I knew I needed forty-five days to shoot this film, but we got thirty-five. I had to cut all of my wonderful transitions with characters driving from this place to that because we didn’t have the money to film driving scenes. I also knew my actors were really gifted, but we had very little rehearsal time. Also I gave everyone very little notes, almost no input at all. Somehow my actors took the words from the page and walked onto the set and gave them to me fully realized.”
—Paul Haggis, director, Crash
One of the biggest problems directors face are scenes with multiple characters around a table. Even when they consider the basics, they often get trapped. The first thing you must consider as director is the shape of the table. A square or rectangular table has corners and sides that help to define where people sit, whereas a round table does not; it is the same from every side of the table. And the size of the table needs consideration. But where people sit in relation to one another is the most important factor of all, and for that you need to look at the story and the relationships of the characters in the scene as this will affect the inner truth in their performances. Are boyfriend and girlfriend sitting next to each other because they are flirting with one another or did they have an argument and are sitting opposite one another with the table as a barrier? Is there someone who needs to be at the head of the table? If it is a family scene, where does each of the family members normally sit at the table? Where do the children sit? In the Thanksgiving dinner scene in Brokeback Mountain, Jake Gyllenhaal is sitting at the head and his wife at the foot of a rectangular table. His son is sitting on one side of the table and his in-laws on the other side. The scene involves his father-in-law getting up to carve the turkey as if he were the head of the family. Jake asserts his authority by doing the carving, which puts his father-in-law in his place. Director Ang Lee used this action to effect the theme and purpose of the scene and impact the character Jake played. The physical relationships at the table made it easier for the actors to maintain the environmental truth at an emotional moment in the scene.
Once you have determined the type of table and who sits where, then you need to examine the scene, its contribution toward the theme, and the dialogue and action that transpire at the table. Is the action important to motivate the characters? How do the characters relate to one another? Does the action at the table affect the characters, as it does in the poker game sequences in John Dahl’s Rounders? How do you cover that action? What is the subtext of the characters in the scene? Which character is the focus of the scene? Answers to these questions and more are at the foundation of any table scene.
Before you decide the visual approach to take with the scene, first decide where your main character (the one who is affected in the scene) is to sit. That character’s placement will set the master shot from which screen direction for all other characters at the table should flow. Intuitively or otherwise, the director will find the right place for the camera to cover the scene. What is important is the spatial relationship of one character to another and its preservation for the audience. Spatial relationship addresses screen direction and eye-line, and during a table scene these two elements must be the focus for the director and the continuity person assisting the production. One of the scenes in the movie Syriana involves many people sitting around a conference table in heated discussion. Although a master shot of the room, the table, and the many people around it was made, the coverage has no logic of focus and the screen direction of characters editorially is flip-flopped, disorienting the audience. The audience is confused as to who is where and who is talking to whom. In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, a scene is staged in a restaurant booth around an oval-shaped table. The central character in the scene is the Steve Carell character, who is sitting on one edge of the booth seat. The camera establishes the guys in the booth with a wide shot in the restaurant. In this shot, Carell is on camera left. The camera then establishes a shot from behind one of the characters sitting in the booth on the right side of the frame in the wide shot, with Carell on camera right. Because of these two shots, the eye-lines and spatial relationships in the coverage within the scene disorient the audience regarding who is where and who is speaking to whom. In the confusion the camera does not maintain the physical relationships of one character to another. The simple solution would have been to avoid the second establishing shot of the guys in the booth and allow the first shot to set the direction for the coverage. Or to put Steve Carell in the middle of the booth with the guys sitting on both sides of him. Since he is the subject of the scene, the coverage would have been simpler having those characters sitting to his right look at him camera right and those to his left look at him camera left. Carell would relate both right and left as needed. And by sitting in the middle, he would feel trapped, which would help his internal truth since it is the subtext of the character in the scene. All of this is insignificant because the scene is so funny nonetheless. But it would have made better visual storytelling.1
Master shot (6-1a)
OS three-shot (6-1b)
Medium shot (6-1c)
Medium shot (6-1d)
Dirty medium shot (6-1e)
The first shot, which establishes the table and the people at the table, should be your map to maintain continuity and screen direction. It will show you which shots you will need to cover the scene. And always try to establish depth in the image if possible, such as shooting past one character to another or changing how someone sits in the scene. One visual trick is to show something on the table, such as a table centerpiece, that is constant in several coverage shots. It can help the depth of the image as a foreground object and ground the audience in knowing where the characters are sitting at the table.
