Meaning and Purpose:
In the process of filming and production there are certain techniques that can be used to enhance the meaning as well as the aesthetic and aural quality of the film. We embraced a lot of these techniques within the production process of our film which included techniques ranging from camera movement, lighting and framing. I believe all of these techniques helped enhance the film's image and meaning as well as giving the short a lot more flavour in terms of style and creativity.
Slider
During the process of our production one of the techniques I learnt was managing the use of a slider or a dolly in a scene to give a slow and steady movement with purpose. The slider I had been given to work with was very steady and gave a good solid movement which made capturing the shot below very simply and intuitive. The slider in film is generally used for shots opening a scene to simply keep a dialogue scene visually interesting.
Practical Lighting
During our production process a very influential part of the lighting system was the idea that for the man in the box scene we would only use practical light (as in a light in which the source can be seen in frame). This has been used in a number of important 1940s film noirs as well as classical Japanese and Chinese cinema for the effect of true realism within the frame, giving a sense immersion within the audience. Below I show one of our stills alongside that of a noir scene from Kubrick's 1956 The Killing which is using the same technique to light its actors, while the background is lit from a non-practical light.
Following Shots
During our filming we used a following shot to introduce our villain, in hindsight this was a bad idea due to the trouble of catching the actor's dialogue and shaky footage, we had no microphone on him other than the one on the camera which meant we had to bump up the sound in order to her him correctly, we should have had a nother microphone at his front or had the phone picking up sound. However I believe the shot is powerful and when applied correctly can look very good, although I do believe for our film it could have been improved with more preparation as the camera movement was very shaky and this made filming the actor very difficult.
Long Shot / Wide Angle
For the mid-montage scene where the villain is walking down the path we decided it would be good to give this a wide angle long shot to show him getting closer and closer to the camera as he walked. We may have been misusing the wide angle shot here as it is generally retained for comedies such as the works of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd - the big three silent comedians of the early to mid 20th century, chaplin famously said "Life is a tragedy in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.", an example of a shot from Chaplin's The Circus (1928) is viewed below ours. We used the shot to give a sense of impending danger whereas chaplin uses the shot to give information and space the audience from the character so they can laugh at it.
Montage
Montages are another very popular scene type within film, popularised mainly by western films in the US such as The Lone Ranger and A Fistful of Dollars. We used our montage scene (which is a collection of shots showing the passage of time) to give information on what had happened to our protagonist before the event, that makes it a flashback montage which is common in the thriller genre as well as sci-fi and fantasy films like the Lord of The Rings Trilogy.
P.O.V. (Point of View)
P.O.V. is used in a number of genres, but it is famously used in crime films, especially the works of Quentin Tarantino, the Point of View shot gives the perspective of somebody and from that we can gain a number of clues as to their position. For instance if everybody is looking down at the camera, it would suggest the person the camera is mocking the view of is in trouble or of a lower status, this is seen commonly in Tarantino's use of car boots (as shown below in his film reservoir dogs, the camera here taking the space of a police officer taken hostage by the gang of robbers), another example being Kubrick's 1987 war film Full Metal Jacket in which the drill sergeant can be seen standing over the private screaming, this shows his power over those of lower ranks. Our P.O.V. shot enlisted a very similar concept, the camera on the ground pointed up at the villain who hits the camera with a large branch, the POV shot here showing the power the villain has over the person whom we assume is the man in the box. This is also helped by a multitude of our other shots comparing the two characters.
Handheld
Handheld shots can be very useful in movements, for instance in Spielberg's war film Saving Private Ryan the handheld movement of the camera helps add to the sense of chaos and uncertainty. In our film the handheld motion is meant to give a sense of fear in the audience as it is added into the scene where the man in the box is hit over the head. The handheld movement helps add to the danger the man is in.
Low Key Lighting
Low Key Lighting refers to light which gives a high contrast yet very dark images, it was most popularised in the film noir stages of directors such as Truffaut and Godard in France however it has been used in a number of important films. Low key lighting symbolises the presence of evil, as well as emphasising emotions such as fear and isolation. In our film we shot the actors face in a dark surrounding which is a common usage of the low key technique, featuring in films such as David Cronenberg's 1986 film The Fly as well as Ford Coppola's 1979 film Apocalypse Now. In both of the aforementioned examples the villainous character of the movie was featured in this low key setting, we switched this in ours to instead show our man in the box as a white and innocent person surrounded by darkness, to emphasise his fear. Below our still from this scene are examples from Cronenberg's The Fly and Coppola's Apocalypse Now.
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