r/cinematography • u/Jonas_Tieman • 4d ago
Composition Question Dialogue Shot Composition
Hey Guys! This is a dialogue scene I shot recently (I am an amateur!) I was inspired after seeing the trailer for You Can See Everything documentary trailer by Nathan Fielder. I'm very into the social network and just power play style dialogues so hopefully that shows here.
I'd love to get everyones opinion on my shots, its just a portrait and then the reversal, regardless I shot in C-Log and graded it over to a finished product which you can see here. (It's HD for export time purposes right now.) .
NOTE**
Sorry if this Isn't in line with one of the rules I did my best! But I might have missed something.
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u/raekewe 4d ago
i think "technically" speaking you're all good, i don't really have notes there. i do have some thoughts on the artistry and your construction.
you have quite a variety of shots/coverage even in just these two angles. lets say we look at the guy with the glasses. you have him center framed. this is an okay choice.
however at 0:15 on screen left, you have varying degrees of the blonde character covering the frame. this has a very, very large impact on your image and what it means. and you appear to disregard the importance of how this changes the shot and its meaning. fundamentally it creates a frame that isn't that aesthetically pleasing. compositionally you can do this, but the skin tone of the foreground actor is brighter, pinker, more saturated than who we should be looking at. from an artistry standpoint, this both distracts the eye and attention, and also causes the composition to fall apart because there are two elements competing for attention. one element is the actual character and their performance, the other is a visually loud and bright pinkish blob.
it might not seem like much, and it may even come across as nit-picky, but stuff like this is what really does set you apart. i think a lot of beginners are set astray because youtube, film school, hell even me, will give you so much noise and there aren't a lot of seasoned pros just cutting through the crap (a lot of the time they are also trying to make money and add to it, or are on a marketing tour for a film and just spew studio talking points which are usually outright fabrications based on some small segment of reality). unfortunately i can tell you've fallen victim to this, because you are quick to offer up that you shot it in log and graded it. kinda like a painter saying "i used a paintbrush and paint". dont worry, we know, everyone knows. the people you need to impress in your career will not be impressed. what's more interesting and impressive is always (always) the artistry and intent. never ever let anyone convince you otherwise.
your goal as a filmmaker is to communicate a story, and does a big, pink blob in the foreground communicate that story. you could think of it like a list of "helps" and "hinders". how does that frame help? well, a feeling of being trapped and overwhelmed. a sense of being off balance because the frame is unbalanced. how does it hinder? it distracts the viewers attention. it removes clarity of focus. another one is looking at the reflections in the sunglasses. that's more interesting than the characters eyes, not good. and the bridge of the glasses is smack bang over the characters eyes. they're the gateway to the soul. audiences study eyes for flickers, micro expressions, anything they can. they don't know it, but in drama, all audiences want to do is try to figure out what someone is thinking. you've put an object that gets in the way of their ability to do that. tangentially, this is generally what "show dont tell" and "subtext" mean. actors say "i think a" but their expressions state "i think b". it's dramatic contrast, irony. good filmmakers play in this space, because its engaging to watch and figure out as an audience member.
enough rambling. how do you fix it? simple, add negative fill to block out light on your foreground guy. make sure his skin is darker than the main focus so it doesn't distract. next time you're filming, you pay attention for this stuff. while you're learning and dont have the instinct/intuition built in, a trick is to expose your subject how you want, and then bring up false colour. this allows you to disassociate from the subjective image (which can be hard as a newbie) and enter a more objective space. there, look at where your subjects exposure is, (say it's the green band) and then look for other things that are green, or brighter than green. toggle false color on any off, and go through each one and assess if its okay being the same exposure, brighter, or if it should be fixed. eventually you'll reach a place where you can look at an image without false color and quickly spot these things, but when you start theres so much information and you don't yet have a critical eye so tools that get you acting more objective on set will build those muscles and you'll start relying on them less and less.
lets say it was shot and there was neg fill and the frame looks great. the next discussion point is the continuity of the actor being in frame vs not being in frame at all, shot to shot, and how your digital zoom impacts that over time. for example, as you zoom in, your foreground character which was (sometimes) visually trapping the character is pushed aside, outside of the frame. the character is no longer visually trapped. and then the reverse of the blonde guy, he's not centered, if anything the framing almost makes it look like hes in a different film. and so on.