Every time a character is added to a scene, the coverage can change exponentially. The more complex the coverage, the more difficult it is to preconceive coverage and the more production time it takes to get the coverage to tell the story. Special shots or beauty shots should always be kept as additional shots unless they can be interwoven with the basic coverage needed to tell the story. Directors must first stage (choreograph) and motivate the actors in the scene, keeping in mind any of the shots they have preconceived with the hopeful intent of building those shots into the staging. If need be, the camera can be thought of as another actor and often is. If directors see only specific shots and cut in their heads only by shooting from a preconceived storyboard or shot list for scenes that have multiple characters, they will get into a lot of trouble telling the story visually. For the movie Hunter’s Blood, the first-time feature director had a night scene to do with ten actors. It was an important scene, as it was the pivotal moment in the story when the bad guys discover the good guys and the suspense begins. In his planning for the scene, the director saw a detailed rack focus five-shot at a specific moment within the scene. This was the first shot he staged in the sequence. It was a nice shot, and the actors, although confused, said the lines convincingly, but after it was completed the director needed to stage the actors so the shot would be part of the coverage for the sequence. Staging a scene with ten actors is tough enough, but staging it so that it would make logical editorial sense with a coverage shot done before the staging of the scene, development of the emotional characteristics of the characters, or seeing how the logical choreography of the scene would and could motivate coverage, resulted in a badly directed scene. What coverage there was did not link together smoothly. The director was setting up shots and cutting in his head without overlapping action or seeing the nuances of the spatial relationships of one character to another or understanding how the scene needed to be played for the actors. Had he begun his direction from the standpoint of staging the scene first instead of a special shot, the dynamics and suspense needed for the scene would have been fully envisioned and realized. Instead, as the producer of the movie, I had to pick up at another time an important shot of the bad guys coming upon the campsite and manufacture the suspense in postproduction because the director did not achieve it with his coverage.
Staging a multiple-character scene does not have to be complicated. You just need to go back to the basics: the theme of the scene and coverage as dictated by the emotional elements of the characters, the actors’ performances and their relationships to each other, and the choreographic staging of the actors in relation to the camera. The staging needs to have an authentic reality to it to reinforce the environmental truth for the actors. Once you have achieved that, then the camera often finds its own place in the scene, and the scene itself tells you how it needs to be covered. All the storyboarding and shot lists in the world cannot completely help you when you are working with many characters. In The Godfather Part II, Francis Ford Coppola was faced with a scene around a rectangular conference table that sits many people, including Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) and Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg). Cuban President Fulgencio Batista at the head of the table is addressing the group and asking them to look at a solid gold telephone given to him as a gift. Coppola staged the scene by first taking a wide-angle fixed establishing shot and then a series of moving master shots using the telephone passed from one person to the next as a motivation for the move. He also included a fixed camera on the important characters in the scene. When the phone gets to Michael Corleone and Hyman Roth, we can tell by how they pass the phone to the next person what they are really thinking. And it isn’t about their interest in the phone! This scene has many characters but very little coverage. Its coverage is effective storytelling motivated by the theme and the performances and the size of the table.
Directing coverage involves directors’ thought processes and, if need be, their use of personal storyboards and shot lists. Although a storyboard and/or shot list is sometimes created for a specific moment in a scene and privately helps individual directors understand coverage, it must not become the manual for the sequence or for the process of coverage. Today the emphasis on storyboards is so prevalent that directors use them religiously. This is an error that directors should break away from. Doing a specific shot that may be in a shot list or storyboard only at a specific line of dialogue is an indication of a director cutting in his or her head. Further, it is not a creative way of eliciting a performance from actors, nor will it give the editor subtle choices with which to tell the story. Do not cut in your head; rather, have a sense of editing.
