{"id":33299,"date":"2016-02-10T10:04:59","date_gmt":"2016-02-10T16:04:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/?p=33299"},"modified":"2022-09-29T18:11:54","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T23:11:54","slug":"off-center-mad-maxs-headroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/2016\/02\/10\/off-center-mad-maxs-headroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Off-center: MAD MAX’s headroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Furiosa<\/a><\/p>\n

From Mad Max: Center Framed<\/strong><\/a>, by Vashi Nedomansky.<\/em><\/p>\n

DB here:<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a filmmaker, how do you frame the action you\u2019re shooting? Put aside documentary shooting, which doesn\u2019t allow you as many options as staged filming does. A lot of your compositional decisions depend on the aspect ratio of the image.<\/p>\n

After the mid-1910s, filmmakers relied heavily on close views\u2014framing typically two or three people, or even just one. These \u201cportrait\u201d framings were well-suited to the 4:3 format that was standardized in the silent era. But what happens when filmmakers must compose in\u00a0wider frames, especially the 2.35:1 format that became common with CinemaScope?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Too much scope in ‘Scope?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In classic Western painting and other traditions as well, a horizontal format is associated with fairly distant views of groups or landscapes.<\/p>\n

\"Last\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"230h<\/a><\/p>\n

Early \u2018Scope filmmakers did sometimes favor distant, spread-out ensemble staging, with greater or less depth. (Below:\u00a0Island in the Sun; Bad Day at Black Rock.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

\"107\"<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"101\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I try to track some of those early options in this online lecture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But as technology improved, filmmakers managed to shoot medium- and close shots in the wide format. They \u201ctamed\u201d \u2018Scope to a more traditional continuity. And as there were pressures toward \u201cintensified continuity,\u201d filmmakers adapted those tenets to ‘Scope. They gave us\u00a0close-ups, fast cutting, and roaming camera movements within the widescreen array.<\/p>\n

Like all solutions, this involved trade-offs. The 4:3 format was well-suited to the human body, and even a tight facial close-up could fill it fairly well. But a single or even a two-shot, in anamorphic widescreen, can leave a lot of the frame vacant or relatively unimportant.<\/p>\n

\"Furiosa<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Brides<\/a><\/p>\n

Cinematographer Boris Kaufman objected to\u00a0the extra real estate. In traditional arts, the design should fit snugly into the format, with all areas contributing to the image\u2019s effect:<\/p>\n

The space within the frame should be entirely used up in composition.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But close views in widescreen typically leave a lot of dead space.\u00a0If you put the figure in the center, that dead space can be on the sides.<\/p>\n

\"Max<\/a><\/p>\n

The bilateral symmetry of Wes Anderson\u2019s frames<\/a> is achieved on the premise that the figure is facing straight out at the viewer, so Anderson has the problem of filling up the flanking areas.<\/p>\n

Or the dead space can be bigger on one side of the frame than the other.\u00a0In that case, the figure, even a close one, is placed off-center in the 2.35\/2.40 frame. This can suggest that the object of attention is somewhere beyond the empty zone.<\/p>\n

\"Off<\/a><\/p>\n

To avoid sheer dead space, you can try to settle something in the background. If it\u2019s dramatically important, you can generate some nice compositional tension, in the manner of the wide-angle, deep-focus look of the 1940s.<\/p>\n

\"Depth<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Depth<\/a><\/p>\n

So as with most creative options, making a choice involves (a) tradeoffs and (b) further choices, some of them fairly forced. Go with widescreen, and you have to fill the frame somehow. Make one choice, and you have some dead areas, but you can control the viewer’s attention. If you fill the areas with significant action, you need to find some dynamic compositions. But you divide the viewer’s attention. You now\u00a0have to make people look where you want and when you want.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cuts for composition<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now add in cutting. How do you cut widescreen shots together, say in a conversation scene?<\/p>\n

Go back to painting. Sometimes the most important item sits in the geometrical center of the picture format. Rudolf Arnheim points out that often the exact center is vacant and items are grouped around it. The result is a pictorial tension, with elements balanced, either symmetrically or in more\u00a0complex patterns. In Bruegel’s Fall of Icarus<\/em>, the major action is split–a dramatic splashdown, a world that doesn’t notice. The fall takes place somewhat\u00a0off right of center, in a bright but far-offf area. It’s still almost indiscernible. The indifference of the peasants is given in the very composition of the image.<\/p>\n

