1
Invisible technique
Learning the ropes
There have been a number of boy-wonders and young prodigies in the history of film making but the most spectacular debut was when 25-year-old Orson Welles was summoned to RKO in 1939 to make his first movie. He had no experience of film making and Miriam Geiger, a researcher at RKO, explained camera angles to the young Welles by cutting out frame holes in pieces of paper and pasting over a selection of shot sizes taken from a reel of film She added a short text description to remind Welles of the building blocks of film making.
Welles remembers that in the second week of shooting ‘Citizen Kane',
an awful moment came when I didn't understand [screen] directions. That was because I had learnt how to make movies by running ‘Stagecoach’ [dir. John Ford, 1939] every night for a month. Because if you look at ‘Stagecoach’ you will see that the Indians attack [the stagecoach] left to right and then they attack right to left and so on. In other words, there is no direction followed –every rule is broken in the picture, and I sat and watched it forty five times, and so of course when I was suddenly told in an over-shoulder shot that I had to look camera left instead of camera right, I said no because I was standing here – that argument you know. And so we closed the picture down about two in the afternoon and went back to my house and Toland [the film's cinematographer] showed me how that worked, and I said ‘God there is a lot of stuff here I don't know', and he said ‘There's nothing I can't teach you in three hours'.
(The Complete Citizen Kane', BBC TV)
Greg Toland was right. You can understand the visual grammar of film making in an afternoon. You can, in the same time, also learn the position of every letter of the alphabet in the ‘qwerty’ layout of a word processor keyboard. Knowing where each letter of the alphabet is positioned will not make you into a writer. How words are combined to make meaningful sentences will take longer. Creating vivid and memorable prose equal to the greatest novelists may never be achieved. If Welles was ignorant of film technique when he began shooting ‘Citizen Kane', he must have been a prodigious high-speed trainee because, in the opinion of French film director Francois Truffaut, ‘Citizen Kane’ inspired more would-be directors than any other film.
Many newcomers to film and TV programme making often assume that as content and subject differs widely between programmes they must employ specific individual methods in their production. Film and television programmes are seen as one-off, custom-built entities. They may be surprised to find that there are significant links in technique, for example, between a 1930s musical, a 1940s crime film and a contemporary televised football match. The majority of productions (but not all – the exceptions will be discussed in the next chapter), share a common visual grammar. Like spoken language, this set of conventions was not originated by a group of academics laying down the law. The visual grammar evolved over time, through practical problem solving on a set, at a location or in an editing booth. This body of visual recipes is sometimes called invisible technique or continuity editing, and it evolved at the very beginning of film making.
It is important to understand the role composition plays in sustaining ‘invisible technique', but it is equally important to remember that this is only one type of visual language. There are alternatives to this system, although ‘invisible technique’ is the predominant code used in nearly every type of film and television production. Its use is so widespread that many people in the industry believe that it is the only valid set of conventions. They suspect that anyone using alternative techniques is either ignorant of the standard conventions or is simply incompetent. To some extent they are correct if the production is aimed at a mass audience who usually anticipate and intuitively understand certain visual forms learnt over a lifetime of watching popular story telling on film and television. Unfamiliar codes of film making may confuse and ‘switch-off’ a mass audience.
A moving photograph
‘Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory’ is considered by many film historians to be the world's first moving picture. It was made by the Lumière brothers and, on 22 March 1895 in Paris, it was possibly the first film to be projected to an audience. Nine months later, on 28 December 1895, a paying audience watched a number of films made by the brothers including ‘Arrival of a Train at a Station', ‘Baby's Lunch’ and ‘The Sprinkler Sprinkled'.
These ‘films’ were single-shot, ‘actualities’ or documentary views with the camera framing a fixed viewpoint. They were considered as moving photographs and were unlike later developments in film making in both how they were made – a single uncut shot – and in how they were understood by their audience. Audiences were familiar with slide shows, some with mechanical moving images accompanied by a commentary and/or music. It has been suggested that early film was seen by audiences as a continuation of slide presentation and other serial projection of images. They were like the series of pictures, the Rakes Progress, painted by William Hogarth in 1735. Each picture had individual interest but were linked by a common theme. The first moving pictures were discontinuous, animated photographs and in themselves did not form a continuous narrative. The images were not self-sufficient in telling a story and were possibly not conceived as telling a story by their producers or audience. The concept of film narrative and the required technique to create a convincing set of consecutive images had to be learnt by film makers and cinemagoers.