One director I know was covering a complicated scene. In his staging he would have his characters speak to one another, and in his sequence of shots he would do the over-the-shoulder shot of one character, then the over-the-shoulder shot of the other character, then go back to the over-the-shoulder shot of the first character, and so on as his sequence of storyboards directed him. He would then follow a similar process for the close-ups. He would also do the shots only in the sequence on the specific lines of dialogue that he had preconceived, erroneously thinking that this would help performance continuity for the actors. This process of coverage drove the director of photography crazy, as he was continually changing the lights and the camera from one side of the scene to the other and back again. It also disrupted the focus and concentration of the actors since their environmental reality was flip-flopping. If it was confusing to the cinematographer and disruptive to the actors, it was even more confusing to the crew. And more important, it unnecessarily and selfishly extended the amount of time it took to shoot the scene. Directors must always take into consideration an efficient use of time, even if it means putting the burden of maintaining and sustaining performances on their shoulders. Directors must remember that when making movies, the actors are acting for the director and the director is the actors’ barometer for their performance.
The coverage process has logic. That logic is directed toward being creative and efficient and is developed through a firm grasp of the theme of the movie or the scene and of the characters’ journey through the movie. It is further developed by the need to build on actors’ performances within each scene and to maintain, as much as possible, the environmental truth for the actors.
There are some rules regarding the sequence of coverage:
First, after the master shot, always try to work all the coverage from one side of a scene or beat and then work from the other side or sides. This translates into efficient use of production time. It is critical when you have multiple characters in a scene. It may put the burden of sustaining the actors’ level of performances on your shoulders, depending on the structure and staging of the scene, but the cost of lost production time working any other way is too great when actors and crew members are being paid.2
Second, always work from the wider shot to the tighter shots, playing out as much of the scene as possible in each shot. This will let actors gain confidence in their performances before the camera intrudes on their acting space.
Third, overlap the action of the actor at the start and end of each coverage shot. This not only gives more editorial choices but also provides a physical action for the actor at the beginning of the shot. A physical action, like sitting, standing, drinking, eating, pushing away from, or pulling to, and so forth, always helps an actor find the dramatic impulse needed for the coverage shot, especially if he or she has experienced the environmental truth in other shots.
Fourth, always move the camera from one coverage shot to another coverage shot. Never keep the camera in the same position, thinking that by changing the lens you are changing the shot. It is the angle of the camera to the subject that is more critical to the syntax of film language; even moving the camera a few inches to the left or the right provides for coverage logic and better editing capabilities. The camera can be moved higher and lower as well as left or right, but this is more problematic with coverage since the director and cinematographer must always be looking for a reason for the shot by asking themselves intuitively or logically, “What does the shot mean?”
Fifth, always keep in mind how one coverage shot can be (or will be) used with another coverage shot. This does not mean cutting in one’s head. It means having a sense of the possibilities of how the shot can be used with others that are done. Also, when the sequential coverage of a scene is from the wider angles to the closer angles as mentioned above, the sequence will be easier to grasp, as the wider angle will be freshest in the director’s mind. It will also help maintain the eye-line, since the approximation of the eye-line moves from shot to shot. It has focus in a multiple-person shot, but in a close-up you must approximate the eye-line to where the other characters are located outside camera range.
Sixth, always know how long the shot is to last by finding the correct stopping point. Generally (but not always) the correct stopping point is when the action changes and the character moves out of the shot.3 In some instances the stopping point can be a change in a character’s eye-line. For example, a scene calls for Tito and Erica to be sitting at a table, and at the end of the scene Tito stands and moves to the side of Erica and continues the conversation from a standing position. When covering the scene and bringing the audience into the relationship of the two characters while they are sitting, the single on Erica is from Tito’s sitting position. Once Erica’s eye-line shifts to where Tito stands, the single on Erica is covered from Tito’s standing position. However, if Tito stands by his chair or pushes the chair back and stands where the chair was when he gets up, the single of Erica when Tito is sitting can also be used for Tito when he is standing since Tito is physically in the same location as his chair. It will be Erica’s eye-line that shifts to place Tito standing. But when we come around to the other side for the single on Tito, there will be two shots from Erica’s perspective: one with Tito sitting and one with him standing. Thus the eye-lines will all match. And it can be seen once again that staging may dictate how a scene is covered.
