand held or mounted, and photographs may be taken by a photographer, triggered remotely or triggered automatically. Platforms for aerial photography include fixed- wing aircraft, helicopters, balloons,blimps and dirigibles, rockets, kites, poles, parachutes, and vehicle mounted poles . Aerial photography should not be confused with Air-to-Air Photography, when aircraft serve both as a photo platform and subject.

History

Aerial photography was first practiced by the French photographer and balloonist Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, known as "Nadar", in 1858 over Paris, France. [1]

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The first use of a motion picture camera mounted to a heavier-than-air aircraft took place on April 24, 1909 over Rome in the 3:28 short, Wilbur Wright und seine Flugmaschine.

The first special semiautomatic aerial camera was designed in 1911 by Russian military engineer — Colonel Potte V. F.[2] This aerial camera was used during World War I.

The use of aerial photography for military purposes was expanded during World War I by many other aviators such as Fred Zinn. One of the first notable battles was that of Neuve Chapelle.

Aerial mapping came into use on the battlefronts during World War I. In January 1918, General Allenby used five Australian pilots from No. 1 Squadron AFC to photograph a 624 square miles (1,620 km2) area in Palestine as an aid to correcting and improving maps of the Turkish front. Lieutenants Leonard Taplin, Allan Runciman Brown, H. L. Fraser, Edward Patrick Kenny, and L. W. Rogers photographed a block of land stretching from the Turkish front lines 32 miles (51 km) deep into their rear areas. Beginning 5 January, they flew with a fighter escort to ward off enemy fighters. Using Royal Aircraft Factory BE.12 and Martinsyde airplanes, they not only overcame enemy air attacks, but also bucked 65 mile per hour winds, antiaircraft fire, and malfunctioning equipment to complete their task circa 19 January 1918.

One of the most successful pioneers of the commercial use of aerial photography was by Sherman Fairchild who started his own aircraft firmFairchild Aircraft to develop and build specialized aircraft for high altitude aerial survey missions. One Fairchild aerial survey aircraft in 1935 carried unit that combined two synchronized cameras, and each camera having five six inch lenses with a ten inch lenses and took photos from 23,000 feet. Each photo cover two hundred and twenty five square miles. One of its first government contracts was an aerial survey of New Mexico to study soil erosion. A year later, Fairchild introduced a better high altitude camera with nine-lens in one unit that could take a photo of 600 square miles with each exposure from 30,000 feet.

With the advent of inexpensive digital cameras, many people now take candid photographs from commercial aircraft and increasingly from general aviation aircraft on private pleasure flights. Uses of imagery

Reflection of a hot air balloon, partially obscured by a pier, an example of low-altitude aerial photography

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Giza pyramid complex, photographed from Eduard Spelterini's balloon on November 21, 1904

Fogo island aerial shot taken from an Airbus cockpit by the pilot himself

Aerial photography is used in cartography (particularly in photogrammetric surveys, which are often the basis for topographic maps), land-use planning, archaeology, movie production, environmental studies, surveillance, commercial advertising, conveyancing, and artistic projects. In the United States, aerial photographs are used in many Phase I Environmental Site Assessments for property analysis. Aerial photos are often processed using GIS software. Aerial photography platforms

Radio-controlled aircraft Advances in radio controlled models have made it possible for model aircraft to conduct low-altitude aerial photography. This has benefited real-estate advertising, where commercial and residential properties are the photographic subject. Full-size, manned aircraft are prohibited from low flights above populated locations. Small scale model aircraft offer increased photographic access to these previously restricted areas. Miniature vehicles do not replace full size aircraft, as full size aircraft are capable of longer flight times, higher altitudes, and greater equipment payloads. They are, however, useful in any situation in which a full-scale aircraft would be dangerous to operate. Examples would include the inspection of transformers atop power transmission lines and slow, low-level flight over agricultural fields, both of which can be accomplished by a large-scale radio controlled helicopter. Professional-grade, gyroscopically stabilized camera platforms are available for use under such a model; a large model helicopter with a 26cc gasoline engine can hoist a payload of approximately seven kilograms (15 lbs).

Recent (2006) FAA regulations grounding all commercial RC model flights have been upgraded to require formal FAA certification before permission to fly at any altitude in USA.

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Because anything capable of being viewed from a public space is considered outside the realm of privacy in the United States, aerial photography may legally document features and occurrences on private property. Types of aerial photographs Oblique photographs Photographs taken at an angle are called oblique photographs. If they are taken from a low angle earth surface–aircraft, they are called low oblique and photographs taken from a high angle are called high or steep oblique.

Vertical photographs Vertical photographs are taken straight down. They are mainly used in photogrammetry and image interpretation. Pictures that will be used in photogrammetry are traditionally taken with special large format cameras with calibrated and documented geometric properties. Combinations Aerial photographs are often combined. Depending on their purpose it can be done in several ways, of which a few are listed below.