Figure 1.1 (a) The title slide of a series of Victorian coloured illustrations of scenes of a fire. Another drawing (b) depicts firemen rescuing the trapped inhabitants of the building on fire. As one slide followed another, often accompanied by an explanatory spoken commentary, different events could be shown out of sequence and still be understood by the audience. A shot from an early silent film (c) of the same subject. The shots in the film followed the conventions of the slide show and made little attempt to persuade the audience they were watching a continuous event in real time. The difference was that film provided a series of moving illustrations
In a rudimentary form, basic film technology (except the recording of film sound) was invented by 1896, but the idea that film's primary purpose was to convince and persuade an audience they were watching a continuous event had to be recognized. During the 1890s, multi-shot views were shown, sometimes compiled by the exhibitor from different suppliers, and sometimes by the producers of film, without the concept that film could tell a story.
It has been suggested that Mèliès, in the 1890s, recognized the potential of film's ability to manipulate time and space when his camera jammed whilst shooting a bus leaving a tunnel. After clearing the camera jam he continued filming with the camera framed on exactly the same view and then found, when the film was developed, that the bus had miraculously turned from a bus into a hearse. This may be an apocryphal story, but it demonstrates the potential of film technique that Mèliès in a pioneering way was able to develop. He continued to shoot separate scenes containing no shot change and simply conceived the camera as the static eye of a privileged theatre spectator witnessing a series of magical illusions.
The claim that audiences for this primitive cinema saw the presentation differently from later cinemagoers is based on the conjecture that they were being shown views rather than being told a story. Film academic Tom Gunning proposed that cinema development split between story telling, which went on to dominate commercial cinema, and the cinema of attraction, which went underground and turned into avant-ga rde film Primitive cinema in this sense was a series of visual displays providing spectator pleasure.
Continuity cinema
With magic lantern shows such as ‘Fire', a rudimentary story was told, expanded by an accompanying commentary, of the start of a house on fire, raising the alarm at the fire station, the firemen journey to the fire, the fire raging in the interior, firemen with hoses and then climbing a ladder, followed by a rescue. Although there was a need for space relationships to be clear (e.g., interior fire station was distinct from interior burning house), there was really no need for time to follow a linear path.
There could be overlapping of time because as one slide followed another different events could be shown out of sequence and still be understood by the audience. Theatrical presentations such as Mèliès films are a series of scenes that the audience observe from their individual single viewpoint. Film storytelling gradually evolved a technique that allowed multiple perspectives or viewpoints without disrupting the audience's involvement with the story.
Film added a time dimension, and a major problem for film makers was to establish linear continuity. They discovered that action could be made to seem continuous from shot to shot. Instead of each shot being seen as a different and distinct view, similar to turning the pages of a photo album, film makers learnt how to join the views together into a seamless flow of images.
In early film, action was played out to its end before moving to another piece of action. Unlike the single-shot actuality pioneering films, the director of ‘The Great Train Robbery’ (1903), Edwin S. Porter, cut away from action before it was concluded. Although he did not intercut during a scene this effectively was the invention of the shot.
The shot
The shot replaced the scene to become the unit of storytelling. In the period from the Lumière brothers’ first public projection of film to the outbreak of war in 1914, film making moved from a series of tableaux scenes echoing Victorian slide shows and theatre presentations, to a unique method of narrative presentation. Theatre relies on scenes, staging action, movement, lighting and text to make the required dramatic point. Film invented the concept of multi-positioned viewpoints. These innovations occurred as the result of practical problem-solving rather than abstract theorizing.
A photograph does not need another photograph to explain it; it is self-contained. A film shot is a partial explanation – a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. The innovation in film making was to tell a story in individual images (shots) that did not disrupt the audience's attention by the methods used to produce the pictures. It was a coherent set of visual conventions and techniques that aimed to be invisible to the audience. The first film makers had to experiment and invent the grammar of editing, shot-size and the variety of camera movements that are now standard. The ability to find ways of shooting subjects and then editing the shots together without distracting the audience was learnt over a number of years.