Erica sitting looking at sitting Tito (6-2a
Tito sitting looking at sitting Erica (6-2c)
Erica sitting looking at standing Tito (6-2b)
Tito standing looking at sitting Erica (6-2d)
Seventh, when developing the coverage for a scene, you must make each of the coverage shots as long as the shot will logically carry itself, even if your shot list or storyboard did not call for it. In other words, do not cut in your head by shooting the shot only for the duration of script that you think you want to use in the edited movie. Many directors end up going back to do pickups because they worked this way. Film stock is the cheapest commodity, and if you are shooting digitally, who cares how much stock you use? If you don’t have the shot, you can’t use it. So get it the first time.
Finally, keep the camera in front of the action. When the camera is behind the action it only increases the amount of coverage you need to do to tell the story, and more than likely your shots from behind the action will not be used. You will also be missing wonderful nuances of emotional character development from the actors. The action is determined by the movement and focus the characters in the scene undertake in staging.
In interpreting a scene you are limited only by your imagination. Creative directors try to set the location, theme, or mood of the narrative by the design of their shots whenever possible. The shot does not have to begin necessarily on the principal action of the scene but might employ peripheral action as a motivation to arrive at principal action. For example, the director stages a medium shot of a waitress coming out of the kitchen with some food, and the camera dollies with her as she crosses to a table, where it settles on a two-shot of Tito and Erica deep in concentration, enjoying their meal.
When a shot is planned in a director’s imagination, it can get them into trouble because the director may come to the set forcing the staging into the imaginary shot, and the angle of the shot may not necessarily be the best camera angle after the scene is staged. Often, directors are stuck in a visual mode and can’t get beyond that. They place the camera either behind the central action (movement) of the scene or as if the camera is front row center in a theater with actors making entrances stage right (camera left) and stage left (camera right). You have to look carefully at the structure and choreography of the scene to find the best camera position. Best position refers to that camera position or shot that communicates the director’s intent for the scene. Usually the scene itself will reveal it to you. Your cinematographer, whose major responsibility is to help interpret the movie visually, will be of great assistance in shaping your visual intuition of the sequence and will assist you in determining the best position for the camera. Your ability to be open and inspired may reveal it to you.
The composition of coverage shots has a major impact on storytelling. The spatial characteristic tells the audience what the physical relationship is between objects or actors in a scene and can address the theme or the psychological and emotional aspects of the characters. The physical reality of the staging is not always the spatial reality in the image, since depth of field and positioning of the camera in association with the subject creates its own space and will impact the composition.4
When directors storyboard a shot, they often don’t think about how to stage that shot and set up the physical reality needed for the actors. Additionally, they fail to develop the spatial relationships necessary for the shot. This can be accomplished by developing naturalistic staging while maintaining any visual plans for the camera. The camera will find its own place in the scene as long as you are aware that the camera will be placed either as an observer, a voyeur, or a character in the scene and the motivations for each shot will fall within one of those parameters. It will be how they are used together that will allow for story dynamics.
When you are set on the staging and have determined how you will cover the scene, you need only to look at the physical spacing of the actors to see whether or not a shot is to be dirty. A dirty shot is a shot that focuses on a person or persons in the frame while at the same time showing a very small part of someone else in the foreground of the image. It is as if the camera is sitting on the shoulder or at the cheek of the foreground character as opposed to being behind the foreground character. There is not enough seen to call it anything else but dirty, so we refer to it as a dirty shot. Note: If we clearly see enough of the foreground person so that the camera placement is directly behind them, then it becomes a two-shot or an over-the-shoulder shot.
