Writing · 2020
Connected Coverage (2020)
Archived from the original web exegesis, submitted for the AFTRS Master of Arts Screen in 2020. Text as submitted, with clips linked rather than embedded. The revised and shorter version is Whose story is it?.
“Placing a camera is not an arbitrary process,
neither is it done with the ‘prettiest’ shot in mind.
A cinematographers role is to enhance the storytelling.”
- Roger Deakins
Introduction
Of all the technical and creative decisions a cinematographer must make, I believe knowing where to place the camera within a scene and why is the most important. For me, it’s also a decision I’ve been grappling with these past two years while completing my Masters at AFTRS.
Where the camera is positioned within the story world dictates the window through which the audience experiences the narrative — the point of view (Foss, 1994). Practically speaking, this decision is tied not only to a specific spatial position, but effects (and is affected by) performance, composition and framing, lighting, camera movement, set design and dressing, editing, sound — practically all filmmaking choices!
Point of view at a surface level can be defined as ‘what we see from a certain location’. In the context of a film, if we share a character’s point of view, we see what they see — their optical point of view.
Applying a literary definition of point of view, we can define it as “the ways in which a film can systematically structure an audience’s overall epistemic access to narrative” (Wilson, 1986, p.3). To simplify: how knowledge of the narrative world is controlled and communicated to the audience. I’d argue that this is where the concepts of an objective or subjective camera tie in, which I’ll place under the umbrella term of emotional point of view. But going back again to Wilson’s definition of point of view, this idea of the way a film systematically structures access to narrative strikes me as very similar to the idea of coverage.
Coverage is the methodology of translating a script into shots that will allow a scene to be cut together. More deeply, it’s an orientation tool to position an audience both physically within a scene, but also emotionally through “our implied relationship to the character and action” (Pye, 2000, p.2). And being a sequence of images, coverage navigates an audience through the scene; for example, establishing the geography of a space in a wide, or privileges us to a private moment with our protagonist, unseen by other characters.
“where we place the storyteller has an effect on how we perceive the story they tell.“
(Foss, 1994)
Ultimately, these decisions of coverage and point of view are what excite me most about cinematography, the ability to affect an audience emotionally based on decisions as simple as the location of the camera.
In practice, while these decisions can seem simple or obvious in hindsight, they can be daunting to make in the moment during a block through, let alone in a documentary setting.
And while there’s a wide body of existing film theory literature discussing point of view, it’s largely philosophical and approaches the topic in reflection of completed sequences, void of the filmmaking process and decisions that resulted in the refined ‘point of view’ that the film shares. In particular, there’s little practical discussion about coverage choices, or how individual technical and aesthetic cinematographic techniques work together to create it.
When it comes to practicing cinematographers, coverage is always preceded by ‘enough’ coverage rather than ‘the right’ coverage; and point of view discussion is often difficult to explain, glossed over as ‘intuition’ or oversimplified rules that hide a deeper thought process. My aim with this exegesis is to bridge a gap in this area for early career cinematographers like myself, who haven’t had enough time behind the camera for this process to naturally become intuitive. More specifically, I want to deconstruct the myriad of technical and aesthetic considerations a cinematographer has at their disposal within the arsenal of visual language, with a particular focus on exploiting emotional point of view for greater intimacy and emotional effect on the audience.
Research question
Research question: How can the myriad of technical and aesthetic considerations used to enforce a point of view assist in the development of coverage?
Approach
To do so, this exegesis will be executed through practice-based research. By bridging film theory research with practical experience and reflection, I aim not to create a recipe or formula for perfect coverage, but instead gain a deeper insight into the process, deconstructing and shedding new light on some ingredients at a cinematographer’s disposal.