The creation of 'invisible' technique
The ability to record an event on film was achieved in the latter part of the nineteenth century. During the following years, there was the transition from the practice of running the camera continuously to record an event, to the stop/start technique of separate shots where the camera was repositioned between each shot in order to film new material. The genesis of film narrative was established.
There was a moment of discovery when someone first had the idea of moving the camera closer, or using a closer lens, to provide an image of a person in close-up. Another had the idea of putting the camera in a car or train and filmed the first tracking shot. As early as 1897, a camera was placed in a gondola and provided camera movement in ‘Le Grand Canal à Venice'. The panning shot was invented when someone moved the camera slowly across a landscape or street scene.
As well as camera movement came the problems involved in stopping the camera, moving to a new position and starting the camera again. The guiding concept that connected all these developing techniques of camera movement and shot change was the need to persuade the audience that they were watching continuous action in real time.
Standard camerawork conventions
The technique of changing shot without distracting the audience were discovered by a number of film pioneers. Several editing methods were evolved and became the standard conventions of film making and later television. These included continuity cutting and parallel action cutting, variation in shot size and not crossing ‘the line', matching camera movement to action, lighting for mood, glamour and atmosphere, and editing for pace and variety.
Many film practises evolved from the need to stitch together a number of shots filmed out of sequence. A seamless string of images was designed to hide the methods of film production and to convince the spectator that the fabrication constructed by many weeks of film making had a believable reality. Camera and editing methods contrived to prevent the viewer becoming conscious that they were watching an elaborate replica.
Early film technique had the camera firmly fastened to a tripod, although some camera movement was achieved by mounting the camera on a moving vehicle or craft. Panning heads gradually came into use after 1900 and the standard horizontal lens angle appears to have been 25° or 17° (see Chapter 12, ‘Composition styles’ for a discussion on lens angle and the focal length of the lens). Framing was similar to contemporary still photography with staging similar to a theatre presentation.
Reverse angles, point-of-view shots and position matching on cuts were all discovered and became standard technique. The evolution of the grammar of film technique was not instantaneous or self-evident. Each visual technique, such as parallel tracking with the action, had to be invented, refined and accepted by other film makers before entering the repertoire of standard camera practice.
The thread that linked most of these innovations was the need to provide a variety of ways of presenting visual information coupled with the need for them to be unobtrusive in their transition from shot to shot. Expertly used, they were invisible and yet provided the narrative with pace, excitement and variety. These criteria are still valid and much of the pioneering work in the first decades of the last century remains intact in current camera technique. To tell a believable film story, the audience had to believe they were watching an unfolding event that was occurring ‘now'. The technique that evolved ensured that the audience understood the action and were not distracted by the production methods.
This required the mechanics of film making to be hidden from the audience; that is, to be invisible. Invisible technique places the emphasis on the content of the shot rather than production technique in order to achieve a seamless flow of images directing the viewer's attention to the narrative. It allows shot changes to be unobtrusive and emphasizes what is contained within the frame and to smoothly move the camera to a new viewpoint without distracting the audience. This is achieved by:
unobtrusive intercutting (see Chapter 17 on editing);
camera movement motivated by action or dialogue (see Chapter 16, Movement);
camera movement synchronized with action;
continuity of performance, lighting, atmosphere and action.
The development in storytelling in pictures required selection and choice of shot when recording. This included decisions on:
size of shot;
camera height;
choice of lens and camera distance from main subject;
camera angle relative to main subject.
Figure 1.2 (a) To cut from this shot...
(b) to this shot...
you need this shot (c) to show change of direction, otherwise there would be a visual jump in the flow of shots.
Keeping the audience informed of the geography of the event is the mainstay of standard camera technique. Shots are structured to allow the audience to understand the space, time and logic of the action and each shot follows the line of action to maintain consistent screen direction so that the action is completely intelligible
Where to position the camera (camera angle), when intercutting on a scene created the convention of the 180° system. To avoid confusing the audience, it was found necessary to position the camera one side of an imaginary line drawn between two or more subjects when intercutting between them. If this is ignored and the camera ‘crosses the line’ when shooting a subsequent shot, it appears as if intercut faces are looking out of the same side of the frame and leaves the audience with the impression that the actors are not in conversation with each other (see Figure 1.3).
