{"id":49996,"date":"2023-04-30T10:52:30","date_gmt":"2023-04-30T15:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/?p=49996"},"modified":"2023-06-03T12:33:07","modified_gmt":"2023-06-03T17:33:07","slug":"calm-that-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidbordwell.net\/blog\/2023\/04\/30\/calm-that-camera\/","title":{"rendered":"Calm that camera!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Succession<\/strong> (2023).<\/em><\/p>\n

DB here:<\/p>\n

Thanks to our Wisconsin Film Festival, Ken Kwapis paid us a visit. Director of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants<\/em> and many other features, Ken also has experience directing TV, notably The Office<\/em>. He\u2019s a generous filmmaker, and he radiates enthusiasm for his vocation. I took the opportunity to talk with him about camera movement in contemporary media. He taught me a lot, and what I\u2019ve come away with I share with you.<\/p>\n

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Camera ubiquity, with a vengeance<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the early silent era, fiction filmmakers around the world discovered what we might call camera ubiquity\u2014the possibility that the camera could film its subject from any point in space. This resource was more evident in exterior filming than in a studio set, so early films often display a greater freedom of camera placement when the scene is shot on location.<\/p>\n

At the same time, filmmakers began realizing the power of editing. This technique offered the possibility of cutting together two shots taken from radically different points in space. Yet an infinity of choices is threatening, and some filmmakers, mostly in the US, constrained their choices by confining the camera to only one side of the \u201caxis of action,\u201d the line connecting the major figures in the scene. Different shots could cut together smoothly if they were all taken from the same side of the 180-degree line. The result was the development of classical continuity editing. The director was expected to provide \u201ccoverage\u201d of the basic story action from a variety of angles, but all from the same side of the line. Classical continuity was in force for American films by 1920 and was quickly adopted in other national cinemas.<\/p>\n

The one-side-of-the-action constraint was encouraged by the fact that much filming of staged action took place on a set, designed according to the theatrical model. The camera side of the space was behind an invisible fourth wall, like that in proscenium theatre. To some extent directors compensated for the limitation on camera position by fluidly moving actors around the frame, from side to side and into depth or toward the viewer. Still, the \u201cbias\u201d in choosing setups was reinforced by the increasing weight of the camera in the sound era, which made it hard to maneuver within both interior and exterior settings. Camera movement in a more or less wraparound space was possible, but it was usually very difficult. It commonly required a dolly or crane on tracks to prevent bumps.<\/p>\n

Technicolor filming, with its monstrously big camera units, reinforced the bias toward proscenium sets, 180-degree space, and a rigid camera. So did the postwar vogue for widescreen cinema. But in the 1950s filmmakers were also exploring the possibility of lighter, more flexible cameras. The body-braced cameras often produced bumpy, slightly disorienting images but yielded a more \u201cimmersive\u201d space that gave the story action immediacy and spontaneity. By the early 1960s, handheld camerawork was being seen in both documentaries and fiction films. At the same time, fiction filmmakers were gravitating toward more location filming. In addition shooting on location with portable cameras promised greater savings on budgets, an attractive option for both independent and mainstream directors.<\/p>\n

Handheld shooting was becoming more common in the 1970s, when its problems were overcome by the invention of the Steadicam, first displayed to audiences in Bound for Glory<\/em> (1976). This stabilizer permits the operator to move smoothly through a space.<\/p>\n

The new device was more than simply a substitute for a camera on a dolly and tracks. Ken pointed out to me that the Steadicam encouraged the increasing use of the walk-and-talk shot showing two or more characters striding toward a constantly retreating camera. This proved to be an efficient way of covering pages of dialogue. Beyond that, the Steadicam became an all-purpose camera for filming any sort of scene.<\/p>\n

Over the same years, directors embraced multiple-camera shooting\u2014originally aimed at handling complex stunts\u2014for every scene, and they recruited A and B cameras, often mounted on Steadicams, for ordinary dialogue scenes. In most cases, the B camera was mounted alongside the A, but with the B camera in other spots there was a certain erosion of the axis of action. Now a conversation may be captured from a greater variety of angles than classical coverage would favor. Filmmakers have replaced 180-degree staging and shooting with what\u2019s called 250-degree coverage. In The Way Hollywood Tells It<\/em> \u00a0I drew an example from Homicide: Life on the Streets<\/em>. A free approach to the axis of action is common today, as in this example from Succession<\/em> (2023).<\/p>\n