In choosing practice-based research as my methodology, I aim to focus on the insights within reflection on my process and practice through the diverse projects I had the pleasure of working on this year. I’ll be focusing on ‘Dust Cloud’, written and directed by Trudi Refshauge, a light-hearted narrative with a dog protagonist. Alongside Adam Finney’s observational documentary ‘Where is my Darling?’, and pre-production testing and experimentation for Jenna Sutch’s ‘Death Doula’, which is scheduled to shoot in February next year due to COVID-19. What interested me about all three projects was their focus both narratively, and emotionally, on character — which I feel make them perfect candidates for a cinematographic style that strives for connection to character.
Before diving into the projects, I want to begin by
recapping on where my earlier research was
at before undertaking the capstone projects:
(Dunlop, 2019). Watch the full video here
While its now clear to me that the literature on cinematographic interpretation of point of view is quite vast, I do still believe a deconstruction of cinematic techniques and their impact on point of view is something I can contribute to, and my categorisation these techniques has expanded beyond just movement, coverage and composition through further learnings I’ve made in research, through interviews with other practicing cinematographers, and reflection of my experience on the capstone projects.
“The world of a film opens up to the audience through a camera, which represents it in a certain way and from a certain spatial position. Thus the camera has a point of view, not a mere view“
(Seppälä, 2016)
Connection and subjectivity
Connection begins with the relationship we want to create between the audience and the factual or fictional world. As a cinematographer, I like to think of this as an emotional mindset, a spectrum between subjective and objective. Philosophically speaking, even an objective representation of a scene has still subjectively restrained the three-dimensional world within the two-dimensional recording medium and temporality of when we press record — but I digress. Building on literature and remarks from practicing filmmakers, achieving a subjective connection entails the “energy of the shot” (Doyle, 1998), a “visceral, tangible feeling” (Thomson, 2010), a presence. At the other end of the spectrum, an objective perspective is non-reactive to the emotion of a scene or character, often observing from a distance or ‘outside’ a characters point of view.
Subjectivity and objectivity can be seen as a guide to the emotional vantage point of a scene, and thus coverage decisions that should be made to maintain or break that vantage point.
In practice, this approach results in ‘rules’ that guide the relationship the camera (and thus the audience) have with the characters and world that are captured.
(Ryan, 2011)
A great example of this is how cinematographer Robbie Ryan BSC works with director Andrea Arnold in creating subjectivity:
From this example of a ‘rule’ we can see the emergence of specific cinematic techniques that are being referred to in coverage choices when creating this connection with character; through my research I’ve categorised them as:
Optical Point of View
Proximity
Composition & Framing
Movement
Time & Focus
Clips: 1
Optical point of view
First, let’s look at perhaps the most obvious way of connecting an audience to a character, by embodying their optical point of view, first person style. When used exclusively, it can be alienating for an audience, and you lose the character’s performance. But used selectively, it can be both scary (when used as first person peripheral to embody a supporting character), experiential, and also reflexive, projecting a context to a reaction shot, offering a deeper insight into the mental or emotional state of a character.
In Death Doula, it’s something we’ve experimented with through the linkage of flashbacks to reaction shots from the present scene. One interesting insight from this, is that these flashback shots aren’t necessarily ‘optically’ from the character’s point of view, but are close enough that the attachment to the character point of view still remains. As Greenhalgh (2005) puts it: we remain psychologically close, though not sharing the character’s optical point of view.
Perhaps my categorisation of optical point of view is too strict — that I’m not appreciating the whole spectrum between objectivity and subjectivity? That the importance of a character’s point of view is tied less to their precise optical point of view, and more to the context of what they are observing.
A scene from ‘Fish Tank’ (Arnold, 2010) demonstrating the approach to coverage, and attachment of the camera’s point of view to protagonist ‘Mia’.
“I knew Mia might be hard to like, but I believe if you can see the world from her perspective, you can find some empathy for her, so I wanted the camera to stick close to her and experience the world the way she does” - Andrea Arnold (Thomson, 2010)
In the context of building coverage, these ‘point of view’ shots work best when paired with reaction shots, turning objective, informational shots into deeper emotional reflections into the mental state of a character.