The same convention is applied to chase sequences and sports events where succeeding shots follow the line of action to maintain consistent screen direction so that the geography of the action is completely intelligible (e.g., camera positions at a football match). It is important that in each scene shots are structured to allow the audience to understand the space, time and logic of the action. This creates the illusion that distinct, separate shots (possibly recorded out of sequence and at different times) form part of a continuous event being witnessed by the audience.
Orson Welles’ complaint of the lack consistent screen direction in ‘Stagecoach’ is correct, but John Ford, a great film director, may have deliberately ‘broken the rules’ and crossed the line in order to inject confusion and tension in the Indian attack on the stagecoach sequence.
In general, for invisible technique to succeed, careful thought must be given to how each shot is set up and how it will relate to the intended preceding and succeeding shots. Editing and shooting are inseparable.
Another convention – the 30° system, avoided distracting the audience by cutting between following shots of the same subject with a camera position of less than 30° relationship to the preceding shot. The audience was taught a visual convention that when a character looks out of frame, the subject of their observation – their point of view – was shown in the next shot. A variation of this is the eye line match when characters are in conversation. Individual shots of characters acters look out of frame at the anticipated position of their listener who will be seen in the subsequent shot. This convention is so well established that ‘Vampyr’ (1976), has a point-of-view shot from the camera position of a dead man in a coffin. It is a dead man's point-of-view!
Figure 1.3 Crossing the line. If the camera is positioned at A to record the interviewee's comments and there is a need to capture the interviewer's questions or reactions, then the camera must be repositioned on the same side of an imaginary line drawn between the interviewee and the interviewer. This will result in two shots that will intercut and give the viewer the impression the participants are talking to each other (C). If the camera is repositioned to C, the shots, when intercut, will now give the impression that the people are looking in the same direction and that they are not making eye contact (D)
The success of invisible technique in visual storytelling is that it is effective in engaging the audience and discretely moving them from one piece of action to the next. Variation in shot size in a scene and variation in shot length provide story emphasis and allow changes in pace and dramatic tension. Intercutting between parallel action of different events (e.g., the hero rushing to the rescue of the heroine intercut with shots of the heroine) increases dramatic intensity. The manipulation of space and time to serve the needs of the story allow shot structure to be pared down to storytelling essentials. Any shot or action that is not subservient to the main story direction is eliminated. In effect, the audience has learnt to place emphasis on any visual ‘clue’ they are shown because their movie-going experience has taught them that its relevance would be revealed as the story unfolded. This type of storytelling, as opposed to alternative technique discussed in the next chapter, aims to leave no loose ends in the resolution of the story both in the way it is shot and in the structure of the plot.
The methods of film making emerged in a remarkably short time compared with the history of other arts and crafts. It was and is a very practical craft emerging out of experiment, lucky accident or simply meeting the audience requirements of what was to become the most popular medium of mass entertainment. As each new technique was discovered it was quickly absorbed into the body of visual grammar that is still in use today, not only in dramatic/storytelling productions, but also in all forms of film and TV production. Documentary, news, comedy, sports broadcasting all attempt to hold their audience's attention by the use of invisible technique.
Realistic representation
Obviously there is deception in this technique. For example, a shot of an actor entering a train followed by another shot of a train leaving a station, and then continuing with a montage of shots until the train reaches its destination when the actor alights (in close-up), will be seen by the audience as a truthful account of the man's journey. In reality, the actor simply entered a train in one shot, and then left the train in another shot without journeying anywhere. It is the very essence of invisible technique for a production to convince the audience by a series of replications of ‘real life'. The event never happened in the way portrayed but the audience must be convinced that it did.
Invisible technique is reinforced by a mistaken belief in the scientific accuracy of a photographic image. A nineteenth-century view of the history of art was that painters had struggled for many centuries in the quest for a convincing representation of the world but were finally beaten to the post by the invention of photography. The photographic image was thought to bring a new standard of objectivity in depicting a three-dimensional object in two dimensions. The fallacy of considering the photographic image as an impartial depiction of an event is matched by a common assumption that painting is primarily concerned with a convincing representation of a specific field of view.
There is a widespread belief that whereas a painter's preoccupations may influence his vision, the TV or film camera is a fairly straightforward device for converting an event into a two-dimensional image.