ƒ Panoramas can be made by stitching several photographs taken with one hand held camera. ƒ In pictometry five rigidly mounted cameras provide one vertical and four low oblique pictures that can be used together. ƒ In some digital cameras for aerial photogrammetry images from several imaging elements, sometimes with separate lenses, are geometrically corrected and combined to one image in the camera. Orthophotos Vertical photographs are often used to create orthophotos, photographs which have been geometrically "corrected" so as to be usable as a map. In other words, an orthophoto is a simulation of a photograph taken from an infinite distance, looking straight down to nadir. Perspective must obviously be removed, but variations in terrain should also be corrected for. Multiple geometric transformations are applied to the image, depending on the perspective and terrain corrections required on a particular part of the image.

Orthophotos are commonly used in geographic information systems, such as are used by mapping agencies (e.g. Ordnance Survey) to create maps. Once the images have been aligned, or "registered", with known real-world coordinates, they can be widely deployed.

Large sets of orthophotos, typically derived from multiple sources and divided into "tiles" (each typically 256 x 256 pixels in size), are widely used in online map systems such as Google Maps. OpenStreetMap offers the use of similar orthophotos for deriving new map data. Google Earth overlays orthophotos or satellite imagery onto a digital elevation model to simulate 3D landscapes. Aerial video

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With advancements in video technology, aerial video is becoming more popular. Orthogonal video is shot from aircraft mapping pipelines, crop fields, and other points of interest. Using GPS, video may be embedded with meta data and later synced with a video mapping program.

This "Spatial Multimedia" is the timely union of digital media including still photography, motion video, stereo, panoramic imagery sets, immersive media constructs, audio, and other data with location and date-time information from the GPS and other location designs.

Aerial videos are emerging Spatial Multimedia which can be used for scene understanding and object tracking. The input video is captured by low flying aerial platforms and typically consists of strong parallax from non-ground-plane structures. The integration of digital video, global positioning systems (GPS) and automated image processing will improve the accuracy and cost-effectiveness of data collection and reduction. Several different aerial platforms are under investigation for the data collection.

Y. American shot

"American shot" is a translation of a phrase from French film criticism, "plan américain" and refers to a medium-long ("knee") film shot of a group of characters, who are arranged so that all are visible to the camera. The usual arrangement is for the actors to stand in an irregular line from one side of the screen to the other, with the actors at the end coming forward a little and standing more in profile than the others. The purpose of the composition is to allow complex dialogue scenes to be played out without changes in camera position. In some literature, this is simply referred to as a 3/4 shot.

The French critics thought it was characteristic of American films of the 1930s or 1940s; however, it was mostly characteristic of cheaper American movies, such as Charlie Chanmysteries where people collected in front of a fireplace or at the foot of the stairs in order to explain what happened a few minutes ago.

Howard Hawks legitimized this style in his films, allowing characters to act, even when not talking, when most of the audience would not be paying attention. It became his trademark style. In Popular Culture

"The American Shot is a New York-based online magazine of cultural criticism. We publish features, reviews, and essays on diverse media of cultural production. Despite the great and many connotations of our title, we unfortunately do not trade in espresso, alcohol, firearms, or American nationalism. Rather, we take our name from the English translation of the term coined by French film critics to describe a convention in American B movies of the 1930s and ‘40s. The American Shot denotes a medium-long shot framing a group of characters so they are simultaneously visible to the camera. The composition allows for dialogue and discussion to be played out in a single frame. Following this deliberately open and discursive structure, we hope to be a platform for critique that is at once intrepid and irreverent, reflective and playful."[1]

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Z. Arching shot

AA. Bird's eye shot

In filmmaking and video production, a bird's-eye shot refers to a shot looking directly down on the subject. The perspective is very foreshortened, making the subject appear short and squat. This shot can be used to give an overall establishing shot of a scene, or to emphasise the smallness or insignificance of the subjects. These shots are normally used for battle scenes or establishing where the character is. It is shot by lifting the camera up by hands or by hanging it off something strong enough to support it. For a scene that needs a large area shot, then it will most often likely to be lifted up by a crane or some other sort of machine.

BB. Crane shot

In filmmaking and video production a crane shot is a shot taken by a camera on a crane. The most obvious uses are to view the actors from above or to move up and away from them, a common way of ending a movie. Some filmmakers like to have the camera on a boom arm just to make it easier to move around between ordinary set-ups. Most cranes accommodate both the camera and an operator, but some can be operated by remote control. They are usually, but not always, found in what are supposed to be emotional or suspenseful scenes. One example of this technique is the shots taken by remote cranes in the car-chase sequence of To Live and Die in L.A..

During the last few years, camera cranes have been miniaturized and costs have dropped so dramatically that most aspiring film makers have access to these tools. What was once a "Hollywood" effect is now available for under $400. Types of crane shots

ƒ Rise Up. The camera rises vertically. [1] ƒ Fall Down. The camera moves vertically downward. [1]

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Famous crane camera shots

Shooting from manual crane

The Western High Noon had a famous crane shot. The shot backs up and raises, in order to see Marshal Will Kane totally alone and isolated on the street.

