Cinematography: The Look of Our Film

In a previous post, I alluded to cinematography whilst talking about the films of David Fincher. I talked about his film having a 'distinctive visual style'. This style is created by the use of specific camera shots and lighting, and these processes are collectively known as cinematography.

Tom and I see our short film as having a minimalist feel. This is not to say that we will only put minimum effort into cinematography, or that we will only take minimal control of the images we capture. On the contrary, it means that we will ensure that our film doesn't have an elaborate look; it is supposed to be a personal story with a cerebral feel, and we want to focus the audience's attention in this direction, not to have them distracted by a great amount of unnecessary detail.

Good examples of this style in use are Dennis Gansel's German film Die Welle (The Wave - 2008), and the aforementioned Dead Man's Shoes (2004) from British director Shane Meadows. What both have in common with our film is that they are thoughtful and psychological thrillers. The shots are clean and simple, with an unobtrusive mise-en-scene and, for the most part, natural lighting, as illustrated in the screen-captures below. This is the kind of style we aim to recreate.

Die Welle



Dead Man's Shoes

As you can see, the focus in the shots above is clearly on the characters; the people around which the narrative revolves. One of the central aspects of our film is going to be the protagonist's ambiguous internal monologue, and a clear cinematographic focus on the protagonist will complement the monologue and add to our creative exploration of the character. To maintain such an intimate visual focus, we will mainly use mid-shots and close-ups which reveal the body-language and facial expressions of our actors, with the occasional long-shots to establish and close scenes.

We do intend to make use of effects in post-production, but again, we want to keep these simple, so that they serve their purpose of communicating the narrative, as opposed to making the film look cinematically elaborate. Some examples of effects are a monochrome colouring to show events of the past, and a translucent overlay of two different videos to show a character's thoughts. Tom is going to work out how we can create these effects, and I will post I link to this below when it is ready.

Update 2/12/10 - Tom and I have arranged to work through the methods for creating these effects with the school Media Technician, so that we will both have the knowledge and experience when it comes to the editing of our actual piece. Tom will still be responsible for posting this information, and I will provide the link to that post below.

-We actually decided to show what we have learned in a video in this post: http://blainekenneallya2media.blogspot.com/2010/12/production-log-3-experience-in-editing.html