Mechanical reproduction
Photography in the nineteenth century was welcomed by many people as a new and objective way of recording the world, unhampered by the subjective mediation of the individual artist. It was some time before people realized that the camera was as partial in the image it produces as a painter. Whenever a camera converts a three-dimensional subject into a two-dimensional picture the imprint of the lens height, camera tilt, distance from subject and lens angle is present in the composition of the shot.
The cameraman therefore needs to understand all the elements of visual design if he is to convey precisely the idea or event that is intended to be communicated. If he or she ignores conscious compositional decisions, then ‘auto composition’ takes over and the camera provides images that are a product of the characteristics of the camera and lens rather than the creative choices of the manipulator of the camera. The camera is not a scientific instrument. It subjectively records an event either by design, that is the cameraman selectively exploits camera technique, or by default if the camera is simply pointed at a subject before recording. Visual imagery has its own version of grammar and syntax that requires the same discernment and application to achieve precise communication as that practised in the study of language.
The camera is never objective. There are a number of conditioning elements that convert the original image into a two-dimensional image, including loss of binocular vision, a selective frame that excludes as well includes, a change in perspective, and so on.
Even if these distortions could be kept to a minimum, there is still the problem that the image is a selected message that has to be decoded by the viewer. The camera stands between the viewer and the original subject and apart from the preconceived attitudes the viewer brings to the images presented to him, the cameraman also brings his assumptions and professional values (technique) to bear on the message. In art historian E.H. Gombrich's (1982) words:
However faithful an image that serves to convey visual information may be, the process of selection will always reveal the maker's interpretation of what he considers relevant.
(The Image and the Eye)
Any camera – still, film or video – cannot record an image without leaving an imprint of the optical properties of its lens, its position in space and some indication of the reasons for selecting that lens position. Camerawork is a highly subjective activity and both the methods of perception (viewer and cameraman) and the ‘professional’ values that the cameraman brings to the subject will affect what is communicated.
In general one can attempt to classify camerawork into two groups. There are the camera positions that are chosen to record an event. These include not only the obvious examples of sports broadcasts and news events but also many feature productions rely on the script and performance to tell the story while the camera records the action. The opposite to the camera as a ‘neutral’ observer is when the camerawork attempts to ‘interpret’ the event. One of the best-known examples is Walter Ruttmann's ‘Berlin, Symphony of a Great City’ (1927). There are often more productions that mix the two approaches than concentrate on one style. A sports broadcast will often throw in shots of the crowd's wild enthusiasm or a fan's despair to interpret the excitement of the event.
Framing a shot
Composition is an umbrella word to describe choosing which set of camera parameters to employ in any given situation. It need not imply a formal balance or academic design when framing a shot. Composing an image is the process of selecting which set of techniques to employ.
Every shot has to be composed. In general, cameramen and directors may not describe the process of framing up, staging or setting up a shot as shot ‘composition'. The term may imply a formality that many programme makers wish to avoid. Contemporary productions aim for a freer, looser way of presenting visual information and tend to discard the formality of rigid balance of tone, shape and colour. And yet the process of choosing lens, lens height, camera angle, frame and positioning of subject and subject priorities are all elements that have been perennially used in image making.
Visual communication in painting, film or television have often shared similar visual conventions. In the fifteenth century Leon Alberti realized that the controlling design factor when creating a two-dimensional image was the distance of the eye from the scene and its height from the ground – considerations that a modern cameraman/director will take into account when choosing the camera distance from the subject and camera height. In the Renaissance period, Piero della Francesca wrote a book Of the Perspective of Painting where he detailed his ideas about the geometry of linear perspective. He included a recommendation that the angle of view of an event to be painted should be 60°. Today many film makers would consider that this ‘wide-angled’ shot would distort the appearance of the image but others would welcome the dynamic movement and images such an angle of view would create.
The appearance of a photographic image can be manipulated by many different camera techniques to suit the intended visual communication. Composition is the portmanteau word to describe these techniques. In image making, it has no formal aim other than to choose the most appropriate photographic style in order to effectively communicate.
Composition
Composition plays a central part in invisible technique. The intention within this style of production is to disguise the mechanics of production. To achieve this every shot must take into account:
if the most important element in the frame is the most dominant –what other visual elements distract or compete?
how does the size of shot and camera angle relate to the previous and succeeding shots?
what motivates camera movement?
does the framing keep the audience's attention to within the frame or are there indicators of activity beyond the frame?
how visually dynamic does the shot need to be – what is its storytelling purpose?
what part does colour play in the framing?
what part do objects in focus and depth-of-field play in the composition?
is the purpose of the shot clearly achieved?
