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Hail Caesar
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[Oliver Peters] “Precisely because it is the director’s choice. These choices are often made to control lighting in a creative fashion. For example, if you study Robert Richardson’s lighting (Tarantino’s DP) it almost never comes from the direction of a natural, logical source. So using existing light might be technically viable, but it isn’t creatively viable for everyone unless that’s what the script calls for.”
I’ll go one step further and say even in controlled environment like a studio the required setup to get Person A lit correctly might conflict with the required setup to get Person B lit correctly on the reverse so even if you had two cameras to shoot both at the same time you still wouldn’t because you couldn’t reconcile the lighting issues. For a simple example, say you want Person A extremely back light but by doing so you make Person B, on the reverse, washed out. Or, even more basic than that, you just can’t physically place the lights where you want them to be if you are shooting both angles at the same time.
It gets down to the basic difference between shooting single came vs multicam. In single cam you can really fine tune the look you want (the lighting, set design, blocking, etc.,) because you always know what the audience will be seeing. With multicam you have to
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[Bill Davis] “And I kept having the powerful feeling that it was my personal inability to communicate it properly that was driving so much of my angst. “
Don’t worry, it’s not all your fault Bill. Some, but not all. 😉
Editors are normal people and like normal people there is a large section that is drawn to external validation. Recently on Facebook I’ve seen editors (some use Avid, some use X, some use PPro) all basically say the same thing, which is that they like the fact that big Hollywood projects are using their chosen NLE because it solidifies (justifies? vindicates?) the decision that they made in choosing that NLE. It’s our equivalent of the celebrity endorsement. Even if the person edits corporate videos and not movies there is the sense or prestige that their NLE of choice has also be chosen by big, hollywood people to edit big, hollywood movies.
I recently read an article about Chevy’s relationship with NASCAR and even though there has been nothing ‘stock’ about stock car racing for decades the motto of win on Sunday, sell on Monday still holds true. Chevy still sees an increase in Chevy sales after one of their cards wins on Sunday which is why, no matter the health of the company, Chevy has never considered putting their racing ties on the chopping block. The connection between the prestige of winning and selling cars is too strong.
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[Andrew Kimery] ” which is that they like the fact that big Hollywood projects are using their chosen NLE because it solidifies (justifies? vindicates?) the decision that they made in choosing that NLE.”
In my humble opinion, I think this is a dumb way to choose an NLE (or market an NLE). You choose it on your workflow and taste, not because some Hollywood director thinks Premiere is cool. What about the movies cut on Avid, Premiere or X that suck? Is that a negative mark on the NLE? Of course not, but it highlight the dumbness of choosing an NLE because some Hollywood cat uses (insert your NLE here). All the “non-editors” I know pick NLE’s that way. 😉
Scott Witthaus
Senior Editor/Post Production Supervisor
1708 Inc./Editorial
Professor, VCU Brandcenter -
[Scott Witthaus] “In my humble opinion, I think this is a dumb way to choose an NLE (or market an NLE). “
Agreed and, to clarify, these were people had already picked their NLE (presumably based on their specific needs) and just felt it legitimized their decision. That’s the whole point of the ‘Cold Mountain moment” we talk about for FCP Legend. A high profile, well respected editor chose to use it on a high profile Hollywood project and you couldn’t ignore it. On a more local scale the same thing happened when Bunim/Murray switched from Avid to FCP Legend. Were they the first company that did RealityTV to use FCP? No, but they were a large, respected company that could chose anything they wanted and they chose FCP. That had ripple effects that a small shop choosing to use FCP (or whatever) could never produce.
To be fair though high profile, external validation impact many (most?) people’s decisions. If it didn’t product placement, celebrity endorsements, the phrase “no one ever got fired for buying IBM”, etc., wouldn’t exist. Heck how many people have a seemingly hardwired connection between price and quality (if it’s expensive it must be good, if it’s inexpensive it must suck)?
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Guys, I acknowledge all of what you are saying. But the point is that while we all know that the traditional process of disconnecting the creation of what will become contiguous takes in shooting space and timers both effective and expected – having new alternatives that allow the possibility of real time capture when the director might want to value single performance energy or tone or character interaction over “assembly control” in building the final scene. It’s just another option. And options are good, right?
Plus, remember, again we are talking about processes appropriate to one form of content creation – the type that happens at the top end of the production pyramid where ample resources are the norm to employ time and money in large amounts to precisely solve production problems. There are lots of worthy production types that would relish having the option to capture these types of “inside reaction shots” quicker and easier while spending less to do so.
Seems like that would be a good thing? No?