Proximity
Proximity, a physical closeness between camera and character, was one of the first things I discovered as a budding cinematographer as a powerful way of creating an intimate point of view. Intuitively, situating the camera closer to a character increases their presence within the possible field of view. In doing so, our relationship to foreground and background changes, amplifying our attention to the foregrounded subject and pushing the background away as light bends increasingly at close distances to focus light onto the image plane. It allows for “more nuanced, precise responses to an actor’s gestures” (Greenhalgh, 2005), and equally allows the camera to remain still as its restricted view highlights the actor’s subtleties. This is heightened further with advancements in technology such as large format sensors. The larger sensor allow the same angle of view with a respectively longer focal length compared to Super 35, resulting in further separation between foreground and background (and less distortion too).
This physical closeness is something that came up
quite a bit talking to other cinematographers,
but is also sometimes difficult to achieve.
Earle Dresner ACS discusses the conundrum of achiving proximity without impacting on an actor’s performance
On ‘Dust Cloud’ and ‘Where is my Darling?’, achieving this closeness through proximity was difficult for these very reasons, working with animals places restrictions on how close a camera can get, and being closer to the subject also amplifies how much camera movement is needed to correct off eye-lines or missed marks. On a documentary, it’s near impossible most of the time without a willing subject and the flexibility of time, something that only really started to develop as our filming concluded with Lanz.
For ‘Death Doula’, Jenna and I have been referencing works such as ‘Fish Tank’, ‘American Honey’, ‘Babyteeth’, and ‘Normal People’ from day dot — and as such, experimenting with proximity has been high on our priority list as we both resonate with the visceral nature it can produce. This process has been aided by the fact that Jenna is acting on screen as our protagonist Annie. Through our tests we’ve had some magical moments, and equally come to similar realisations that while beautiful and intimate at moments, these moments of proximity should be used selectively (in Death Doula, as moments of deep emotional connection), to both enhance their effectiveness, and not get in the way of performance.
Sherwin Akbarzadeh discusses his coverage approach to a subjective point of view.
The other important consideration of proximity, particularly in the context of coverage, is where we situate the audience throughout a scene. In dialogue between characters, this is normally a distinction between inside or outside a conversation, but when considered holistically, it can become more complex.
This is something I hadn’t considered enough when filming Dust Cloud. In pre-production, the key reference for me visually was ‘Babe’. The way it embodied the animals’ perspective through point of view and reaction shots felt like a perfect strategy to adopt for Dust Cloud. Thus my approach was fairly simple:
Clips: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8
- Maintain dogs eye level when shooting dog
- Ensure to get dog reaction shot
- Maintain dogs presence in human coverage
- Match eyelines for human/dog interactions
Video: A scene from ‘Dust Cloud’ illustrating this approach to ‘dog anchored’ coverage.
What I didn’t pick up on was the nuance Andrew Lesnie ACS ASC had in his approach on ‘Babe’. Ultimately, coverage was anchored to the animal characters rather than human characters. This is contrasted by the approach taken in Red Dog, where coverage is anchored to the human characters rather than the dog.
This shift in perspective, is built into the foundation of the script, the narrative point of view laid out by the writer:
Babe is a film about anthropomorphised animals, told by the animals; Red Dog is a film about a heroic dog, told by the humans that it met. Dust Cloud, was a film about a dog, but told through its interactions with the human farmers.
As such, the audience’s point of view is shifted throughout the film in a battle between what the dog sees, what the humans talk about when the dog isn’t around, and an omniscient perspective that drives the climax of the film. I had taken a ‘Babe’ approach, when a ‘Red Dog’ approach was more suited to the narrative at hand. Another way to think about it is as different layers of perspective: At its core, the perspective of the script,
on top, visual layers of character perspective and objectivity,
plus the consideration of music and sound that help further shape the audiences’ ingestion of the world.