Whatever genre of film making (with exceptions to be discussed) some or all of these conventions will be used. They are discussed in more detail in succeeding chapters.
What is composition?
Another definition of composition is arranging all the visual elements in the frame in a way that makes the image a satisfactory and a complete whole. Integration of the image is obtained by the positioning of mass, colour and light in the most pleasing arrangement.
This definition is a start in the examination of composition but it does prompt further questions. What counts as ‘satisfactory and complete’ and is ‘pleasing arrangement’ an objective or subjective judgement?
The definition also has a half-hidden assumption that the purpose of pictorial composition is always to provide an agreeable visual experience independent of the purpose of the shot. Film and TV productions obviously serve more purposes than simply providing a ‘pleasing arrangement’ of images. There appears to be other aspects of picture making to be examined before answering the question – what is good composition and what function does it serve?
This book will concentrate on how to arrange a given subject for maximum visual effect. The subject of the shot is the predominantly influential element but many cameramen, in devising solutions to visual problems (another definition of composition) have to work with a subject that has already been selected. The cameraman's role usually centres on deciding between a choice of techniques on how best to handle the given material. In everyday programme production, there may be opportunities for the cameraman to select material that provides good visual potential but frequently the subject is prescribed by script or brief and the cameraman has to devise the best shot that can be achieved with the available material.
Whether the composition of any photographic image has succeeded could be judged by a number of criteria. The chapter on perception (Chapter 3) looks at the way images attract and hold attention and the relationship between the nature of human perception and how visual elements can be grouped and arranged to maintain interest.
Perspective, the influence of the frame and the visual design elements available to the cameraman, are discussed in relation to defining the purpose of a shot, creating and controlling visual elements to facilitate the transmission of the intended message and what is needed to create and control the image to establish atmosphere. Does the image convey, by its presentation, the reason why the shot was recorded?
Light, colour, how action is staged and camera movement all influence decisions about composition but they are never self-contained elements in the final image. A dynamic forceful image is not adequately analysed by identifying the constituent parts and a shot never exists in isolation. Answers to questions such as ‘is the image relevant to its context?', ‘what is the relationship to the previous and succeeding shots?', ‘what are the visual style and conventions of the programme genre and what is the influence of current fashions and styles?', all contribute to the structure of the composition.
There are many factors at work when framing up a shot and, in describing the general principles that influence compositional decisions, there is a need to set the current working practices and visual conventions in some sort of context. There are other conventions of presentation that intentionally draw attention to the means of production. Camera movement in this alternative technique is often restlessly on the move, panning abruptly from subject to subject, making no effort to disguise the transitions and deliberately drawing attention to the means by which the images are brought to the viewer. This technique may employ disruptive shot change, erratic camera movement and unexplained or puzzling events. Not all productions aim for clear, unambiguous storytelling. This breaking down or subverting the Hollywood convention of an ‘invisible’ seamless flow of images has a number of different forms or styles that require a separate treatment (see Chapter 2).
As there is a widespread emphasis on the ‘Hollywood’ model of ‘invisible technique’ of image making in mass entertainment and the majority of cameramen work within this convention, it would seem appropriate that it should be thoroughly understood and described. This analysis does not necessarily endorse these conventions over any other method of production but simply seeks to explain the principles of the techniques employed.
Composition involves a number of factors that at times interact and overlap. In attempting to tease out and describe constituent elements there is often the need to look again at basic compositional requirements by way of a new visual design. Pictorial unity is achieved by integrating all the visual elements within a frame but in attempting to describe the constituent parts it has not always been possible to keep these topics separated in watertight chapters.
Does the shot work?
Within the ‘invisible technique’ conventions, whether the cameraman's objective in composing the image has been achieved could be judged by answers to some of the following questions:
Does the image (as well as the sound) attract and hold the attention?
Is it accessible to normal human perception?
What elements in the shot maintain visual interest?
Does the image convey by its direct content, or by its mood, the intended information?
Does it fulfil the purpose of the shot?
Is the image relevant to its context?
How does it relate to the previous and succeeding shots?