Dirty medium shot Image tighter on Tito than OS (6-3a)
Over-the-shoulder — two-shot Image wider on Tito than dirty shot (6-3b)
The dirty shot can help set the spatial relationships between characters. For example, if the shot from one character to the subject of the image (the other character) is a dirty medium shot, then the close-up of the subject would be clean. Coverage can become disturbing when the spatial relationship is not logical. Again, you need only to look at the physical proximity of one actor to another to determine whether a close-up must be dirty. If the actors are two feet or less away from one another, then in all likelihood the dirty close-up is used. If you are not sure whether a close-up should be dirty, stand in the exact space of one of the actors and see what he or she sees of the other actor in the scene. If you don’t see more than the face from forehead to chin, then the close-up (head to shoulders) is dirty. But the extreme close-up from forehead to chin is clean.
Dirty close-up (6-4a)
Extreme close-up (6-4b)
You should not be afraid to use dirty shots when appropriate, as dirty shots are dynamic and offer the audience a view of the physical and spatial realities of the characters.
Being able to visualize all angles and shots from all sides of a scene and to make the choices for coverage is crucial to directing. But most directors see only opposite angles (as opposed to reverse angles) in relation to the context of the dialogue from one or two perspectives. This is especially true of new directors, as they are usually fixated on storyboards and shot lists and are blind to the scene that unfolds during staging and rehearsal.5 Perhaps conditioned to look at drama as television narrative,6 many beginning directors never see the myriad possibilities that coverage can offer them.
Delphine comes out of the apartment and walks down her fire escape stairs with her suitcase. She pauses briefly on the landing at the top of the last flight as she sees her sister, Barbara, sitting on the stairs at the bottom of the flight. In the previous scene inside the apartment they had a hurtful argument concerning Delphine’s departure. Delphine continues down the stairs and the scene continues at the bottom of the fire escape.
The director decides to do a master shot with Barbara in the foreground at the bottom of the flight and Delphine coming down the stairs behind her, over Barbara’s shoulder. In the staging Delphine pauses briefly on the landing before continuing down the stairs, remembering the argument that she and her sister had a few moments earlier inside the apartment. The master shot ends in a two-shot with the sisters at the bottom of the stairs having a discussion. After the master, the director does the coverage at the bottom of the stairs, as indicated by his shot list, finding shots that are within the sisters’ relationship—thus, in his mind, completing the scene. However, if the director had looked carefully at the staging instead of his shot pattern, he might have seen a low reverse angle from the top of the landing behind Delphine as she came into frame and paused with trepidation when she saw her sister. He might also have seen a medium shot of Delphine as she pauses at the top of the stairs, as well as Delphine’s point of view of Barbara sitting at the bottom of the landing. These three shots might editorially have opened up an emotional moment for Delphine, and the audience, for the scene to come at the bottom of the stairs.7
(6-5a)
(6-5b)
(6-5c)
If the director were truly watching the actress’s performance, he would have noticed that her pause meant something emotionally to her relationship with her sister. Choices!
As a rule of thumb, if one character is watching something or someone in the scene, it is probably a good idea to get a shot of the character looking and a shot of what the character is looking at. It may not be part of the planned coverage, but it becomes coverage that is organic from the staging. Most of the time you will find that this coverage can be used to expand an emotional moment for the character and the story.
These shots are sometimes referred to as emotional cutaways. There is another form of a cutaway that is organic to the staging of the scene, called inserts. Inserts are images that may not have a direct correlation to the emotional intent of the scene but are part of the scene. They might be something as simple as hands that are held between two characters, which tell the audience about their tenderness for each other. In The Zoo Story example earlier, there could be an insert of the book that Peter is reading. You may not know how it can be used editorially in the scene, but your instinct tells you that it might be used somehow. This insert can be done from outside the relationship of the two characters or from either character’s perspective. They each could mean something different to the story when it comes to an emotional moment. For example, we see Peter’s book in The Zoo Story from the objective perspective, from Peter’s perspective, and from Jerry’s perspective. Each means something slightly different when edited in the sequence.
Emotional moments from actors inspire directors to see coverage differently. The planned medium close-up on an actor’s speech might become a medium close-up that dollies into a close-up. Or the way the actor emotes during the dialogue may inspire the director to shoot an unplanned extreme close-up on the same emotional speech. Directors should always look for those moments and, through inspiration, be free enough to improvise so the coverage can become one with those moments.
