The size of the image is very important to the emotion, particularly when you’re using that image to have the audience identify with it.—ALFRED HITCHCOCK (Truffaut)
Close-ups on objects are also intense notes in the director’s orchestral camera patterns. If the close-up is on a hand or object it suggests a dramatic importance. If it is followed by a reaction shot of the face, it allows an emotional connection with the object to form.
WIDE SHOT
Framing the character in a wide shot (from the ground up or farther away) tends to be more objective. Since the character on screen is belittled to a much smaller figure in proportion to the surroundings, their emotional presence is felt much less by the audience. Wide shots tend to provide a counterbalance to the high emotions contained in close-ups.
Common reasons for a wide shot:
Show emotional context
Reveal scale and distance
Demonstrate lonely character
Character is helpless to environment
Mood setting or mood shifting
Relief after tense moment
There are exceptions to this, of course, especially during transport scenes where a character is moving through geography in reaction to plot events. See my book Between the Scenes for more on these emotional transitions.
Figure 6.3. The emotional distance between these bickering lovers is made clear in this wide composition. Torn Curtain ©1966 Universal Pictures.
Framing multiple characters in a wide shot can help point out how far apart they are, both emotionally and physically in the space. For a great example of this, see a shot in the hotel room of Torn Curtain (1966) revealing how far apart the couple is standing from one another during their argument. The shot (fig. 6.3) clearly demonstrates emotional distance in the relationship.
DOLLY-IN SHOT
By moving the camera gradually closer to the subject, you are basically forming the visual sentence: “Here’s something important to notice.” (See chapter 4 for more on visual sentences.) If you dolly in to an object, you’re giving it dramatic significance. A dolly-in on an actor’s face indicates rising emotion.
When to use a dolly-in:
Intensify the current emotion
Emphasize an element in the scene
Reveal a secret
In some avant-garde styles of cinematography, the zoom-in is a similar device, although it tends to have a less dramatic impact. See “Sudden Shock” section below.
DOLLY-OUT SHOT
Pulling the camera back gradually from the subject provides a feeling of relief from intense emotion. You’re forming the visual sentence: “Nothing can be done.” It tends to provoke the audience into a thinking or contemplative mode.
Function of a dolly-out:
Increase the feeling of helplessness
Dissipate tension
Anticipate beginning of a journey
There’s a notable dolly-out at the end of Frenzy (1972) which pulls away from an imminent murder scene. The shot tracks backward down the stairs and outside of an apartment building, revealing random people walking on the sidewalk and normal traffic bustling on the street. It provides an objective commentary from the filmmaker that “nobody out here knows what’s going on in there.”
The dolly-out can also be used at the moment a character has decided to take action in reaction to plot events. As they begin moving into action, the camera tracks out to anticipate their journey through expanses of geographic space.
ADVANCED ORCHESTRAL “NOTES”
These more advanced camera orchestrations should be used sparingly within a film, so they don’t get worn out. Generally they should accompany extreme changes in the plot, and are designed to be noticed and memorable.
VERTIGO ZOOM
Hitchcock is often credited as the inventor of this trick shot which combines a dolly-in with a simultaneous zoom out, or vice versa. The resulting effect is an eerie protraction of the depth of field, where the background appears to be scrunching and flattening into the foreground, or vice versa. It’s an effective way to emphasize a dizzying shift in the plot, where the character on screen is stunned by his changing situation. In Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), it was actually a point-of-view shot from the perspective of James Stewart’s character, who suffers from a fear of heights, looking down a flight of stairs and getting vertigo. In Marnie (1964), it’s the opening shot of a flashback to Marnie’s traumatic childhood.
WHIP PAN
This shot replaces montage editing by moving the camera toward each new shot. Instead of cutting to the next shot, you just move the camera to the next shot in real time. The result is that multiple setups are connected into one continuous shot. The most extreme example of this is found in the film Rope (1948), which constantly reframes the camera to encompass Hitchcock’s pattern of orchestration. In one scene the camera moves along the line of sight of James Stewart to a close-up of the rope tied around a stack of books, then pulls/pans back to Stewart’s reaction.
The whip pan is especially useful in tense standoff situations, where a character weighs quick decisions. It also has a way of emphasizing the reaction shot and calls attention to itself as an important plot moment for the audience to notice. You’ll find this technique in many common mockumentary shows on TV such as The Office.
SUDDEN SHOCK
Cutting from a wide shot of a person immediately to a close-up of the same person has the effect of providing a jolt. It’s a great device to use during a shocking event or a sudden surprise. It’s a jump cut that was used midway through Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) when Detective Arbogast climbs the stairs and is attacked by Mrs. Bates. Hitchcock often referred to this cut as the visual equivalent to sudden brass in a symphony.
ABOVE & BELOW
It’s a very common cinema tactic to use above-angle and below-angle shots as a form of power play between characters—the below shot giving the character a menacing power over the scene, etc. In the context of suspense, they can be useful for creating a sense of disorientation or awkwardness in the audience (Bogdanovich). It’s a subtle cue that something isn’t quite right in this scene, foreshadowing something more to come. In Psycho, for example, the below angle of Norman Bates in his office, revealing the birds hanging over him, is a menacing shot which plants doubts in the audience about his sanity. For a full examination of the many uses of the high shot (aka “above-angle shot”) in suspense, see chapter 18.