The television comedy Second City Television(SCTV) uses the concept of the crane shot as comedic material. After using a crane shot in one of the first NBC-produced episodes, the network complained about the exorbitant cost of renting the crane. SCTV writers responded by making the "crane shot" a ubiquitous symbol of production excess while also lampooning network executives who care nothing about artistic vision and everything for the bottom line. At the end of the second season, an inebriated Johnny LaRue is given his very own crane by Santa Claus, implying he would be able to have a crane shot whenever he wanted it.

Jean-Luc Godard, in his film Sympathy for the Devil, used a crane for almost every shot in the movie, giving each scene a 360 degree tour of the tableau Godard presented to the viewer. In the final scene he even shows, on camera, the crane he was able to rent with his budget by including it in the scene somewhat. This was one of his traits as a filmmaker - showing off his budget - as he did with Brigitte Bardot in Le Mepris(Contempt).

Director Dennis Dugan frequently uses top-to-bottom crane shots in his comedy films.

Orson Welles used a crane camera during the iconic opening of Touch of Evil. The camera perched on a Chapman crane begins on a close-up of a ticking time bomb and ends three-plus minutes later with a blinding explosion.

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The closing take of Richard Attenborough's film version of Oh! What a Lovely War which begins on a single war grave, gradually pulling backward to reveal hundreds of identical crosses.

CC. Dolly zoom

The dolly zoom is an unsettlingin-camera effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception. It is part of manycinematic techniques used infilmmaking and television production.

The effect is achieved by using the setting of a to adjust the angle of view (often referred to as field of view FOV) while the camera dollies (or moves) towards or away from the subject in such a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout. In its classic form, the camera is pulled away from a subject while the lens zooms in, or vice-versa. Thus, during the zoom, there is a continuous perspective distortion, the most directly noticeable feature being that the background appears to change size relative to the subject.

As the human visual system uses both size and perspective cues to judge the relative sizes of objects, seeing a perspective change without a size change is a highly unsettling effect, and the emotional impact of this effect is greater than the description above can suggest. The visual appearance for the viewer is that either the background suddenly grows in size and detail and overwhelms the foreground, or the foreground becomes immense and dominates its previous setting, depending on which way the dolly zoom is executed.

The effect was first developed by Irmin Roberts, a Paramount second-unitcameraman, and was famously used by Alfred Hitchcock in his film Vertigo.

Purpose of the effect

The dolly zoom is commonly used by filmmakers to represent the sensation of vertigo, a "falling-away- from-oneself feeling" or a feeling of unreality, or to suggest that a character is undergoing a realization that causes him or her to reassess everything he or she had previously believed. After Hitchcock popularized the effect (he used it again for a climactic revelation in Marnie), the technique was used by many other filmmakers, and eventually became regarded as a gimmick or cliché. This was especially true after directorSteven Spielberg repopularized the effect in his highly regarded film Jaws, in a memorable shot of a dolly zoom into Police Chief Brody's (Roy Scheider) stunned reaction at the climax of a shark attack on a beach (after a suspenseful build-up).

Notable examples

The most notable uses of dolly zoom, as previously stated, is its presence inAlfred Hitchcock's Vertigo and Steven Spielberg's Jaws.

Spielberg used the technique again in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The effect was also used in Michael Jackson's Thriller video, just as the zombies are gathering. It was

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originally used within the reimagined Battlestar Galactica to depict the feeling experienced by characters when the ship engages in faster-than-light travel. However, the technique was not used again until the fourth season.

A relatively slow and more subtle dolly zoom was also used in Martin Scorsese's 1990 film Goodfellas in the conversation scene between Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) and James 'Jimmy' Conway (Robert De Niro) set in a diner, with a view of the street forming the background of the shot.

Mathieu Kassovitz's French film, La Haine, on the other hand, features an especially apparent 16 second dolly zoom.[3]

The Lion King, an animated film, simulated a zoom shot in the scene where young Simba realizes the sound in the canyon is a wildebeest stampede. It is not a standard dolly zoom shot, as the "camera" zooms in on Simba, but the background does pull away dramatically, providing a similar effect.

In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the effect is used without a foreground subject. The purpose of the shot is to emphasize the sense of unreality and fear Frodo feels as the Nazgûl approach, on the road to Bree. The shot is used similarly, with no foreground subject, in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, as Frodo is about to enter the cave ofShelob.

Many of the car reviews on the BBC television program Top Gear use a dolly zoom shot of the front of the car at speed. Mathematics

To achieve the effect the camera needs to be positioned at a certain distance from the object that is supposed to remain still during the dolly zoom. The distance depends on how wide the scene is to be filmed, and on the field of view (FOV) of the camera lens. Before calculating the distances needed at the different fields of view, the constant width of the scene has to be calculated. For example, a FOV of 90° and a distance of two meters yield a constant width of four meters, allowing a four-meter-wide object to remain still inside the frame during the effect.

References

www.wikipedia.or

Wednesday, January 18, 2012