Two-shot Jerry and Peter (6-6a)
Objective perspective of book (6-6b)
Peter’s perspective of book (6-6c)
Jerry’s perspective of book (6-6d)
As a rule, coverage shots should overlap action as much as possible. That is to say that each shot should start with some kind of physical action, whether it is the two-shot, the single, or the close-up. It not only gives more editorial choices but also provides a physical action for the actors to help them find the impulse that provides their motivation, since physical action will always cause an impulse (or physical reaction) in an actor. All action by an actor in a scene should be duplicated at the same place in the scene on each take of a shot and on all coverage shots that show the action. This will help match continuity for editing purposes. However, many directors like to give a certain degree of freedom to their actors and may not insist upon this. They are comfortable with the editor editing around the continuity issues. In the scene from the movie The Score, discussed in chapter 3, the drinking and hand motions of Marlon Brando were different in each take, but because Brando and Robert De Niro were in synchronicity with one another and playing new discoveries on each take, the scene always flowed smoothly. The edited scene in the movie uses moments from a couple of the takes.
Overlapping action is not always possible, especially when the shot is a close-up or an extreme close-up or is shot with a long lens that has a narrow depth of field. In those instances, a lift of the head or an eye movement may be all that is needed for the actors to establish their own reality to help them get into the beat of the moment. It also gives the editor the head or eye movement that might be used editorially in the scene. A wise director will always go back to basics to set the environmental reality for the actors and revert to the actors’ greatest tool when the camera invades their acting space: their imagination.
Continuity of physical action is important not only for the actor but also for the visuals. There must be a visual continuity to the physical action, since it ultimately affects editorial choices and defines the spatial and physical movements of the actors. For example, if an actor exits a shot camera left in one physical space, then he needs to enter the next sequential shot in that space camera right. Entering camera left sequentially will disorient the audience. However, if a character exits a shot moving away from camera in the center of the frame, on the next sequential shot he can enter either camera right or camera left since the audience saw him leave the space from a neutral perspective. These issues of shot continuity are examined while they are being completed by the continuity person on the set, who functions as a check and balance for the director in this matter. Continuity also relates to such issues as dialogue, wardrobe, and props, and is looked for by the on-set continuity person and individual production department heads and should not be the concern of the director unless there is a problem. The continuity person should be on top of all continuity issues.8 The continuity person is also the link to the editorial process and therefore must be on top of the elements when they are done on the set.
Your knowledge of coverage, without editing the movie in your head, and with a sense of the possibilities for editorial choices, should be kept in your mind, giving you an idea of how you may want a scene to turn out. This thinking will prevent you from overdoing your coverage, which burns up not only production time but also your actors, who are trying to give you good performances on each take.9 But be sure you have every possibility you may need to cover a scene, with the master shot first, followed by over-the-shoulders, or medium shots, then close-ups or extreme close-ups, for every beat of the scene. As directors are always working against time on the set, they may need to cut corners with their coverage plans or determine the selective coverage as it relates to a scene. Selective coverage comes from your analysis of the scene, its theme, its characters, and the elements of greatest importance. Focus your detailed coverage on that crucial segment, leaving the rest of the scene with minimum coverage.
Saving time on a set is always a director’s dilemma. One way to save time is to be efficient with camera placement.
Tom and Trish are on backyard patio chairs, deep in dialogue. Tom gets very upset with Trish and stands glaring down at her. He towers over her to demonstrate the authority he has in their relationship.
The director planned on getting coverage of Trish from Tom’s eye-line when he was seated and, by raising the camera, again when he was standing. The director wanted to show by the angle of the shot to Trish when Tom is standing that Tom thinks he has the power in the scene
Tom’s perspective seated (6-7a)
Tom’s perspective standing (6-7b)
But the first assistant director tells the director that the actors have to be dismissed in fifteen minutes, and the director can get only one of the two coverage shots in that amount of time. The director is faced with the decision as to which one. The solution to the predicament is for the director and the cinematographer to determine the best camera height on Trish when Tom is sitting, the best camera height on Trish when Tom is standing, and to choose a camera height in between the two. It isn’t the best for both needed positions, and it’s not the ideal conceptual choice, but for this problem it is the obvious and effective solution.