There must be an alignment between these layers in our approach to coverage, otherwise there’s a risk that the perspective becomes cloudy and muddled, as it did in Dust Cloud.
Clearer articulation of ideas around perspective when collaborating with the director in translating script into coverage, such as storyboarding out scenes, may have alleviated this.
In my discussion with Red Dog’s cinematographer Geoffrey Hall ACS, he offers other insights into the realties of working with animals and tactics they employed.
Composition and framing
Focal length preferences are a hot topic, for Robert Bresson it’s the 50mm, that help him “flatten my images (as if ironing them), without attenuating them” (Bresson, 1997). For Michael Haneke (and many others) — it’s the 35mm, striking a “certain crucial balance between intimacy and impartial distance, concretely situating its characters within their environment” (Pinkerton, 2019). Deakins loves the 27mm, Chivo loves his 14mm — The point is, when going for the same shot size, wider lenses tend to feel more subjective, and longer lens tend to feel more objective, that’s the proximity at play, particularly when looking at individual frames.
When considered as an overall approach to coverage, however, a visual style that leans in to longer lens, distanced, ‘objective’ lensing — such as the work of Ken Loach, this fades away, and audiences are still very capable of forming an emotional connection with the characters on screen. As Ken puts it - “I consider it a great privilege to be the observer” (Oppenheimer, 2007).
An ‘objective’, longer lensing in ‘I, Daniel Blake’ (Loach, 2016)
So while focal length may offer an angle of view, I want to argue that composition and framing techniques can do more to establish an emotional point of view. One such technique is how size can effect the power dynamic different characters can have within the frame. Again, despite the challenges that external factors such as work with animals and camera placement restrictions within an operational sheep farm, it’s something that should have been more conscious of in Dust Cloud, with missed opportunities to create a deeper connection to our dog protagonist.
Besides power, composition can also add emotion through use of metaphor, and choosing as much what to exclude from the frame, as much as consider what is inside it.
“Accidental blocking of one character from another, decapitating heads and body parts, and sudden empty middles of frame - are creatively employed here to emphasise closeness and distance.” (Greenhalgh, 2005)
In considering coverage, creating contrast in the lens choices used on a protagonist’s coverage, both wider and tighter, as well as framing variance, can also add greater emotional range to the point of view offered.
POV meant “always over his shoulder, not someone else’s.” - Robbie Ryan BSC (Thomson, 2012)
Bonnie Elliot ACS discussing coverage and framing choices for ‘Stateless’
Movement
Etymologically, the word ‘emotion’ is derived from the latin word ‘ēmovēre’: ‘to move’. Thus emotion is rooted in motion, as emotions often express themselves physically. When discussing emotion in the context of movement of the camera, I believe there are two main ways to connect to a character: camera movement motivated by a character’s movement, and “cinematographic embodiment” - instances when the camera operator’s bodily movements and perceptions are recorded or “embodied” along with the subject(s) in the frame (Albright, 2011)
In the context of ‘Where is my Darling?’, the initial plan and schedule for the film involved multiple water deliveries over the course of the 10-day shoot. This repetition presented the opportunity for us to observe repeated action, and be able to anticipate the actions and movements of our characters and have the camera ‘in the right place at the right time’ rather than being reactionary or chasing action. In doing so, while the camera would be less energetically attached to its subject, it allows the audience greater authentic observation of a character’s nuances, without interruption from the camera.
The beautiful stillness and unfettered simplicity to the shooting style of “To Be and To Have” (Philibert, 2002) was something we went into the shoot aspirational of achieving.
The reality of the shoot meant that only one water delivery eventuated before our protagonist had run out of water. As such, the scene shares an interesting balance of stable observational shots, paired with a more nervous reactionary shots as the camera embodied my anxiety as I realised there may not be another water delivery. While retaining a sense of equanimity is something that I continue to work on while operating, the contrast between the feeling states I embodied in this scene to add a rawness, a realness, to the scene that adds to the mood and tone.
