Sometimes the scene is so sensitive that only essential people are present. But most of the time it is desirable for the whole crew to watch the rehearsal.
Conrad Hall, ASC
I try to get the director to rehearse the whole scene. I like to have everybody connected with the scene—props, wardrobe, everybody—watching at that time. Camera, lighting, grips, the whole lot just sitting around, watching the director work with the actors, and the cinematographer kind of tagging along behind.
And sometimes directors like to have the editor on the scene at that point. Schlesinger is a man like that. He loves to have his editor down there, because eventually the editor is going to have to put it together. So he likes to have the whole team down there. And you rehearse the whole scene, ten pages, five pages, three pages, whatever. It might be several days’ or weeks’ work, depending on the schedule you have. That way everybody knows what is to be expected and can contribute more effectively.
When working with the director on a scene, you digest like a cow. You chew all day long; you go out and graze in the fields and you get your belly full. And then you pick a nice tree to sit under and you burp the grass up again. It is like that when you are working. You digest the scene with the director, imbuing yourself with every possible rhythm and every piece of information that you possibly can, to be ready for the moment. Filming is the moment of many factors coming together in that special way which at another moment would be different.
Other cinematographers prefer to have only the essential people present during the rehearsals.
Richard Kline, ASC
The way I like to work on the set is to have it cleared at the beginning of all but just a few necessary people. And I have a complete rehearsal of the scene, to see where we are. Prior to that I have a rough idea of how the scene might look, and I might prerig some lights just to set a mood. After rehearsing the entire scene, we may find that the mood is not right and might be totally changed.
When the director works with actors, I hover and observe and I walk various positions and see what the sets are. It will probably take only fifteen minutes but it is well worth it. It also gives the actors a chance to develop in the scene and to discuss it. Then after that rehearsal, the director and I decide how we are going to attack it.
There is no rule about which shot to start with. You may start with a close-up first. It is possible. And work your way back to a long shot. It is a rarity when someone will go for that, but there could be an emotional impact which you will lose going from a long shot and a medium shot to a close-up. You might drain the actor of the key moment needed in a close-up. So there would be this rare case when you would want to start with a close-up and work your way back. I compare filming setups to tennis. You have a serve, which could be a long shot that gets you into play. Usually you start with a long shot and in a serve you have maybe an ace, which is an equivalent to staying on long shot. But the idea in tennis is basically to work your way to the net. You have better control if you work your way to the net.
Rehearsals add another dynamic to the evolution of a scene from the script and storyboard stage. The action has become three-dimensional, and this quality must be captured now on film.
Composition
The basic need to represent a three-dimensional reality on a two-dimensional surface is certainly not new in the visual arts. What separates film from the other visual arts is that it is kinetic. The filmmaker is composing motion.
Composition of movement in time can be broken down into several dynamics. Movement of the camera and/or of subjects in front of the camera is called intraframe movement. Screen sizes and angles of view can be manipulated in this way. Interframe movement is created by editing, cutting from one angle to another or from long shot to close-up. The combination of camera movements and editing becomes a truly powerful system for manipulating the film reality. Whether static or moving, the frame represents spatial depth, or three dimensions, on a two-dimensional screen.
Alexander Mackendrick, director
We’re told by those who have studied the psychology of perception that shadows are one of the clues by which the brain recognizes spatial depth. The fact that the projected image is always seen as a window into a three-dimensional world is one reason for the filmmaker’s use of these dark and light areas for “designing in depth.”
The figurative painters and engravers of graphic illustrations in the nineteenth century are worth study by filmmakers. Gustave Doré’s work is an example. He used a formula enormously effective in emphasizing design in depth. In the foreground a subject might be lit strongly, with an emphatic key light and strong modeling. But behind this would be figures more or less in silhouette, in shadow and two-dimensional. These, in turn, would be outlined against a brighter area in middle distance, illuminated features of architecture or figures. These were again silhouetted, light against dark, against a further background of shadow, gray but still dark. Each recessive plane contrasts with the one beyond it or in front.
The Spanish painter Francisco Goya wrote some two hundred years ago, “I see [in nature] only forms that advance, forms that recede, masses in light and shadow.”
Conrad Hall, ASC
In soft lighting you build depth by contrast. In other words, you put the person in light and you take the light off the background. Or you put the light on the background and you take the light off the person. Or you do it with color, like for example putting a person against a blue wall. Creating the reality requires a sense of everything—of movement, of color, of value in terms of contrast, of drama, of cutting. To be good, you’d better know everything.
It becomes obvious that a thorough knowledge of composition is an absolutely essential skill for lighting. A cinematographer needs it not only to create meaningful visuals on the screen but also to communicate with the director.
