If the basic shot
is equivalent to a word, then the visual sentence is the sequence.
But how do you connect shots so that they make a fully grammatical
sentence?
The first thing
you've got to think about is how why and when do you cut
between two shots. What makes a good cut or a good edit. I
could fill
a whole book with dos and don'ts, but let's just think about
the basics for now. There are three basic rules: Always cut
on movement if you possibly can; never cut until you have
to (and there are many reasons for cutting), and always cut
to
show something different. But that's not the end of the story....
Let's go back to my earlier
sentence: Do with the camera what you would do with the eye.
It's obviously not quite that simple - does your eye see what
the director of the average pop video shows you? Of course
not, but it's a jolly good start. Try watching yourself watching
people if you can. One of the first things you learn is that
you don't necessarily look at the person who"s talking.
Imagine being in a room with
two people. One says to the other "Where on earth did
you get that hat? My oh my what a creation! I've heard of bird's
nest soup before, but never on someone"s head". Where
were you looking? At the hat, of course, not at the chap who's
talking. Then when the second one chips in with "Never
mind my hat, what about your nose", you cut to a picture
(shot) of the nose owner.
So we've now got a series of
shots cut together, either in the camera or the eye. If you
were shooting this conversation with the camera you wouldn't
actually take a picture of person A, then get him to pause
halfway through the sentence about the hat while you move the
camera (and possibly the lights) to person B. What you do (presuming
for the minute that this is a drama) is shoot all the conversation
while the camera is seeing person A, then do it all over again
on a shot of person B. In a real drama you"d do even more
- the whole sequence again on a two shot, and then some close-ups
(cutaways - another new term; shots of things - inanimate objects)
of the hat and the nose.
OPTIMISING THE VIEW
So far I've been talking (or
writing) as if the camera remains physically in one spot and
just pans around to get different shots. That would sort of
work, but imagine the scene again; the two people are looking
at one another, not in the direction of the camera or eye,
and unless you"re very close you"ll be seeing the
sides of their heads (profiles - a not very new term). But
given that people, whoever they are - actors, politicians,
lecturers - communicate visually with their faces, particularly
their eyes, let's try to see the better view of them. We"re
idealising the view, not sticking to the eye/camera simile,
but I expect you can easily see that it's a better way to photograph
people.
In other words this:
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Cutting between these two shots
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... isn't as pleasing as this:
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Cutting between these two shots
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So neither had a funny hat and
they both had strange looking noses. I"m not an artist;
but I hope you get the idea. In general, shoot people as near
full face as possible. Absolutely full face isn't usually possible
(or desirable - he's looking at the girl, not the viewer) when
you're shooting a drama or an interview, but David Attenborough
talking to the camera (and therefore the viewer) should be
full face.
So far I've been talking about two people. What if you've got two shots
of the one person and you want to cut between them? The first thing
to ask yourself is why.
One possible reason is because of heightened emotion - the chap is
rooting around in an old chest and comes across a blood-stained stiletto
or a thousand pound note or something. He'd react and you'd want to
cut closer. But you have to do it right; the rule here is:
THE CLOSER THE FULLER
In other words the tighter
shot should be on the better eyeline. Not like this:
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Here the wider shot is on the better
eyeline
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But like this:
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Now the closer shot is on the better
eyeline
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It's what you'd do with the
eye, so do it with the camera. If you were in the room with
him and you wanted to look closer at him, you wouldn't go to
one side as you got closer; you'd want to look more fully into
his eyes to see his emotion.