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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[Bill Davis] ” But the point is that while we all know that the traditional process of disconnecting the creation of what will become contiguous takes in shooting space and timers both effective and expected…”
Just as an FYI – the value of the video is the use of the technique, independent of the software used to get there. 🙂
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Bill Davis] “And options are good, right? “
Yes, but you had asked:
[Bill Davis] “Why necessarily shoot these sequentially any more? Sure that may still be the directors preference. But what if it’s not?”
So Oliver and I were trying trying to give you some examples of “why not”.
[Bill Davis] “There are lots of worthy production types that would relish having the option to capture these types of “inside reaction shots” quicker and easier while spending less to do so.”
There are, but like you said the focus of the discussion was on the “…top end of the production pyramid..”so that’s what we talked about. As long as the director didn’t run into any technical or aesthetic limitations there’s no reason one couldn’t setup two GoPros, iPhones, DSLRs, Blackmagic Pocket cameras, SI-2k Mini’s, ARRI Alexa Mini’s, etc., and edit it as multicam as you suggested. I’d honestly be surprised if someone, somewhere hadn’t already tried it yet. People are even going ‘beyond’ what we are talking about (shooting both angles at the same time) and shooting all ‘angles’ at the same time with 360 degree camera rigs for VR.
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[Andrew Kimery] “and edit it as multicam as you suggested.”
Actually two-cameras and multicam are often shot for dialogue scenes. But, the logistics of camera placement generally dictate two over-the-shoulder shots or two different framings from the same angle or two cameras at 90-degrees apart. You don’t get the same effect as the Coens’ examples. Plus there’s more directorial control in their approach. Some directors want everything to be shot as two camera set-ups and others religiously avoid it and stick with single camera techniques.
This isn’t limited to the high-end, since I’ve seen the same thing done in the most basic corporate training videos.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “Actually two-cameras and multicam are often shot for dialogue scenes. But, the logistics of camera placement generally dictate two over-the-shoulder shots or two different framings from the same angle or two cameras at 90-degrees apart. You don’t get the same effect as the Coens’ examples. “
Right, but we were talking about the Coen’s approach which could possibly be achieved with small enough cameras likes the ones I mentioned. Even with those small cameras though whether or not a dirctor would want to shoot that way, or could shoot that way, is another question. Not to state the obvious, but the single vs multicam ‘debate’ isn’t just one of technical differences but also aesthetic differences and preferences.
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[Andrew Kimery] “Not to state the obvious, but the single vs multicam ‘debate’ isn’t just one of technical differences but also aesthetic differences and preferences.”
But mostly technical, I think.
It highlights a reality that I’ve never seen addressed at any length: the reverse shot is entirely unnatural. Literally. It can’t exist in nature, because it requires two simultaneous points of view.
That may seem obvious, but think about it. You, personally, can’t stand in one location and “see” a reverse. It’s entirely a cinematic invention, and can only be approached that way.
Although I suppose you COULD say that using reverses AT ALL is an aesthetic choice, which of course it is. And a relatively recent one at that.
What’s most interesting to me about reverses as an unnatural artifice is that they’re rooted in the very human reality of our role as witnesses, WANTING to see both speakers speak, AND wanting to see both sets of reactions. Even though there’s absolutely no way that we could experience the conversation this way “in reality,” reverse work because of this fundamentally human drive to empathy, to identify, in this case, with both of the people in the scene.
As both you and Oliver have identified, lighting is ultimately the gating factor in most cases. The lighting that would produce the most “natural” effect from one camera angle in this entirely UN-natural arrangement might not “look” natural from the other angle — since there’s nothing “natural” about the relationship between the two angles!
There’s also the technical problem that pumping in enough light to work for two contrasting, perhaps even conflicting, camera angles requires a lot of space. If you say twice as much space, then you might be cutting the number of potential shooting spaces in half, right?
Then staging the shot such that both camera set-ups AND both sets of lights AND their crews (focus pullers and such) are out of the frame now creates hard limits on where the cast can be. It almost certainly necessitates that everything be locked down.
Locking down cameras, lights, and actors for the technical reason of just creating a frame with the right things included and excluded also takes time for testing, and introduces risks for technical issues, rather than artistic choices, necessitating expensive retakes.
Even if there was in fact a one-headed camera that could view multiple perspectives, the rest applies. Costs skyrocket, and artistic choices plummet.
To go off topic of my off topic tangent, my pet peeve is reverse shots where the actor’s mouth doesn’t match the words we’re hearing. That’s the OPPOSITE of fixing it in post, u ppl. That’s taking a perfectly good shot and CREATING a mistake in post that didn’t actually happen on the set.
That’s a whole ‘nother rant, but we’re THIS FAR along in the history of cinematic language, and I still see this almost every single day.
Anyway, there are no problems in creating reverse shots that could be solved by shooting with a single camera, and the small handful of advantages that some multicam shoots allow frequently come at price of severely limiting artistic choices, for fundamentally technical reasons.
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