Solution to time problem (6-7c/d)
Sometimes a director is faced with the possibility of doing coverage for one side of a scene on one day and the other side of the scene on another day, in different but similar locations. This can happen more times than one would like to admit. On these occasions, necessity can be the mother of invention, and with a little imagination and forethought a solution is not far off. In the previous scenario:
Tom towers over Trish who gets furious at him and pulls a revolver from her purse and points it at Tom.
The director has time to cover only the close-up and medium shot of Trish from the compromised camera position and chooses to do so with the barrel of the gun in the foreground pointing camera right at Tom. The next day the production is scheduled to move to another location, and another scene for Tom is scheduled but without Trish. But also on the next day the director does a reverse medium shot of Tom that was to have been shot the day before. The shot is done with the background behind Tom out of focus and the same prop gun in the foreground, but this time from the back of the gun as it is being held by a stand-in duplicating Trish’s hand. Although covered at different times in different locations, the gun becomes the neutral object that blends both shots together. Of course, the director also does a close-up of Tom from this angle without the gun in the shot to ensure that the emotional dramatic moment can be edited in the scene.
The rack focus shot is a favorite shot of certain directors and film students, as it is a shot in which the focus is changed mid-shot, when the director wants to shift the attention from one object or character to another. A rack focus shot has two objects: one object is in the background, and one is in the foreground. The object in the background is in focus, while the object in the foreground is out of focus. Or vice versa. It is generally done with a long lens and must be carefully orchestrated and motivated by either the movement of the actor or a line of dialogue.10 Rack focus shots, like all visually technical images, must be invisible. And they will be as long as they have motivation and are logical to the spatial and character relationships of the scene.
Many producers of television movies and television series pilots who have limited budgets and are on limited production schedules require their directors to shoot coverage using a two-camera narrative technique. This technique uses two cameras simultaneously to shoot coverage. When employing it, directors must be inventive yet simple in staging, and cinematographers must be aware that they are lighting for two cameras for each setup, as opposed to just one camera. The cameras are used side by side in most cases, but never for the same size shot. Their placement relative to each other is critical, as it affects lens size, depth of field, and eye-lines. For example, in simple two-character coverage, the two cameras would be next to each other, with one set up to do an over-the-shoulder and the other to do a dirty close-up.
Camera A (6-8a)
Camera B (6-8b)
2-camera coverage floor plan
Recognition of the subjective and objective relationship of one image to another becomes crucial in this situation. For example, if a close-up is to be a clean, subjective close-up in which the actor is looking directly into the frame, this close-up cannot be shot with the two camera technique but must be shot by itself, because the camera becomes the character seeing the close-up. Shooting two-camera narrative film style is a technique that should be used only when faced with time limitations that cannot be resolved any other way or on sequences where the director feels strongly that the actors cannot duplicate the emotion of their performances through many takes. In another chapter we will discuss using multiple cameras in various situations around single camera narrative film style directing.
Good directors think on their feet. Production is the most volatile phase of moviemaking, and many problems occur that are out of the director’s control—problems that can affect the coverage. It takes directorial skill to think on the fly and solve coverage problems. Solutions come from inspiration, which happens when the director has firm control of the project. And directors find inspiration silently (or vocally) by asking themselves “what if?” This question keeps the internal creative process ever challenged. It is the search for the best results on the set. The production process is about coverage. And coverage is about the camera. And the camera is about the actor eliciting truth. And directors thinking “what if” is a method of finding that truth. What if the camera pushed in at this moment? What if you started the scene adjusting the model and then went over to the easel? What if? What if? What if? The “what if” comes from intuition—your intuition. And if you keep asking yourself, your actors, or your cinematographer “what if,” you will nurture your own creative inspiration. If you lock yourself to preconceived ideas of shot lists and storyboards, you hinder your inspiration. From inspiration you find the layers of truth that you need in storytelling during the coverage process. So don’t be afraid to ask the voice inside of you very loudly, what if?11
Coverage is one of the building blocks of storytelling. It is a building block that is handed off to the editor, who should be considered an amazing resource for the director. Editors must have a kinship with directors in terms of the story and their taste. They have an incredible objectivity as they look at your footage, since they know the movie only from what they see and not from how it got there. They are only as good as the footage you give them, and hopefully they will see in your coverage the layering of the story.
