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“Bottle” movie – GH4 or A7S?
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[Mark Suszko] “This amateur movie is going to need very good audio, or even good camerawork will fall flat.”
You’re absolutely right, and when I did a site visit, that was another point of discussion (disadvantage, or maybe an advantage of being a high school-level filmmaker, is that you have to know a little about pretty much damn everything). One great advantage of the apartment is that is a hundred year old wooden floor – nice and creaky and clunky. We talked about how he was going to need to use a lot of that kind of noise for mood and tension – maybe even use a wooden chair for the younger actor, because that in combination with the wooden floor would make for some excellent use of ambient sound at the right times.
He knows the importance of sound design. He did a short film his junior year for me (8 minute variation on “The Most Dangerous Game” that mostly took place in a huge abandoned barn) that he entered in a local film festival. Excellently shot, but the sound – it was terrible. He got rid of most the natural sound in favor of overbearing musical score to jack up tension. He didn’t place. His senior year I hooked him up with another student of mine who was interested only in sound design and musical composition, and they spent six weeks completely redoing it – almost all of the music was gone, replaced almost entirely with environmental sound (wind howling outside, creaks, crashes, etc). I also had him cut 45 seconds out of it (and man, who would he look at me with near-hate when I’d say things like “you need to cut the last five frames from this shot”), and he submitted to another film festival, and won the Drama category. Based on that and our conversation they’ve become almost adamant about using no music, which isn’t as far as I would go – but hey, it’s not my movie, I’m just trying to provide a bit of advice.
I emailed his parents last night and said they’re just going to have to let him rent a package of each camera with some primes for the weekend and see what he likes better. I know I’d personally go with the A7S just because I’m a full-frame man and I get so particular about color grading it borders on OCD, but then again it’s not my money.
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Jason,
I highly recommend that your student definitely test both cameras in the same lighting conditions of that he was planning to film on. This way he can test the limits of both cameras and maybe even find the type of “look” he is searching for from one of the cameras.
I think that prime lenses are the way to go since they have a better range in capturing an image in the highest possible quality.
Personally I would go for the NEW Sony a7s mk2 since it has built in 5-axis stabilization. This way you can have nice smooth movement in the film without the need of getthing sliders or dollies.
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[Jason Roberts] “You know, I love it when a director doesn’t “know any better”, and amazing stuff happens as a result(Citizen Kane, anyone?). “
Which isn’t true. Everyone had a lot of experience by the time it came to Citizen Kane, they weren’t a bunch of newbies who had never done anything similar before.
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“Oh no, you di-in’t”
Kane had the finest people working on it that RKO had available.
I think what you probably meant was that Welles came into the deal with a radio and stage background, and wasn’t up to speed on the movie-making process as studios were doing it, but he was “coached” along by Gregg Toland thru the entire thing. I will say that many of the things that make KANE so great and different were because Welles came to the process with a fresh eye and not a lot of preconceptions or habits of other film directors. His use of deep focus and long master shots, with Toland’s help, allowed him to use a lot of theater style techniques to direct and re-direct the eye around the frame with lighting, with movement and position. These stage acting tricks are part of what makes KANE easy to re-watch time after time, because you can choose to look at different parts of the frame every time you view it. So not to pile on, but, Welles was hardly an amateur storyteller at this point, he was just approaching things differently… and not always successfully. There are a number of anecdotes of things Welles experimented with, that didn’t work out.
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[Gary Huff] “Which isn’t true. Everyone had a lot of experience by the time it came to Citizen Kane, they weren’t a bunch of newbies who had never done anything similar before.
“I am referring to Wells as a first-time director. Yes, he was surrounded with incredible talent, coached by a great producer – yet at the end of the day, he was the guy with the bullseye on his head. I know he spent a lot of time studying John Ford to learn technique and technical information (I have yet to see anyone do a talk of the influence of John Ford on Wells and I’d love for someone to do it), and he was an incredibly accomplished storyteller, actor, writer – but not in the medium of film. I live in both the theatrical world and the film world, and they’re so vastly different it makes my brain hurt to think of it. So to think that he was able to take the fantastic visual imagery of his stage work and his words and turn them into the shots he did – while being supported and surrounded by all the right people – into the visual astoundingness that is that movie (I know it’s not a word, but I’m going to use it anyway). That’s what I mean by “didn’t know any better” – I don’t think there’s a better first film by any first-time director than that. He knew what he was doing by not knowing what he was doing – he learned technique and also trusted his instinct, and to see that in a first-timer is rare to never.
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[Jason Roberts] “I am referring to Wells as a first-time director”
He was by no means a first time director on Citizen Kane. He was very experienced in both stage and radio at this point.
And Toland was the DP, not the producer.
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Children… please…. quit sniping like a bunch of six year olds. This is not a Real Housewives audition… lets stop it before someone gets a drink thrown in their face.
All valid points… lets just concede that Kane was Welles’ first major feature film and leave it at that, which is true.
And part of what made it great is the fact that it was his first big film, with those “fresh eyes” that were mentioned… and backed up by brilliant people like Toland.
