Photography

Unit Two

Shot

• The amount of subject matter that’s included within the frame of the screen

• Determined on the basis of how much of the human figure is in view

Types of Shots

– Extreme long shot– Long shot– Full shot– Medium shot– Close-up– Extreme close-up

Extreme Long Shot

• Taken from a great distance, sometimes as far as a quarter mile away

• Exterior shot

• Shows much of the locale

• Most commonly shown in epic films where locale plays an important role: westerns, war films, samurai films, and historical movies

Example: Extreme Long Shot

Long Shot

• Corresponds approximately to the distance between the audience and the stage in the live theater

• Includes the full shot, which just barely includes the human body in full, with the head near the top of the frame and the feet near the bottom

Medium Shot

• Contains a figure from the knees or waist up

• Useful for shooting exposition scenes, carrying movement, and for dialogue

• Includes the two and three shots

Close-Up

• Shows very little if any locale and concentrates on a relatively small object—the human face, for example

• Magnifies the size of an object

• Elevates the importance of things shot closely

Deep-Focus Shot

• Long shot consisting of a number of focal distances and photographed in-depth

• Captures objects at close, medium and long angles simultaneously, all of them in sharp focus

Example: Deep Focus Shot

Angles

• Where the camera is placed

• Most film realists avoid extreme angles

Eye-Level Shots

• Photos from eye level, roughly five to six feet off the ground

Bird’s Eye View

• Photographing a scene from directly overhead

High Angle Shots

• Camera placed on a crane, or some high promontory

• Give the viewer a sense of a general overview

• Usually include the ground or floor as background

Example

Low Angles

• Increase height and thus are useful for suggesting verticality

• Increase a short actor’s height

• Capture a sense of confusion

• The sky or a ceiling is the only background

Example: Low Angle

Oblique Angle

• Lateral tilt of the camera

• Horizon is skewed

Lighting Key

• Geared to the:– Theme– Mood– Genre of film

High Key

• Bright illumination and few shadows

• Comedies and musicals

High Contrast

• Harsh shafts of lights and dramatic streaks of blackness

• Tragedies and melodramas

Low Key

• Diffused shadows and atmospheric pools of light

• Mysteries, thrillers and gangster films

Light versus Dark

• Symbolic connotations

• Bible

• Rembrandt and Caravaggio

• Dark suggests evil, fear, the unknown

• Light suggests security, virtue, truth joy

Caravaggio

Rembrandt

Color

• 1915-Melies’s movies were painted by hand in assembly line fashion

• 1930s- tended to prettify everything; exotic scenery emphasized

• 1940s- color in film became widespread• 1950s- color problem resolved; more

natural• 1980s- black and white movies could be

colorized

Use of Color in Film

• Strongly symbolic to suggest mood

• Cool colors (blue, green, violet) tend to suggest tranquility, aloofness and serenity

• Warm colors (red, yellow, orange) suggest aggressiveness, violence, and stimulation