Eighth Post- Angles, Shots, and Group Film

 

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Utilizing film stock versus a digital sensor in recording images is the first decision a cinematographer must make. Film stock requires cutting and taping of physical film strips and is purchased by the foot. The stock used to be made of nitrate, a highly flammable ion causing the film strip to burn frequently (Sharman). Film strips now are made of plastic with gelatin and silver halide crystals (Sharman). Light hits the crystals and the crystals darken. Red, green, and blue crystals allow for film colorization. Light can also pass through a camera lens and hit a digital image sensor. Software converts the light bouncing off the sensor into still images, and the images can be stored with a hard drive. I have a new-found appreciation for black-and-white film after reading the text. Black-and-white films are useful for dark subject matters and are prominent for filmmakers aiming for nostalgia. Films without color can be tough to construct because lighting and shadows need to be maintained as if the film had color. Light fixtures in the camera’s frame likely have no effect for the lighting in the film. Motivating the light source and direction refers to light fixtures appearing in the frame, but out-of-camera lights performing the lighting. Hard lighting results in hard-edged shadows and is rather intense and focused on the subject (Sharman). Soft lighting is more diversified and even throughout the frame, and shadows are fuzzier or are not clear. A smaller light source closer to the subject depicts hard light, while a larger light source farther from the subject can signal soft light (Sharman).

Close-up camera shots indicate intimacy with the frame’s subject. Extreme long shots may be shown to convey disconnection between the subject and another person or idea in the film. A medium long-shot shoots from the knees up and a medium shot from the waste up. I think our film would benefit from incorporating many different shots to give the viewer different perspectives of the subject and background. Filming shots with negative space can isolate our subject and question the subject’s fit in relation to the objects composing the rest of the frame. Tilting the camera, or moving the camera up and down from a fixed position, will enable us to highlight top and bottom shots of our object. Panning the camera from side-to-side will allow for more of the background to be seen. Dolly-ins and dolly-outs will contribute to the intimacy or disconnection a viewer may feel with the centerpiece in our film. Editing in film allows unnecessary time and events to be removed and increases the rhythm present. I never realized a shooting ratio of 10 to 1 existed, symbolizing shooting 10 times the amount of film needed for screentime (10 hours shot for one hour of screen-time).

Our group is going to make a film about a chair. We are not sure on the details yet and hope to keep an element of surprise. A cutting-on-action shot switches shots in the middle of an on-screen action. We could have a person about to sit in the chair and then switch to a shot with the person already in the chair. An eyeline match-cut can also serve purpose. The camera is fixated on one of our group members, before immediately switching to a shot of the chair. Jump cuts could be used when the chair moves locations to signify the passage of time. If a person is talking off-camera with the chair as the only subject in camera, we could have the person then come on camera while continuing to talk. The shot without the person to a shot with the person would be a J-Cut. A master-shot will be essential in setting the location of the chair at different points in the film. Coverage shots will establish our group members’ relation to the chair throughout the film. If we have two chairs in the film, we can use cross-cutting shots to go in-between scenes from each chair. A wider lens would enable more of the frame background to be seen with increased space. A telephoto lens is a narrower view making the character or chair feel father away. We can incorporate both lenses into our film for depiction of the chair. The chair can be an imposing force if we place it in the center of the frame. Push-ins and push-outs allow us to come closer to the chair or back away from the chair. Moving closer would signal an impending suspenseful moment and pulling away would indicate status quo.

Seventh Post- Get Out Reflection

 

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Get Out began with a Black man being kidnapped and never seen again. I realize Peele was quickly setting the tone for the movie. The car turned around, for no reason, other than the person walking down the street being Black. One streetlight lit up the sidewalk and frame. The abduction and kidnapping foreshadowed future events, as Chris was held hostage in the Armitage’s’. The film began with an establishing shot showing Chris’ apartment or condo. Peele utilized a montage to show some photos Chris took as a photographer. Rose, lying to Chris, mentioned he was her first Black boyfriend and discussed plans with him to visit her parents’ home. Traveling to Rose’s parents, she and Chris see and hit a deer. Revealing his sensitive side, Chris got out of the car to stand at the edge of the forest and stare at the dead deer. A foot shot and faraway shot are used to show Chris’s location relative to the forest. The officer asked Chris for his license even though Rose was driving the vehicle in the accident.

As Chris and Rose arrive at her parents’, an establishing shot shows the house and Rose’s parents coming to greet them. Chris is perplexed by Walter and Georgina, a groundskeeper and maid who work for the Armitage’s’. Dean, Rose’s dad, asked if Chris smoked. Missy, Rose’s mom, tapped her tea glass for the first time (she would later stir the glass to hypnotize Chris). A dinner conversation between Jeremy and Chris explained the Armitage family’s interest in Black people, as Jeremy wanted to discuss Chris’s physical and genetic makeup. Chris was asleep when he began having visions of the forest with the deer. He arose and went outside to clear his head, following a strange shot of Georgina walking behind and staring at Chris as he went outside. Chris was in the backyard and about to smoke. He is shocked and relieved when a sprinting Walter comes right for him but misses him at the last second. The scene was a long-wide-shot of Walter sprinting at Chris and a close-up of Chris’ face to catch his reaction as Walter veered at the last second.