Alexander Mackendrick, director
Composing in depth isn’t simply a matter of pictorial richness. It has value in the narrative of the action, the pacing of the scene. Within the same frame, the director can organize the action so that preparation for what will happen next is seen in the background of what is happening now. While our attention is concentrated on what we see nearest to us, we are simultaneously aware of secondary activities that lie beyond, and sometimes even of a third plane of distant activity: the dramatic density of the scene is much greater.
Design the blocking of the actors, the framing of the shot, with this sort of thing in mind, and the cinematographer with a grain of sense will instantly realize your intention. He will use light to assist the eye path of the audience and to give dramatic depth to the scene. Most cameramen I’ve worked with have been very intelligent, quick to pick up on the director’s intentions without the need for explanation.
Composition, both in framing and lighting, directs the viewer’s eye to the appropriate part of the scene.
Jordan Cronenweth, ASC
First of all, the composition has to tell the story and create the mood. If there are a lot of elements in the composition besides the subject, you may need to lead the eye to the subject. You can do that with light. You can create certain selectivity within the composition with lighting or as an element of the composition. A lot of composition is just plain feel—how you feel.
The criterion is really the story. If you have somebody coming out of a dark building through the doorway, you can have the camera way back and show the whole building and a little bit of the sky; you can have that camera closer to the door and show nothing but black and then a sliver of sky, and you can have the camera move with the guy back from the door; or you can have a close-up of him. I mean, you can interpret it in a thousand ways. But if you are just going for the composition, you are abandoning the story.
Lighting composition not only directs the audience’s attention to the particular subject, it also elicits certain emotional responses to a scene.
Haskell Wexler, ASC
I do not think that the dir
ector and the cameraman should be at odds as far as framing is concerned. They are two creative people looking at the scene. And part of the framing is where the light is in the frame. If, for example, a person seated at a table has a little bright window sharply behind the right ear, it would tell a different story than if that bright window were more over his right shoulder, out a little bit. It has a different emotional effect, and so where this little window in the background appears in the frame is part of the framing. So the lighting and the framing are the same thing and they have to be joint.
There are basically four popular screen ratios: academy (1.33:1), wide screen (1.85:1 and 1.65:1), and anamorphic (2.35:1). With such a variety of screen ratios, in the words of Robert Wise, “You cast your screen size to the subject matter.”
Robert Wise, director
When I did The Hindenburg a few years ago, it was perfect for the anamorphic format. But one thing that I deplore about the anamorphic is its lack of depth. I love to be able to rake the foreground and to carry somebody back in the distance and keep that in focus. Split diopters help in these situations.
Among visual artists, the filmmaker has a rather unenviable position of not being in full control when his work is being presented to the audience. For people who rely heavily on composition to tell their stories, this can be very frustrating.
Alexander Mackendrick, director
In the 1950s a real problem cropped up when the framing of the image became ambiguous, unpredictable. Were we working just for the cinema screen or for television? When the framing has to be a compromise, the result is often disastrous.
When any of my films were reframed—the film image rephotographed for television broadcast—I could not help feeling a sense of outrage. If I remember rightly, Augustus John, a well-known British portrait painter, discovered that after he had sold a portrait, the new owner cut nine inches off the bottom of the painting so that it would fit a space on his wall. John sued for damages, even though the painting was no longer his, and, as I recall, won his case. I feel the same way about screen images. And it’s not just aesthetics; it affects the narrative. In A High Wind in Jamaica one of the key shots was a wide-screen shot of seven children sitting in a row as they are interrogated by the lawyer; the point of the scene was the silent reaction of two children who happened to be on each end; neither of them appeared in the television version.
It is the unfortunate lot of filmmakers that they are not in charge when their work is being projected. A visit to a local theater can at times be a heartbreaking experience, let alone seeing one’s film on television.
In spite of this uncertain future, the film crew puts all its talents and skills into producing a well-composed picture.