I think it’s a bit telling that out of his long and successful career, Welles’ first film is considered his masterpiece, and many would argue that nothing else in the following two-thirds of a century even came close. Which is actually a bit sad.
And yes… I’m sure years of writing and radio directing and all that jazz helped immensely… but still…. it’s a bit akin to commissioning a piece from a gifted artist renowned for his oil landscapes… but this time you are wanting a sculpture. Of a person. In bronze. The talent transcends to a degree, but it’s still a very very different medium.
Play nice.
T2
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Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com
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[Todd Terry] “Children… please…. quit sniping like a bunch of six year olds.”
Oh please, get over yourself. Did you really think it was proper judgement call to come out of the gate acting like a 12-year old playing everyone’s mommy?
[Todd Terry] “Welles’ first film is considered his masterpiece, and many would argue that nothing else in the following two-thirds of a century even came close. Which is actually a bit sad.”
Perhaps because other people who made Citizen Kane what it was, and were overlooked, weren’t along for the rest? Perhaps how there’s a huge drop-off in quality as the Star Wars films continued on and key people who made the first two what they were moved on? I would say that what Toland meant with “fresh eyes” is inexperience that wouldn’t fight him on very suggestion. That’s what I would mean if I wanted a “fresh” director. And Toland’s style was not dictated by Welles, it was well evident before he came on the scene.
What Welles primarily brought was the tenacity to write and film a piece essentially lampooning one of the most powerful men in the U.S. at that time, and paints a fascinating, if fictional, portrait of someone with that level of control.
[Todd Terry] ” it’s a bit akin to commissioning a piece from a gifted artist renowned for his oil landscapes… but this time you are wanting a sculpture. Of a person. In bronze. The talent transcends to a degree, but it’s still a very very different medium.”
It’s not at all that different that your analogy would imply. Welles successfully translated from stage to radio as well, but why, for some odd reason, does that not seem such a ridiculous jump? If you have a talented, experienced cinematographer who can keep you from staging everything like a play (although there are plenty of staged moments in Kane), then what is left that is explicitly different from directing stage vs directing cinema?
In fact, I would say the blending of experiences in stage and radio is what made him perfectly situated to make a film in the first place. The stage experience with visuals and blocking, the radio experience for dialogue (especially in overlapping dialogue, something he experimented with during his tenure in radio), and this helps from dating his film by giving it a modern feel just from the sound work alone.
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[Gary Huff] “Oh please, get over yourself”
As much as I am not one to ruffle feathers – I have looked at many of your posts, and you have used this phrase quite often. Have you thought of applying it to yourself? Because as opposed to practicing kindness in intellectual debate, you tend to talk at people, and not with them. Let me ask this – had I inserted the word “film” in the phrase “first-time director”, would you have decided to question whether I should be practicing my profession? If so, why? And I did mix up DP and Producer, that is a certainly a mistake – what I get for responding too quickly without checking the facts I’m sure of in my head.
[Gary Huff] “then what is left that is explicitly different from directing stage vs directing cinema”
As a director of both, I will be happy to offer my view on this.
Directing for stage – the fourth wall through which the audience looks is not moveable. There is no closeup, or 30 degree rule. Theatre is just as much a visual art as a performing art, and visual technique is used by way of levels, placement of actors in physical space – such as creating a diagonal across the downstage and upstage areas – in order to create emotional tension. Additionally varying levels can and are used. The visuals and physical placement and movement of actors are used to display and further emotion, because on stage an actor’s primary tool is the body. In theatre, actors have more freedom of movement – there are times when actors must know their marks because of special lighting cues, and lighting and movement in combination with carefully crafted vocal work are all used together to direct the audience’s focus at a given time. That being said, one night an actor may suddenly walk towards another actor as a result of an emotional response, and the next night walk away for another emotional reason. The whole body is used by an actor because of the distance between the furthest audience member and the actor. In additional to all those elements are sound and set design. Sound is meant to enhance the vocal work of the actors, and the set both establishes space as well as serving as an obstacle course for actors to traverse as they move about the stage, using them as barriers or something to tie into.
