FREE Film School: Know the Shots - 1

FREE Film School: Know the Shots – 1

So you got a gig as 1st assistant for a DoP (Director of Photography) on a professional film shoot. Everyone runs around setting up the next shot, which is going to be a “Dutch tilt”. Luckily, you suppress your desire to come back with “Sounds like double Dutch to me” and instead nod silently as if you know exactly what that is.

Then, you quickly find something to do to look busy, whilst glancing at the others for any kind of clue. But hoping they don’t catch that slight look of panic in your eyes. Tip: in these situations, find someone who looks like they know what they’re doing and ask if you can help. Now you can follow their lead and avoid standing around looking foolish. Just cross your fingers and hope they’re not also bluffing…

Of course, you could just come right out and ask “What the f… is a Dutch tilt?”

But seriously though, having a browse through shot styles will help expand your filmmaking knowledge. So in today’s FREE Film School post, we’re going to have a look at the many and varied shots used by filmmakers throughout filmmaking history. This will help you think like a filmmaker while you’re teaching yourself filmmaking.

At film school, shots are central to an investigation that helps you better understand filmmaking techniques. Because film is a language and the better you are at communicating with it, the more fluent you will be as a filmmaker.

Extreme Long Shot

Otherwise known as the extreme wide shot. In this shot you are a very long way from your subject. The most famous example I can think of is in the film Lawrence of Arabia by David Lean. It’s the moment where Sherif Ali (played by Omar Sharif) appears out of the shimmering heat to make one of the slowest (but most memorable) entrances into a movie ever.

Interesting side note: watch how as Sharif climbs off the camel, the blood spreads over the white cloth which lies over the head of the character he has just killed. This was many years before CGI, so how was it possible. Well, note the hand of the actor playing the dead man rests under the white cloth. Presumably, he was able to gently squeeze the blood onto the cloth at the right moment…

While this is one of the greatest moments in movie history, the shot comes in the middle of a scene. However, the extreme wide shot is more often used at the beginning of a scene as an establishing shot. A wide view gives the audience a sense of location.

Just imagine every scene starts with a voice over narrative: “Here we are in the Sinai Desert…” But instead of a voice over, you convey that message in an image.

Having said that, it’s worth considering why David Lean chose to use such an extreme wide shot in the middle of a scene. To me, the use of this wide shot conveys the feeling of the vast expanse of the desert. When you inhabit a featureless terrain, there’s no creeping up on anyone. The extreme wide shot used here makes us feel vulnerable and alone in an inhospitable landscape.

But what are your thoughts on the use of the shot here?

Long Shot

The long shot is the less extreme version of the shot above, obviously. Any character in a long shot will be a smaller part of the environment surrounding them. Thus, it’s a great way not only to set up a scene, but to show how a character is just a part of the bigger world she inhabits.

Psychologically, the long shot will make characters in them look smaller (and therefore less powerful, less significant). That reminds me of the scene in The Godfather by Francis Ford Coppola where Don Corleone is shot and almost killed by 2 gunmen.

Now, Don Corleone is a very powerful character. But at the precise moment the shooting starts, Coppola switches to a wide shot (looking down). Why choose this shot? Well, I don’t know what Coppola was thinking, but it seems to me this shot very much makes Corleone appear smaller (less powerful) and more vulnerable than in any other shot in the movie.

Now contrast that with the shot from Lawrence of Arabia where Sherif Ali is a tiny dot on the horizon, yet ends up being the one doing the killing. Certainly, Ali’s all-black outfit creates a more imposing figure and separates him from the desert as something dominant. While the other (vulnerable) characters are dressed to blend in with the colour of the sand.

Full Shot

A full shot moves us a few steps closer to the subject. A character will be shown completely from head to toe. But rather than being just a part of the contents, the character will mostly fill the frame. By showing the character complete, the framing focuses the audience’s attention on the actions of the character as opposed to his emotions.

Think about watching sport and how the camera usually shows us the whole athlete. This is because we want to see them in action, performing amazing physical feats. Only when singing (or listening to) their national anthem, collecting a medal or cup, preparing to take a match-winning kick or shot, for example, does the camera zoom in to athletes faces. Because in these moments the audience is now interested in seeing how they are feeling.

Here’s a series of shots of Jim Carrey throughout the ages. Because Jim is known for his slapstick physical humour, you’ll see a lot of full shots in this sequence. We need to see all of Jim as – when attempting to make us laugh – he uses his whole body.

Also, when watching through this list of Jim Carrey pratfalls, I guess we can understand why he would rather not play this character any more.

This Week’s FREE film School Exercise

So, I originally intended to go through the entire list of film school shots in one post. But as I’m already at a 1000 words with so many shots to go, I see this is going to take a series of posts. But anyway, I think it’s good that we take our time over each shot and think about how they’re used in storytelling.

So this week’s exercise is to watch films and look out for those extreme long, long and full shots. Think about how they fit into a sequence of shots and what emotions or ideas they are trying to convey. We will never know what the director or DoP was actually thinking (unless they expressed it somewhere), but by mulling it over ourselves we get better at thinking like a filmmaker.

Also in this week’s exercise is to look at your own projects and think about how these 3 shots might fit. If you want to go even further, you can try filming some sequences for practice and include them. As I always say, use what you have available (like every single successful filmmaker did before they got to earn a living at it).

So friends and family or even pets can be roped in to practice storytelling. How about an extreme wide shot of your partner walking the dog as a silhouette on the horizon, as the sun sets? Move in closer to a simple wide as they throw the ball for the dog to fetch. Now a full shot to show the dog athletically catching the ball and returning it…

You get the idea (I’m afraid athletic dogs and spouses are not included in this free film school course).

P.S.

By the way, a Dutch tilt is shot where the camera is tilted on its side to create a quirky angle. Think German Expressionism, Orson Welles, Terry Gilliam and Tim Burton.

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