Does it conform to the visual style and conventions of the programme genre?
Intuition
Can composition be taught? Can the ability to frame and light eye-catching images be learnt or is it all based on intuition? It is the folklore of film and TV cameramen that composition is intuitive and therefore almost inexplicable. Whereas trainees and juniors on camera crews have access to volumes of technical explanation about exposure, film stock, electronic image making and all the other technical descriptions of the tools of their trade, composition – the heart of visual communication – is considered a God-given talent that is either understood or not; if it is not, then the unfortunate individual who lacks compositional ability is seen to be similar to a tone-deaf person and would not know good composition if it jumped out of the viewfinder and hit them in the eye.
Johannes Itten, an art teacher, gave this advice to his students:
If you, unknowing, are able to create masterpieces in colour, then unknowledge is your way. But if you are unable to create masterpieces in colour out of your unknowledge, then you ought to look for knowledge.
Many of us working in film and TV know, through many years of experience, exactly how to reposition the lens in space or choose a different lens-angle in order to improve the appearance of the shot. We are either working to inherited craft values of what is ‘good’ composition or we are repositioning and juggling with the camera until we intuitively feel that we have solved that particular visual problem. Frequently there is no time to analyse a situation and the only thing to fall back on is experience. Compositional experience is the result of many years of solving visual problems. Good visual communication is not a gift from heaven but is learnt from finding out in practice what does and does not work.
The following chapters attempt to review and reveal why certain visual solutions to framing are considered acceptable and where and how these standards originated and developed. There are aspects of composition that are subjective and determined by individual taste but much of what is considered standard practice both in painting and in the creation of film and television images is conditioned by the innate requirements of human perception.
'I see what you mean!'
There is usually a reason why a shot is recorded on tape or film The purpose may be simply to record an event or the image may play an important part in expressing a complex idea. Whatever the reasons that initiate the shot, the cameraman recording the shot should have an understanding of compositional technique if the idea to be expressed is to be clearly communicated to the intended audience.
The appearance as well as the content of the shot is an integral part of the process of communication. Often, as in painting, form and content of screen images are inseparable. It is accepted that in a drama production the composition of the shot will play a major part in the storytelling. The form, as well the content of the shot, is used to tell the story. But even in the hardest of ‘hard news’ stories where objectivity is striven for and the camera is intended to be a neutral observer, the effect of the image on the audience will depend on camera framing and camera position. Each time the record button is pressed, a number of crucial decisions affecting clear communication have been consciously or unconsciously made.
Why composition is important
A cameraman shows the audience where to look. His role is to solve visual problems usually in the shortest possible time. Although the cameraman's presence in factual programme making can influence or disrupt the subject matter, the bottom line is to get the best possible rendering of what is there.
An image should communicate in a simple, direct way and not have to rely on a ‘voice over’ to explain, reveal or argue its significance. The definitive shot has the relevant content with all the visual elements in the frame organized to achieve clear communication. The compositional design will condition how the image is perceived. There must be no confusion in the viewer's mind about the purpose for which the shot was taken.
Good composition reinforces the manner in which the mind organizes information. It emphasizes those elements such as grouping, pattern, shape and form that provide the viewer with the best method of ‘reading’ the image smoothly and efficiently. If there is friction in visual movement of the eye across the frame, if there are areas of the image that stop the eye dead, then an unsatisfactory feeling is unconsciously experienced and, in an extreme form, will end the attention of the viewer. There is a fine dividing line between ‘teasing’ the eye with visual ambiguities and losing the interest of the audience.
The cameraman must help the viewer to perceive what is intended to be communicated by providing design guidelines to channel the movement of the eye within the frame. The eye movement must be continuous and smooth and be led in a premeditated route across the relevant parts of the subject matter without any distracting detours to unimportant visual elements in the frame. It is part of the cameraman's craft to create shots that are well designed and engage the attention of the viewer. Simply putting a frame around a subject by a ‘point and shoot’ technique will often result in incoherent visual design that fails to connect.
