Cinematography Techniques: Camera Shots, Angles, and Lenses
Cinematography Techniques
Camera Shots and Coverage
Recording: The image captured between starting and stopping the camera.
Assembly and Viewing Image: The image between two cuts.
Scale: The size of the subject in the frame.
Plano Resource: A recording that may or may not be included in the final assembly, often used for visual range, continuity, or correcting errors. These are typically short-scale shots.
Master Plan: Records the action from start to finish, often used to insert another level of the same action in the montage. These are usually long shots showing joint action.
Plan Coverage: Short and medium shots inserted into the master plan, especially common in TV shows.
Plan: Introduces variations on the plan referred to in the script. Each situation can be recorded from different viewpoints (alternative levels) and decided upon during assembly.
Narrative Characteristics:
- Flat Sequence: Resolves the sequence from start to finish, recorded uninterrupted with plane changes replaced by camera movement. This style is a trademark of some directors and requires more preparation, as seen in Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil” and Hitchcock’s “Rope.”
- Plano Subjective: Corresponds with the character’s look, followed by a short or medium level of the character who looks, as in “The Graduate” (under the pool).
- Map of Location: Starts a sequence by showing the space where the action will take place, placing the spectator, as in “Rear Window.”
- Plano Composite: Composed of two or more images from various sources, creating a joint composition. This technique is becoming increasingly common and is used to show objects or people of different scales at different distances from the camera, as seen in single films or series with phone conversations, like “Citizen Kane’s” contract signing.
The Scale of Schemes:
- Short: Focuses on a specific detail.
- PS (Plano Detalle): Detail level.
- PPP (Primerissimo Primer Plano): Extreme close-up.
- PP (Primer Plano): Close-up.
- PMC (Plano Medio Corto): Medium close-up.
- Mid-Plane: Simulates our normal conversation distance, often used for conversations between characters in the same image, building the environment.
- PM (Plano Medio): Medium shot, typically from the waist up.
- Plano Americano: Medium long shot, from the knees up.
- Plano Entero: Full shot, from head to toe.
Long Shots:
- Characters lose importance, with the relevance shifting to scenery and landscapes, creating a location map.
- PC (Plano Conjunto): Shows a whole family in the living room, as in “The Apartment.”
- PG (Plano General): General shot, showing workers entering a building, with more people than a PC.
- GPG (Gran Plano General): Extreme long shot, showing a city image.
Camera Angles
Height: The frame gives the feeling of being at a certain height.
Angle: Influences the viewer’s attitude toward what it shows.
General Categories:
- Straight (Normal): Eye level with the character, without any special meaning.
- Bajo (Contrapicado): Bottom-up, distorting perspective with legs larger than the head. Creates a sense of superiority, power, or grandeur. Avoid showing the ground. Orson Welles used this angle extensively.
- Height (Picado): Top-down, dwarfs the individual, creating a sense of subordination and inferiority, with the head larger than the legs. Often combined with a wide angle to describe places, as in “The Vampire of Düsseldorf.”
Types of Angles:
- Zenith
- Great Chopped
- Minced
- Normal
- Contrapicado
- Great Contrapicado
- Nadir
Planos Pitch: The camera is positioned behind, often suggesting disorder or mental imbalance.
Lenses and Depth of Field
Sequence: A cinematic story unit that arises, develops, and resolves a dramatic situation. It has its own sense and tells a part of the central plot.
Diaphragm: The principal element in a camera lens, with a variable narrowing through a system of thin films that controls the amount of light entering the camera. It is measured by f-numbers, with each step reducing the light entering the camera.
Characteristics of Objectives:
- Visual Angle or Covering Power: The extent of the scene captured by the lens.
- Representation of Perspective: How the lens portrays depth and distance.
- Depth of Field: The distance between the nearest and farthest points in focus. A large depth of field means everything is in focus, as seen in “Citizen Kane’s” contract signing. A shallow depth of field means only a small area is in focus.
Focal Length:
The distance from the center of the lens to the point where light rays converge at a focus point on the film.
Types of Lenses:
- Normal: 35-50mm, similar to human vision, trying to avoid distortions of perspective.
- Wide Angle: Under 35mm, with a large visual angle, capturing more than the human eye sees. Distorts figures, especially at the edges, with exaggerated perspective and great depth of field, as seen in “Camera Café.”
- Telephoto: 75-250mm, with a long focal length, opposite to wide angle. It has a narrow viewing angle, making it slow to cover short distances. Reduces perspective, making characters appear closer together, with a shallow depth of field. Often used in sports broadcasting.
- Zoom: Variable focal length, allowing manipulation of the focal distance and modification of perspective relations on the same plane, as seen in Hitchcock’s “Vertigo.”