Water scene from ‘Where is my Darling?’
For modern audiences, the practicalities of documentaries have developed screen language and translated this embodiment or presence of the camera operator as a form of authenticity, an intimacy, within fictional forms. Being a fictional form, offers greater opportunity for refinement of these ideas of connected movement, though seems even-more so than documentary, a space for embodying a ‘feeling’. Christopher Doyle describes actors as “dancing partners who control the rhythms’” and camerawork as “anticipation and response” (Doyle, 1998).
In Death Doula, Jenna and I have experimented with these ideas of feeling states, and of ‘playable actions’ (Soloway, 2018), giving emotional direction to the cinematographer as they would to an actor. This is an extension to the idea of giving each scene a word or phrase to summarise the emotional beats in a scene, but more practically helps to develop my trust in my own feeling instincts while operating, and keep focus on the actors’ performance above technical decisions.
In this example from Knives Out (Johnson, 2019), the contrast between stable dolly movement and handheld operating is used to embody and heighten the emotional chaos the protagonist is experiencing.
Jenna discussing the feeling state embodied by the camera
To do so, there are practical realities that Jenna and I have discovered through our testing to enable this methodology. For starters, flexibility in the actors’ movement around a space dictate preparation for 180° and often 360° lighting, as such, location scouting, scheduling, and an embrace of natural light. The approach to coverage too requires a shift in mindset. We found the traditional master scene method of coverage (Brown, 2016) could be restrictive in allowing the camera to respond intuitively, which sometimes meant shifting between characters as they move within the space. As such, we’ve experimented with a more documentary style ‘freeform method’ (Brown, 2016), which structures coverage around different ‘passes’: (dialogue, reaction, freeform) to balance sufficient variety of options in the edit, while maintaining the improvisation and freedom for the camera to respond to performance.
In the context of point of view, I feel movement offers an interesting ability to provide multiple perspectives simultaneously, through embodiment of an emotional point of view while maintaining a third person optical perspective, or equally contrast in disconnection from character.
‘Babe’ (Noonan, 1995) offers an example of how movement can subtly be used to anchor a point of view. Here through use of parallax on a dolly to emphasise distance, paired with longer lensing and the fixed geographic perspective, enforce the perspective of the animals observers, further clarified in coverage of a reverse shot on the animals.
Time and focus
Extending on this embodiment of emotion within the camerawork, I believe technical choices around focus of the lens, and off-speed recording can further create add to the subjectivity of the camera’s perspective.
Beyond shallow depth of field isolating a character from its background, placement and movement of the focal point help guide the audiences gaze within the image, but can embed another layer of emotional point of view through context and contrast with the subjects of a frame. This is especially true in relation to time, “focus can be used as a way of delaying or propelling time, by accelerating pulling focus before the actors move, or the converse” (Greenhalgh, 2005).
Its something I want to experiment with more deliberately in Death Doula, to help visualise moments of internal thought, by further separating Annie from the world around her through shallower and more selective focus, potentially even pairing with off-speed motion, similar to that used in ‘Fish Tank’.
I resonate deeply with Christopher Doyle’s use of slow motion, seen here in ‘In the Mood for Love’. As Chris describes, he changes speed at ‘decisive’, ‘epiphanal’ or ‘revelatory’ moments (Doyle, 1998). In combination with its camera movement and movement within the frame (and that beautiful score), the slow motion stirs emotions in my watching that are difficult to define.
Time and focus are perhaps the most subjective and intuitively based techniques and aesthetic qualities within this research, as such, there is far more for me to discover about their use through practice. So, I’ll conclude this section with another quote from Christopher Doyle:
“Focus is not a technical detail. It is a feeling, an intuition, a perception, a direction, a drama. The most irritating of film compromises is ‘racking’ (adjusting focus) back and forth between characters in a conversational two-shot” (Doyle, 1998)
Clips: 1
Conclusions
In my search for knowing where to place the camera within a scene, I believe I’ve discovered its why that’s more important. In my analytical approach to cinematic techniques, I’ve ended up with more states of feeling and intuitions that have been difficult to put into these words. I should have guessed that something as complex as emotion, though university understood, could not be explained or broken down into individual technical choices.