CHAPTER SIX SUMMARY
Where people sit at a table in relation to one another is important. Decide on where the main character sits at a table scene in order to determine how to use the camera in the scene.
Every time a character is added, the coverage can change exponentially.
Special shots or beauty shots should always be kept as additional shots to coverage.
Storyboard and shot lists must not be the manual for the sequence of coverage.
Do not cut in your head but rather maintain a sense of editing.
After the master, work coverage from one side of a scene first and then the other side.
Always do coverage from wide to tight shots, remembering to overlap action at the beginning and end of each shot.
Always move the camera from one coverage shot to another coverage shot.
Always keep in mind how coverage shots can be used with one another.
Always know how long the shot is to last by knowing the correct stopping point.
Continue coverage shots for as long as each shot will logically carry itself out.
Keep the camera in front of the action.
The choreography of the scene will show you the best camera position.
The physical reality of the staging is not always the spatial reality in the image.
The placement of the camera will be either as an observer, a voyeur, or as a character in the scene.
A dirty shot focuses on a person in the frame while at the same time showing a very small part of someone else in the foreground.
The dirty shot can help set the spatial relationships between characters.
Inspiration on emotional moments permits you to improvise coverage.
Continuity of physical action is important for actors and the camera.
Selective coverage and camera positions can save time.
Asking what if? nurtures inspiration.
Good directors think on their feet.
1Performances are always the bottom line!
2Directors have an obligation to finish a day’s work within a sensible twelve-hour workday, including setup and strike.
3The points when you start a shot and when you end a shot are not the points of dialogue that you have predetermined will be edited in the scene. This is cutting in your head. Directors look for physical action to start and stop the shot whenever possible.
4The legendary director Alfred Hitchcock was a master of composition in telling a story. In Dial M for Murder, Hitchcock used an oversized telephone in the foreground of a shot that matched the real telephone in the master. The audience was not aware that it was oversized; they only saw the phone as representative of an ominous character that brought horror and fear to its owner.
5Storyboards and shot lists condition directors to see coverage one way.
6Coverage in a television narrative single-camera show is limited because of the time it takes to do the show. An hour television show is shot in six or seven days, and the coverage is deliberately limited so that there are not a lot of choices available to the editor and the show can be completed quickly for airing.
7This is not cutting in one’s head but seeing coverage that could allow for emotional options.
8Continuity is more than keeping track of the characteristics of each camera shot. It also involves the check and balance system of the single-camera narrative process for assurance of accurate matching (same) dialogue, action, and eye-line from shot to shot. Continuity people (as all other production positions) must only advise the director of the status of a situation and let the director make the decision as to what to do.
9On one project from my early days, I was working with the great star Bette Davis, and although she gave excellent performances on the master and all the coverage shots, she gave a brilliant performance on her close-up. When I asked her why she saved the brilliant performance for the close-up, she said matter-of-factly, “Because I want you to use it!”
10Rack focus shots were used in the 2005 season of The West Wing, at the end of the show in which Alan Alda as the Republican candidate for president is about to go out and debate Jimmy Smits, the Democratic candidate. There is a tight profile shot of Alda as he looks camera left waiting in the wings to go to the stage, and he turns his head up to camera and the lens rack focuses on Smits, also waiting. The shot is duplicated in reverse from Smits to Alda.
11To implant one of your own ideas into the actor’s mind, make a suggestion using the words “what if” so that the actor can think about it and eventually make your idea his/her own. Norman Jewison did exactly this when he suggested to Topol that he touch his hat during one scene in Fiddler on the Roof: “What if you touched your hat like this?”