The story significantly shifted as Missy invited Chris to sit down with her to talk about his smoking (Missy had the tea class in her hand). Missy stirred her tea as she probed Chris about his whereabouts on the night his mother died. Attempting to lure Chris into the “heightened sensibility” phrase of her hypnosis, she wished Chris to “find the rain” on the night his mom died. Chris, clearly not wishing to discuss the topic, found the rain and became very emotional. Missy exacerbated Chris’s emotions and guilted him into wondering why he did not do anything to find his mother. Chris began tapping the surface of the chair, a tactic he used when he first sat with Rose and her parents, and a tactic seen in his flashback to the night his mom did not come home. The tapping may signify Chris feeling uncomfortable and/or nervous. Missy then asked if Chris was at fault for his mom not coming home, causing Chris to become paralyzed. He began “sink[ing] into the floor” and into his childhood bed. He appeared to be floating in the air. A close-up conveyed a wide-eyed and teary-eyed Chris in a chair across from Missy, immediately followed by a point-of-view shot from Chris’s perspective into Missy’s face. Missy appeared on a distant screen from Chris, who was falling in the air and looked to be in “the sunken place.”

Chris then woke up in a sweat and ventured into the forest behind the Armitage’s to take some pictures. He saw Georgina in a window and desired to take a picture, but quickly withdrew upon Georgina spotting him. Walter told Chris he knows who Chris is and apologized for almost running into him. He then asked Chris if the meeting with Missy worked in curing Chris’s urge to smoke. Chris did not have the urge to smoke anymore, but he had thought the meeting was only a dream. Rose and her family hosted a party for her grandfather, and most guests (besides Hudson the photographer) made tone-deaf comments toward Chris. Guests felt his shoulders, asked Rose about Chris’s romantic prowess’s, and commented “Black is in fashion.” Chris met another Black man named Logan, who is later recognized as a musician who has been “missing” for the previous six months. Logan, like Georgina and Walter, acts almost robotic-like to Chris and may have been hypnotized. Georgina unplugged Chris’s phone sometime during the party and apologized, sort of, for the unplugging. She claimed she “answered to no one” and said the Armitage’s “treat [me] like family.”  Back outside, Logan is asked about his experience as an African American. He explained his experience has been mostly “very good.” Chris snapped a photo of Logan, causing Logan to go into a tantrum and yell “Get Out!” to Chris. Chris, in an action making sense later in the film, claimed to have known the guy coming at him when the flash went off. He did not know Logan, but he knew the face of the guy whose name was Logan (given by his much-older girlfriend). The camera cut to Dean when Chris said he recognized Logan’s face, so I assumed Chris thought of Dean somehow when Logan came charging at him.

Rose and Chris came back to the Armitage house after a walk, and we saw the whole family together for the first time. Walter and Georgina stood on the pathway smiling, Jeremy was sitting playing the ukulele, and Missy and Dean stood around each other. The whole family was staring at and waiting for Rose and Chris to enter the house. Chris’ friend, Rod, reminds Chris “Logan” is Andre Heyworth, a friend the two of them knew from back in the day. This phone call with Rod instilled a sense of urgency in Chris. He knew he needed to get out of the Armitage house. Chris told Rose to find the keys and went into a little closet with a red box. The box contained several photos of Rose with her previous boyfriends. Her previous boyfriends were all Black, contrary to her telling Chris he was the first Black boyfriend she ever had. Jeremy blocked the front door and the whole family enclosed Chris as he tried to escape. Suspenseful music marred the scene, as Dean began reflecting about mortality and fire as he stood right next to the fireplace. Jeremy swung at Chris, and Rose, who couldn’t find the keys the entire time, eventually found them. She dangled the keys in front of Chris and said: “You know I can’t give you these, right babe?” Missy tapped the tea glass, and, as before, Chris became hypnotized. Chris is dragged into the basement and is depicted in “the sunken place” again with the faces of Missy and Rose distant on the screen. An establishing shot is used to show Chris is in the Armitage basement and a close-up zoomed in on Chris’s face as he was handcuffed to a chair.

A television screen is placed in front of Chris’ chair in the basement. Roman Armitage, the patriarch of the family, appeared on the screen to tell Chris he had been chosen by the family for the “physical advantages you’ve enjoyed your entire lifetime.” Missy followed on the screen with the stirring of the tea again. Rod called Chris’ phone a third time after not hearing a response the first two times. Rose picked the phone up and changed the subject to her and Rod as opposed to focusing on Chris’ location. Dim lights lit up Rose’s face in the call, as she could not remember the cab company Chris used to take home. A recorded message on the television screen appeared for Chris. The message highlighted the three steps in Armitage’s program: hypnotization, mental preparation, and a surgical procedure with part of the brain. Chris would have limited consciousness and exist “as a passenger,” similar to Walter, Georgina, and Logan. He ended up freeing himself from the chair and killing Dean and Missy. Chris hit Jeremy with an object in the head, and after Jeremy woke back up, was able to strike a fatal blow to Jeremy with a knife. Georgina was hit by Chris as he drove off from the Armitage’s and Chris felt bad enough to stop and bring her into his car. She woke up and punched Chris, causing Chris to stop the car and encounter Walter and Rose. Rose attempted to shoot Chris, and Walter, instead of tackling Chris, shot Rose before shooting himself. Chris started to choke Rose, with a low angle shot pointing up to Chris (he was in a dominant position and in power over Rose).  Rod arrived on the scene in a police car to drive Chris away, leaving Rose to bleed out and die.