SLOW PAN OR TRACK TO
As you reveal a special secret to the audience that is being hidden from all or some of the characters, panning or tracking the camera toward this secret is a clear way to draw attention to it. As with using the dolly shots, any kind of camera movement should be reserved for revealing important information or emotions to the viewer. It’s essentially like the director saying: “Look over here. I want you to see this.”
“DIP IN THE POOL” BREAKDOWN
Here’s an annotation of the forty-seven shots used in Hitchcock’s TV episode “Dip in the Pool” (1958). You can watch further analysis on our YouTube docu-series Hitch20, Episode 10, “Dip in the Pool School.”
1. Wide
2. Wide
3. Wide → Dolly-in → Medium
4. Close-up on pills (he’s nervous)
5. Medium → Dolly-out → Wide
6. Medium
7. Wide
8. Wide
9. Wide
10. Close-up on wine glass spilling (he’s nervous)
11. Medium
12. Close-up (learns about the game)
13. Medium → Dolly-in → Close-up (they gossip about him)
14. Close-up ship bow in storm (storm brews)
15. Wide → Dolly-in → Medium
16. Close-up (he leaves secretly)
17. Wide
18. Wide
19. Medium
20. Medium
21. Medium
22. Medium
23. Wide
24. Medium
25. Medium
26. Medium
27. Medium
28. Wide
29. Medium
30. Close-up (he bids)
31. Medium
32. Close-up (bidding)
33. Medium
34. Close-up (bidding)
35. Wide → Dolly-in → Medium
36. Medium (weather is good, didn’t win bet)
37. Medium → Dolly-out → Wide
38. Wide
39. Medium
40. Wide
41. Medium → Dolly-in → Close-up (plans to jump)
42. Wide
43. Wide
44. Close-up (closer to jumping)
45. Wide
46. Wide
47. Wide → Dolly-in → Close-up (he jumps, lady doesn’t notice)
Even without having detailed plot information, you can make some pretty clear guesses at the plot, just by looking at the close-ups. I’ve noted in parentheses what the close-ups are revealing, and that gives you a pretty good summary:
The man is nervous which is shown through the close-ups of the pills, and when he spills the wine glass. He learns about a game. Others gossip about him as he leaves the room. He bids in the game. Then, because the weather is good, he loses the bet. Soon he’s planning to jump overboard, and then he jumps.
You’ll also notice that most of those moments of close-ups are surrounded by camera movement which serves to make them more dramatic. Also note that the most extreme change from wide to close is saved until the very end of the film as the man jumps, revealing the surprise twist.
“Dip in the Pool” is just one random example from Hitchcock’s large body of work. It does show some useful insight into his camera orchestration strategy. Mediums and wides are there to allow those important close-up moments to stand out.
Now you’ve got a better grasp on how to use the camera to construct visual sentences and elicit an emotional dance with the viewer. Your audience will be drawn in that much closer to your characters’ hidden secrets and much more likely to feel suspense during your close-call scenarios. In Part Three we’ll go deeper into this audience/director dance.
SUGGESTED VIEWING
Rope (1948)
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “Dip in the Pool,” Season 3, Episode 35 (1958)
Strangers on a Train (1951)—merry-go-round scene.
Psycho (1960)—shower scene.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “Back for Christmas,” Season 1, Episode 23 (1956)—wide shot at stairs.
FURTHER READING
Auiler, Dan 2001. Hitchcock’s Notebooks: An Authorized and Illustrated Look Inside the Creative Mind of Alfred Hitchcock, Harper Collins, New York.
Bays, Jeffrey 2014. Between the Scenes. Michael Wiese Productions. Bogdanovich, Peter 1997. Who the Devil Made It, Ballantine Books, New York, chapter 8 (ebook).
Ganti, K 2004, “In Conversation with Walter Murch,” FilmSound.org, accessed 4 March 2011:
Gottlieb, Sidney 1997. Hitchcock on Hitchcock: Selected Writings and Interviews, University of California Press, Los Angeles—p. 28.
Martin, Adrian 1992. “Mise en Scène Is Dead,” Continuum, 5:2, p. 95.
Schickel, Richard 1973. The Men Who Made the Movies: Hitchcock, The American Cinematheque TV series.
Zettl, Herbert 1999. Sight, Sound, Motion. Wadsworth, pp.102–103.
PART THREE
THE DIRECTOR GAME
CHAPTER 7
AWAKENING THE STORYTELLER
I have wormed my way into my own pictures as a spy. A director should see how the other half lives.—ALFRED HITCHCOCK
ONCE YOU RELEASE YOUR FILM and audiences begin to watch it, are they going to be thinking about you while watching? Unless they know you personally, or are watching it as a favor to you, probably not. Most people who view a film have no idea who wrote it, directed it, or even consider who was involved behind the scenes.