Working with the Crew
There are three people on the crew ultimately concerned with the composition of the frame: the director, the cinematographer, and the camera operator. The balance of power among these three individuals is affected by many factors: personal experience, the subject matter or genre of the story, the individual background, and national tradition. An American cinematographer who also directs discusses his interpretation of the balance of power:
Haskell Wexler, ASC
I do not think of the director of photography as only the lighting cameraman. I think of him as the cameraman who sets the frame, the camera movement, and the lighting. He does it in service to the director. If the director says, “I want to play this scene very static,” then the cameraman does it this way. The cameraman may suggest, “I understand what you mean, but I think that if we make a very small move toward her when she says such and such line, we will be on the medium shot. It will keep the static quality and maybe help what you are trying to say.” And the director may say, “I said I want this thing static, I don’t want any dolly move.” At this point you may doubt the aesthetic wisdom of his judgment, but you do the static shot. What I am saying is that a good director of photography feeds the director what he thinks about the scene after he gets the idea from the director what the scene is all about. If he is just trying to make what he calls a good shot, then he has no right to say anything, because making films is not just making good shots. Making films is making films. The best world is one where there is mutual respect and there is a give-and-take, an acceptance of the fact that the director is the boss but a recognition that he is just a human being who sometimes can be right and sometimes can be wrong.
Traditionally, the cinematographer’s role is perceived differently in Britain.
Alexander Mackendrick, director
I distinguish between the way I work with the lighting cameraman and the way I work with the operator. As director of photography and boss of the whole camera crew, some cinematographers will probably challenge me on this, insisting that they are responsible for all of it. However, my temperament has been to feel that I have to design every camera angle, every screen size, every camera move. I have to work directly with the camera operator on this and cannot afford to go through the director of photography, though, of course, he will be present as the decisions are made. This is because, as director, I am, above all things, concerned with narrative content, the story. Other values are very important, but they come later. Since the story is told through the positioning of the actors in relation to the camera, since the blocking of actors’ moves within the scene is inseparable from the design of camera moves in relation to the performer, the camera operator and I are concerned with narrative. He is the director’s right hand and he is my man.
Mackendrick’s description of the role of the operator stems from the heyday of the British studio system. In this tradition the cinematographer is known as the “lighting cameraman” and his role is predominantly to light the set. The operator is more concerned with the narrative. Hollywood tradition is different.
Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC
Sometimes the director will set up the composition but he will leave it up to me to finalize it. If my operator is very good, I will give him a lot of freedom. I will let him decide certain things, let him be involved with it. But I certainly will work with the operator a lot because I have certain compositional feelings which the operator has to learn. For example, I do not like too much headroom. It depends on the picture, but I usually like tight composition. If an operator that I work with does not have the same taste, then he has to learn to please my taste. That takes a little time, but usually by the middle of the picture he can guess how I would compose a shot.
Since the operator is the link between the cameraman’s visual concept and the composition on the screen, this relationship is very symbiotic. An operator should read the script and understand the style worked out by the director and the cinematographer.
Allen Daviau, ASC
This relationship depends on where one’s strengths lie. I always would have something to say about the composition. Operators I like to work with are very good detail people in terms of moving props and setting things around to make the frame really work. And they have to do it in concert with continuity people and the prop department, so that everybody is aware when you are cheating something on the mantelpiece or over on the bookcase, just to make a better composition. You get very good at doing this and in terms of knowing what will get by.
You need to know whether for the next piece of coverage the item should go back or should you move it even more this way? These are all details dealt with principally by the camera operator. I like to see what they are doing; I like to ride the rehearsal if it is possible timewise, so I can see that the composition is working, that the shot is working. I need to have the picture in my mind all day long, particularly in a scene that I know I will be coming back to. Just having looked in the finder makes a great difference for me, particularly if I have been able to ride the rehearsal. Of course some directors, like Steve Spielberg, like to ride the rehearsal too. Spielberg loves to stage the scene through the camera. And you see it happening, and it is marvelous because he has the sense of moving camera t
o people and people to camera that is just priceless. He comes into a room and many times before he even starts the rehearsal, he will say, “Camera here, 29mm,” and he will start blocking the scene that way.
I like all my key people reading the script. Like the operator, the first assistant, the gaffer, the key grip, and others as well, if possible. It is absolutely essential that they all read it. I like everybody to know the story they are telling, so they are not just showing up in the morning as mechanics. Because the more people on the crew are involved in telling the story and coming up with ideas, the better off you are and the more sense of participation they have. I like everybody to come to the dailies. I do not believe in closed dailies. I just think that people should see the fruit of the work they are doing. And many times you will get tremendous ideas from somebody who is the third grip or the second electrician because they are looking at it from an unprejudiced point of view. There is the sense of involvement of the unit. It is one of the best things about filmmaking and particularly true of a film that shoots on location—the sense of family that forms in the film crew. You are living in the same crummy motel and you are eating in the same restaurants every night, and when you see these dailies together in some little room or in the neighborhood theater, it provides a reason for all these people with these diverse backgrounds to be out in some strange place shooting a movie. It is one of the best things about it. At the end of a long shoot, when people are saying good-bye to each other, it can be very touching because you have been through many difficulties together.
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