\"Leonardo<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"icarus<\/a><\/p>\n

So too\u00a0with cinema. In a single image, when the main point of interest isn’t dead center, there can be either symmetry, or important items grouped\u00a0around the center.<\/p>\n

\"Symmetry\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"asymmetry<\/a><\/p>\n

Going beyond the single image, we find that editing can create a fairly gentle seesawing around the central area. A common tactic is shot\/ reverse-shot, with over-the-shoulder framings. In widescreen, that option tends to make the center fairly empty.<\/p>\n

\"Shot\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Rev<\/a><\/p>\n

Or you can try \u201ccompensatory\u201d shot\/ reverse-shot cutting, so that the empty area of the first shot is filled by the corresponding figure or action in the next shot.<\/p>\n

\"Furiosa<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Max<\/a><\/p>\n

This second isn\u2019t a bad solution, since the two shots together satisfy\u00a0Kaufman\u2019s dictum in a roundabout way. They become a \u201ccinematic\u201d way of filling the horizontal format, but in time rather than purely in space. And in this instance the main characters’ angled\u00a0eye levels fit together snugly, in the upper center.<\/p>\n

\"Merged<\/a><\/p>\n

There can be a certain suspense added, as the second frame slowly fills up to reveal the item.\u00a0When Furiosa looks off right, we cut to a shot of what’s caught her attention–an attack vehicle drawing into the frame on the right.<\/p>\n

\"Furiosa<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Vehicle<\/a><\/p>\n

Assume, as most people do, that our attention fastens on certain aspects of the frame\u2014typically those that attract us perceptually (brightness, movement, color, sound source, etc.) and that provide ongoing story information. So now you have to consider: How closely do you want your second shot to pick up on the crucial\u00a0area of the first shot? That is, is the smoothest cut the one that starts the next shot with the viewer\u2019s eye in the same part of the frame?<\/p>\n

Some editors argue for this sort of continuity. “If the eye is led to one side of the screen,” notes one primer, “the action of character in the next shot might be located on that side also. Again, the purpose of the cut is to allow the eye to follow the movement.”<\/p>\n

We\u2019re back with our old friend the guided saccades<\/a>, the fast, jerky eye movements that sample our\u00a0environment. We\u2019ve seen\u00a0saccades at work in a single shot, thanks to staging that guides our attention. (Go here for a first-pass analysis<\/a>, here for the eye-tracking evidence<\/a>.) What about the cuts? The research of psychologist Tim Smith\u00a0suggests\u00a0that many editors intuitively try to match the point of interest across cuts. This is especially evident in the default zone, the geometrical center.<\/p>\n

Keeping the viewer\u2019s attention fastened on one area of the screen across the cut could be of great value in fast-cut action scenes. That way the viewer couldn\u2019t miss the most important thing\u2014a face, a gesture, a prop. This was the aim of George Miller in certain scenes of Mad Max: Fury Road<\/em>. According to cinematographer John Seale, the centered compositions make it easier for the viewer to follow the action.<\/p>\n

Your eye won\u2019t have to shift\u2026to find the next subject when you\u2019ve only got 1.8 seconds of time to do that.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vashi Nedomansky has created a striking video<\/a>, complete with centered crosshairs, that shows the strictness of framing and composition during one action scene. Both long shots and fairly close ones are center-framed.<\/p>\n

\"Vashi<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Vashi<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Vashi<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Vashi<\/a><\/p>\n

Vashi notes that Michael Bay and other directors seem to rely on fast cutting without due concern for where the viewer\u2019s eye lands at the end of each shot. Combined with very short shots, compositional confusion can flummox us. We don\u2019t know where we should be looking.<\/p>\n

Miller uses a greater variety of compositions in other stretches of the film, as my illustrations above indicate. At times he applies his \u201cmatching zone system\u201d to more off-center layouts. Furiosa is shown waiting for the biker gang to complete the deal, and she’s center framed.<\/p>\n