Directing for film – the fourth wall is somewhat to totally moveable (depending on how one wishes to use the 180 degree rule and 30 degree rules, from slavish to throwing it out the window). Film is, at its core, a visual art – at its most basic, film does not NEED actors, dialogue, sound, or anything else except a series of images juxtaposed against each other to create tension and meaning. Of course the vast majority of people prefer their movies with good actors and sound and dialogue. In film, the primary tool of the actor is the face, particularly the eyes, because of the popularity in mainstream film of using a medium shot or closer. In film we see much more of an actor’s emotion and thinking in their eyes because of how most directors chose to place a camera, whereas on stage the whole body must be used to convey such things. Example: look at Jessie Eisenberg’s performance in “The Social Network”. He barely, if ever, moves his head to look at people, or to think – but his eyes quickly move from point to point, and we can see what he’s thinking. Or Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight”, and he choses to look directly at someone with his eyes as opposed to when they’re looking at something else, even when his face is turned towards them. This is an entirely different mode of acting than on stage, a different mindset, and both the director and actor need to be on that wavelength. In film, focus of the audience is decided quite often by the use of focus on camera – a shallow depth of field and the audience has little to no choice where to look, whereas deep focus gives an audience much more choice where to look, how to interpret an image. Focus of an audience is also directed through use of lighting and color (which is also done on stage of course). In film, unless truly deep focus is used, there is little room for an actor to be spontaneous in terms of movement – they must hit their marks as the focus dictates. If the actor deviates from that, and the director decides it works, lighting and focus must be completely changed and the movement replicated – and what if on the second or third or fourth take the movement has lost its emotional authenticity? Also, an actor on stage, if they are a lead, is working for about two hours straight, lights up to curtain call – there is a immersion in the world, the ability live truthfully in imaginary circumstances that is sustained over a long period of time. If shooting on 35mm film, the longest an actor is immersed in the world (unless they decide to never break character even when cameras aren’t rolling) is 11 minutes (I believe that’s the running time of a 1000ft of film?). Then there is a break, the changing of lights and setting up for a new shot, etc – the imaginary circumstances are “broken” for a period of time. Vocal work is much different for film than for stage. On stage, unless you are wearing a mic, you must know how to train and use your diaphragm in order to project properly so that the cheap seats can hear and understand you – and with that amplified voice, still approach something that resembles natural speech. In film, one always allows for a mic, so that the actor does not have to think about intonation and inflection in combination with projection (which is much different from loudness vs softness of course, and why actors who grow up in one world often have difficulty moving successfully into another medium. The same goes for writers and directors). I know that I have talked much about the differences for actors, and that’s because a director has to know these differences and coach actors differently for each medium. That would be one of the key points. The other key point would be using the camera’s focus and light and color to direct the audience’s attention, whereas on stage it’s lighting, physical placement on the stage, levels, lines & diagonals, and voice.
Here is my final argument – once a play starts rolling, it’s the actors who are really in charge, along with the stage manager. They can decide what to do on a given night to give a performance, and the technical crew is usually good and fast enough to change things as necessary if an actor does something spontaneous – the performance isn’t going to stop for anything short of a heart attack or fire. On a contemporary film set, the director is theoretically the one in charge, and can stop things at any time, and dictate every aspect of what will be caught on the camera, and what of those captured items will make up the final product.
I am not bothered if you disagree with my breakdown of what I feel is different, this is reflective of my experience in the two worlds. I only ask that if you wish to engage in debate with me, please do not condescend. I have no interest in being “right” with someone I do not know and will never meet – I don’t have that interest with most people I know, to be honest. Yes, I enjoy debate, because I enjoy listening and responding to what others have to say. I responded to only two of your sentences because I felt they were the most relevant to respond to – there is much more I could give my opinion on, but I get the feeling this missive will be dismissed. If that is the case then so be it – really, if your dismissal of others because of your sureity of your expertise gives you pleasure, then by all means enjoy any pleasure you may derive from me. Personally, I don’t feed people who think in such ways, and I would like to believe that you don’t either Mr. Huff.
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[Jason Roberts] “I have no interest in being “right” with someone I do not know and will never meet – I don’t have that interest with most people I know, to be honest. “
You should be right if you want to teach, because if you’re wrong, then what is the value of what you are teaching?
I do agree with the breakdown, but in no way does it mean that someone who is successful at the former cannot transition that to the latter.
I don’t disagree that there is a lot of subjectivity in topics of this nature, but if you want to position Welles as having no experience then you are sadly mistaken. You should not just sum up what he brought to the experience that eliminates the nuance of what went down, nor should you simply ignore that Tolland literally brought the difference between theatrical staging and directing the audiences’ eyes in the way that film does and lay all of that success on Welles. In fact, I think auteur attitudes would do your students a great disservice in not discussing the equal contributions of everyone who was involved, from Toland having a “fresh” director that allowed his suggestions to be implemented for the visual style, Robert Wise’s editing (a man who went on to also leave his mark on cinema), to Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead, Everett Sloane and others, many of which were very experienced and undoubtedly their performance was a mixture of Welles’ direction and their own suggestions and ideas.
[Jason Roberts] “You know, I love it when a director doesn’t “know any better”, and amazing stuff happens as a result(Citizen Kane, anyone?). “
I just really dislike this attitude, because a) it’s not born out by the actual facts and b) it plays to the anti-education bias that America suffers from. “All those “edumacated” people couldn’t churn out anything classic like Citizen Kane at the time. It’s all street smarts!” when instead, the actual truth of the matter, is that a very technically-minded craftsman like Toland, someone who was very excited by all the new filmmaking technology of the time, wanted someone who wouldn’t fight him on his ideas to try to implement something new, and the lightening in the bottle gave him an interesting script by someone who wasn’t already integrated into the studio system. And let’s not forget that Welles is not simply a man who only knows theatre and radio. Surely he went to the movies just like anyone else, and with his mind probably studied what he saw and what worked and what did not, and thus had a grasp on the differences before he stepped one foot onto set.
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