Despite this, the process of conducting this research and reflection has offered me great insights into my process and learning’s from other’s experiences in their search for similar answers. I hope my critical analysis may be useful for those, like myself, who are still refining their intuitions. The process of collaboration has taught me also the ultimate importance of story above all else, and the significance of clearly communicating ideas around point of view, with context to emotion.
Analyse, analyse and analyse, and then when you get on-set, be willing to throw it all away - Earle Dresner ACS
Moving forward - with my new-found trust for my intuition, and restrained dose of analytical thinking; I begin ‘proper’ pre-production for ‘Death Doula’, guided by our new definition of the cameras point of view, a delicate watchfulness. I’m sure I will continue to refine and reflect on these techniques and their use in developing coverage throughout my career, though I will aspire to provide more insight if asked about my process beyond ‘intuition’, even though it’s likely the most accurate response.
“Subtractive thinking is very important, meaning less is better than more. Generally speaking, if something’s not working, you’re doing too much.” - Gordon Willis, ASC
(Craft Truck, 2013)
References
References:
Akbarzadeh, S. (2020). Interview with Sherwin Akbarzadeh/Interviewer: Cameron Dunlop [Zoom Session].
Arnold, A. (2009). Fish Tank [Film]. United Kingdom: BBC Films, UK Film Council.
Bresson, R., 1997. Notes On The Cinematographer. København: Green Integer.
Brown, B. (2016). Cinematography: Theory and Practice: Image Making for Cinematographers and Directors. Focal Press.
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Criterion Collection. (2012). In the Mood for Love - Corridor Glance [Video]. YouTube. Retrieved from:
Deakins, R. (2018). Revolutionary road camera placement. https://www.rogerdeakins.com/camera/ revolutionary-road-camera-placement/
Doyle, C. (1998). A Cloud in Trousers. Santa Monica, CA: Smart Art Press.
Dresner, E. (2020). Interview with Earl Dresner ACS/Interviewer: Cameron Dunlop [Zoom Session].
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Dunlop, C. (2020). Visual Poem [video file]. Retrieved from: https://vimeo.com/483912104/e59556a848
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Greenhalgh, C. (2005) How Cinematography Creates Meaning in Happy Together (Wong Kar-Wai, 1997). In: Style and Meaning Studies in the Detailed Analysis of Film (pp.195-213). Manchester England, Manchester University Press.
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Loach, K & Obiols, L. (2016). I, Daniel Blake [Film]. United Kingdom: Sundance Selects.
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Philibert, N. (Director). (2002). Etre Et Avoir (To Be and To Have) [Movie Trailer]. Les Films d`lci. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/4_pHFtObb4A
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Pye, D. (2000), ‘Movies and Point of View’, Movie, 36, pp. 2–34.
Ryan, R. (2011). ‘Wuthering Heights’ Q & A with Robbie Ryan BSC. Retrieved from: https://vimeo.com/34030900
Seppälä, J. (2016), ‘Doing a lot with little: The camera’s minimalist point of view in the films of Aki Kaurismäki’, Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, 6: 1, pp. 5–23, doi: 10.1386/jsca.6.1.5_1
Soloway, J. (2018), She wants it. London: Ebury Press.
Sutch, J. (2020). Interview with Jenna Sutch/Interviewer: Cameron Dunlop [Zoom Session].
Thomson, P. (2010). Hard Lessons. American Cinematographer, (February 2010), pp. 18-22.
Thomson, P. (2012). Wild Passion. American Cinematographer, (May 2012), pp. 42-51.
Wilson, George M. (1986), Narration in Light: Studies in Cinematic Point of View. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.