\"Furiosa<\/a><\/p>\n

We cut to one biker surveying the scene. He (she?)\u00a0is positioned off-center, so that we get a certain foreground\/background dynamic between him (her?) and the truck far in the background. Now cut to Furiosa, who’s now\u00a0in the same area of her frame; the empty space on the left seems to confirm what her eyeline suggested about the biker’s position above the canyon. (Interestingly, Miller slightly breaks the axis of action to get this smooth graphic cut.)<\/p>\n

\"Biker<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Furiosa<\/a><\/p>\n

Still, you can argue that for fast-cut scenes it\u2019s better to adopt a\u00a0brute-force simplicity of composition, favoring the center. (While of course assuming that ordinary continuity principles, such as matching of movement, screen direction, eyelines, and so on, are obeyed.) Tim Smith’s experiments have shown that all other things being equal, our eyes drift to the center of the format from shot to shot–a point that Arnheim also makes about “the power of the center” in all images. This visual habit is\u00a0challenged by so-called empty-center painting of the 1960s and 1970s, as seen in Kenneth Noland’s Shadow on the Earth<\/em>\u00a0and Larry Zox’s Decorah<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"Noland<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Zox_Decorah<\/a><\/p>\n

Mad Max: Fury Road<\/em> seems to me a superbly directed film in its chosen style, but\u00a0we can find alternatives. What about fast cutting that tries, as a part of an action scene\u2019s kinetic drive, to shuttle or bounce the viewer\u2019s attention more widely\u00a0across the frame? This option wouldn\u2019t be helter-skelter in the Bay manner; it\u2019s calculated, and engenders its own pictorial excitement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not exactly a picture scroll, but kind of<\/strong><\/p>\n

We can find many examples in the Asian action tradition. Take for example one of the extended pursuits in Benny Chan\u2019s New Police Story<\/em>, a 2004 Jackie Chan vehicle.\u00a0Jackie is clambering up along an angled beam of the Hong Kong Convention Center, and the framing puts him far to the right, emphasizing the distance and steepness of the climb.<\/p>\n

\"Jackie<\/a><\/p>\n

As he scrambles up, he seems not to notice that his pistol falls out of his pocket. But we do, because it stands out against the pale cladding as\u00a0it slides down to the bottom of the slope. Miller would have given us a separate, centered shot of this crucial action, but here it becomes an instance of that\u00a0“gradation of emphasis”<\/a> that widescreen encourages.<\/p>\n

\"Jackie<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Jackie<\/a><\/p>\n

Before Jackie can hit frame center, there’s a cut that reverses the design of the first shot. A low angle puts him at the far left corner of the frame as he reaches the top.\u00a0We never really see Jackie in the center of the frame in either shot.<\/p>\n

\"Jackie<\/a><\/p>\n

The two shots are cut fast (about 3 seconds each), but there’s no problem grasping the action. Hong Kong filmmakers realized that you could cut long shots quickly if the composition and lines of movement were very clear.\u00a0There is, it turns out, enough time for the eye to catch up to the main point of the composition, but it does ask us to exercise.<\/p>\n

A more percussive cut comes when Frank, also unarmed, searches out Joe, the gang leader, in a toy department. A snap-movement of the kind HK filmmakers love shows an off-center empty slot; Frank pops in from screen right.<\/p>\n

\"Frank<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Frank<\/a><\/p>\n

Cut to Joe stalking Frank, seen in another slot. It’s an optical POV shot, but it’s also\u00a0off-center, balancing the composition of the first shot. A cut back to Frank closes the POV pattern. Perhaps\u00a0the oscillation around the frame center can prime us for the next shot.<\/p>\n

\"Joe<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\"Frank<\/a><\/p>\n

To get a sense of this “all-over” frame composition, have a look at this sequence from Yuen Kwai’s Ninja in the Dragon’s Den<\/em> (1982). The combat swiftly passes from the center to the sides or to a corner. Thanks partly to the architecture of the cabin and the mill wheel, and partly to the judicious framing, there’s a sense that Kaufman might be satisfied that the space in the frame is “entirely used up”–not in a single shot, but in the totality of shots. (I’ve left in the English dubbing so subtitles don’t distract your eye.)<\/p>\n