And that’s a comfortable position for most filmmakers. We want the audience to forget they are watching a constructed artifice and to be fully absorbed into the fantasy world, fully involved with the characters. We’re okay with the director being the last thing anyone thinks about, as long as people enjoy the movie.
But I’m here to tell you that in the suspense business, that’s all wrong. For suspense to work, you want the audience to be thinking about the director during the movie. Here’s why.
American Hitchcock scholar Thomas Leitch proposed the idea that a successful Hitchcock film is more like a game than a story. A special kind of interaction is invited in order for the audience to enjoy the experience of the movie. Rather than just being a passive viewer, the audience enters a kind of adversarial relationship with the storyteller. The director becomes a part of the game, an awakened presence which the audience is keenly aware of.
This is an aspect of suspense that I only recently came to. As someone who has studied Hitchcock’s techniques for decades, and even made Offing David (2008) to put those techniques to use, I’m now convinced that none of it works without a storyteller’s presence.
What I mean by this is that the audience should be made consciously aware that there is a storyteller’s hand at work. Film is not just a flat screen where people sit and passively absorb the contents. I was recently watching Jim Gillespie’s I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and noticed that he provoked an awareness of his directorial hand. While I wasn’t thinking specifically about Gillespie at the time, there is a strong sense of a facetious prankster-storyteller behind the camera that brings you into the game of the film.
Hitchcock knew this, or he stumbled upon it by accident while promoting his brand, and I believe it’s the main reason his suspense has been so successful and enduring. Audiences know they’re watching a Hitchcock film. They feel his presence behind the camera, and they giggle and point during his cameos. They subconsciously feel that they are part of a clever storytelling game orchestrated by Hitchcock.
He activated this game through his cameos, his personified camera movements, obvious editing, playful red herrings, and clever opening scenes. These all keep that game alive through each film from beginning to end. He was so good at it that we don’t even realize he did it. The next few chapters we’ll explore how you can do it, too.
WHEN TO USE A CAMEO
Let’s start with the cameo, because that’s the most obvious thing Hitchcock did. It was the one thing that audiences were consciously aware of, that indicated that there’s a directorial hand at work, poking and prodding the story. Since he did nearly forty cameos throughout his career, it gives us a lot of material to assess.
Through his cameos, Hitchcock becomes an ambassador between the audience and the world he has created. Hitchcock scholar Michael Walker’s survey of his works reveals that most of Hitchcock’s cameos appear at the beginnings of films during scene transitions. They were timed to appear as characters move between locations or just before an important event occurs. The Hitchcock cameo is an omen, warning us that something significant will happen to our protagonist soon. The cameo marks a narrative threshold which, once crossed by the character, cannot be undone (Walker).
Scenes incorporating Hitchcock’s cameos include Guy (Farley Granger) stepping off the train in the introduction of Strangers on a Train (1951), Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) on the train to Santa Rosa in Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and the shift to New York in Topaz (1969)—to name a few (Walker).
Crowd scenes were the best opportunity for Hitchcock to appear. There is an element of Where’s Waldo? in the crowd scenes of every Hitchcock film, as the apt viewe
r searches for the hidden director. But just like in Waldo, crowds in the Hitchcock world are much more than just a sea of random people. They are filled with intricately detailed caricatures—each with their own separately intriguing story. If the camera stayed on one of these side stories, an entirely new movie could play out equally as interesting as the one being watched.
Hitchcock’s cameo, then, allows us to feel a serendipitous moment in which the chosen story brushes past all the others, rising out of the masses to get our full attention. The main plot surreptitiously mingles with these wild and distracting characters, with Hitchcock signaling that he has chosen one for us to follow.
CRAFTING A DIRECTOR’S BRAND
But, if you make a cameo appearance in your film, the results aren’t likely to be as effective unless it’s a part of your bigger directorial brand. Hitchcock’s cameos are tied to his marketing campaigns, and the public character he created.
Hitchcock started appearing in his own films quite early in his directing career, initially because extras were needed to fill crowd scenes. As time went on, his distinctly shaped profile found clever ways to appear in nearly all of his subsequent works. His cameos are more than just self-portraits or an exercise in vanity. They are the branding scheme of an intense publicity effort, and a device to get newspapers talking. He would intentionally orchestrate obvious cameos so the critics would talk more about him than his actors.
He began crafting his directorial image early in his career, even founding a publicity company to get his name in the papers. As early as 1927, he had already drawn up the famous silhouette (fig. 7.1)—the now recognizable pouting lips, big cheeks, and pulled back hair—which appeared in the opening credits of his early films, as well as in the later TV series (Kapsis). His cameos were a direct extension of this branding symbol that helped to perpetuate his persona in the mind of the public.
To further facilitate this brand, he would plant stories in newspapers about his diet. The trick was to get people talking about his weight, and thus consciously visualizing the plump figure that everyone associated with the director (Kapsis). By 1938 he was the most recognizable director in the industry (Van der Poll 2005).
Suspense With a Camera Page 9