The image produced by a camera has no memory, knowledge or experience of the content. If you, as the cameraman, have additional details about the subject that are not contained within the frame but this information helps you to understand the image, the audience will also need that knowledge or it will supply its own conjectures. If this extra knowledge is vital to the information that is intended to be conveyed, the shot is incomplete and partial communication can only be achieved. Can the image explain all that is required without additional explanation? For example, in a television feature item about traffic congestion, a doctor was shown driving to an emergency and then having great difficulty in finding a place to park. In one shot, his efforts to repeatedly reverse into a narrow parking space were seen by most of the audience as simply his inability to drive. The shot failed in communicating its intended purpose, which was that traffic congestion could be a hazard in an emergency.
To recap, control of visual communication requires:
a clear understanding of the message to be communicated;
an understanding of invisible technique to maximize the communication;
an understanding of perception;
employing the full range of visual grammar to achieve communication.
Control of composition
Control of composition is achieved by the ability to choose the appropriate camera technique such as viewpoint, focal length of lens, lighting, exposure, in addition to employing a range of visual design elements such as balance, colour contrast, perspective of mass/line, etc.
A well designed composition is one in which the visual elements have either been selectively included or excluded. The visual components of the composition must be organized to engage the viewer's attention. A starting point is often to follow the old advice to simplify by elimination, and to reduce to essentials in order to create an image that has strength and clarity.
Visual design techniques
Much of the technique employed in programme/film production is the result of subjective decisions made from a range of possible options in sympathy with the main narrative or programme requirements. Alongside subjective creative preferences there are also objective principles of design and specific ways of organizing the image to have predictable effects. Good visual design involves elements of individual creativity plus a knowledge of the role of a number of factors that affect the way an image is perceived. These will be dealt with in detail in the appropriate chapter and include light, figure/ground relationships, shape, frame, balance, light/dark relationships, line, perspective of mass and line, colour, content.
Cultural influences
Some aspects of compositional technique are timeless whilst others are fashionably of the moment. They both have a part to play in the well-designed shot. The image should be designed to satisfy an aesthetic appreciation as well as the quest for information. This aesthetic ‘buzz’ changes with culture and fashion over time. Attention can be captured by the new and the novel but, when dealing with a mass audience, attention can just as easily be lost if current conventions and the expectations of the audience are flouted and the shock of the new is used with the mistaken idea of grabbing attention. As will be seen in the psychology of perception (Chapter 3), people ignore what they cannot understand. Communication can only be achieved if you have the attention of the audience.
Changing fashions
Styles of film and TV camerawork change but the stylistic changes are usually elements of narrative presentation rather than in compositional form. Barry Salt in Film Style and Technology (1983) identified the first use of the ‘over-the-shoulder two shot’ as in about 1910. The reverse angle shot of faces intercut in dialogue appeared in ‘The Loafer’ (a silent western) in 1912. These basic compositional techniques have become part of the language of visual storytelling. Shot structures are refashioned, editing conventions in the presentation of time and space are re-worked, conventions of narrative continuity are challenged and replaced but many composition conventions have remained (Figure 1.4).
Figure 1.4 Over-the-shoulder two shot
Such compositional conventions are considered normal or standard and have been learnt over time by cinemagoers and TV viewers. These compositional stereotypes can be reinforced or confronted. Human perception functions by seeking to simplify complex forms and patterns but this can be frustrated by the cameraman if, in his choice of framing, he creates disorganized images. ‘But what is it?', the viewer inquires when presented with an unfamiliar image. The search to classify is natural to the human mind and a perceptual ‘puzzle’ may engage the attention of an observer up to the point where he or she gives up the attempt to decode its significance. This point will vary with the individual but many people, anticipating a familiar and recognizable image on the screen, have an aversion to the unfamiliar. If the shot cannot immediately be categorized, they may mentally switch off if their image of visual reality is too severely challenged.
The American cinematographer William Fraker was setting up a shot for ‘Rosemary's Baby’ (1968). The director, Roman Polanski, requested a specific framing through a door to show a woman telephoning in the adjacent room, but had so staged the action that the woman's face was masked by the door frame. Fraker wanted to reposition the camera to bring her face into view. Polanski resisted. ‘With my framing’ he explained ‘we will have every member of the audience craning to their right in an attempt to see the face behind the doorframe'. The function of this shot was to withhold information in order to feed the curiosity of the audience in the development of the story.
Summary
Good composition is the best arrangement of the subject matter in sympathy with the function of the shot.
It should have simplicity and intensity and achieve its objective with clarity, precision and economy.