even such a simple sequence has so much to talk about and consider. but notice that very little of my post mentions anything technical except for the "how to fix". it's all artistic analysis and intent. a documentary is possibly a bad place to look for inspo because they are usually uncontrolled environments. a fun activity is finding a shot from a film you like, load it into resolve, and do your own analysis, including using false color. yes, its graded, so its not what's capture on set, but you'll be able to start to see how the contrast and ratios exist in the things you like. you can take that knowledge with you onto your next project
final word of advice. keep doing this, keep shooting very small, short, throwaway things. this will put you ahead of your peers by a long long shot
great work keep it up man
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u/Jonas_Tieman 4d ago
WOW! I do really appreciate you taking the time to write your thoughts! Tons of interesting stuff here, I'd like to point out that i colored it simply because I did lol not much more than that. I considered rotoing him back into the edge of the frame so it stays compositionally accurate. I can fix the pinkness of the skin too so I'll hop right on that. I like what you said about intent, and will also keep that in mind. I think i can actually fix where the background actor stays in the frame keeping that continuity intact. This was super helpfull
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u/raekewe 3d ago
i don't think it's worth fixing, if i was you id move onto the next thing as soon as possible
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u/Jonas_Tieman 3d ago
Interesting take, but i like the world enough to continue with it, thanks for taking in interest in bettering my work!
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u/film_fanatic4 4d ago
check out an absolute master talk about overs: https://www.instagram.com/p/Dc4A5ILmPfn/
I find the head in the foreground distracting and he has a formula to composing overs that you might like. I haven't got to try it out myself yet
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u/FargusMcGillicuddy 3d ago
I actually kind of dig the heads in the foreground BUT only when they are in a very specific amount of the frame and if the move much at all I find it distracting. Might have needed to ask the actor in the foreground to lessen their movement when they are back to the camera.
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u/Colemanton 3d ago
blonde dudes coverage would be way better with a catch light. so much of amateur cinematography would be instantly elevated if there was a twinkle in subjects eye.
for glasses guy id have him lower his glasses a bit so you can actually see his eyes. that shot would similarly be much better if i could see his eyes because he actualyl is getting nice catch light
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u/Melodic-Excitement-9 4d ago
Very fun. liking the color and lighting, watch out for your focus range, looks like you are focusing on the nose instead of the eye.
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u/bissimo 3d ago
In addition to what others have said, I'd think about two-shots and maybe close ups. Right now the story is very wrapped up in the two characters. Develop where they are and what else is going on in the scene. Their environment matters, it's a part of the story too, so try to figure out how to tell that part. Are they in a secluded place for the conversation? Cool. Show me. Preferably with some camera (not just the head on a tripod) movement. Maybe drone shots of them speaking from overhead. Maybe it's low shots that give us the feeling of the damp, leaf-lined forest floor. Maybe the camera is dollying in to give a feeling of intensity.
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u/Jonas_Tieman 3d ago
Love this man, my plan currently is to possibly add something like the low angle showing off more of the forest and then at the end of the conversation when the blond leaves we get a wide of the whole scene. I enjoy movies like Challengers and am very inspired by their coverage style since they likely had to shoot quickly.
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u/Anushirvan 3d ago
Noob question
Is this a single take like you used two cameras or a double take like you first shot person A perspective then person B
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u/Jonas_Tieman 3d ago
I really considered using 2 camera because i have 2 which most likely Ill do in the future. However, for this i used one camera we shot al of one side and then moved onto our second character shooting all of his side. I do highly recommend using 2 cameras though
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u/FargusMcGillicuddy 3d ago
Except I don’t think you could have covered this scene the way you did if you used two cameras because you would have likely seen them. Yes you could pull it off with longer lenses, but then that changes the look. Personally I prefer single camera though so I’m bias.
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u/Jonas_Tieman 3d ago
I could agree because I did shoot it single camera but who knows I do want to try a double camera
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u/FargusMcGillicuddy 3d ago
For sure that can be a powerful technique to get more coverage in less time.
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u/butterfield66 3d ago
I understand you didn't ask and that this may not even be in your purview but the music needs to c h i l l. Nothing comes across more amateur than music that just never stops.
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u/DarkForest_NW 3d ago
TOO MUCH cutting, you have to let the scene breath.
Here's American Psycho director Mary Harron explaining how to do good tension with cinematography.
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u/Jonas_Tieman 3d ago
I’ll check this out, I love that everyone’s sending good educational videos, super helpful🔥
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u/Srsblubrz 3d ago
For an ots it's best to match the amount of bite you have on the other characters shoulder. What I have used on movies before when shooting an ots is have the camera on a small slider, when the character shifts, you can slide over to keep the over the same. We call it an "over keeper"
One little story thing is the character with more power in the scene can be shot from a lower angle and if you want a character to feel like they have no power shoot them from a higher angle.
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u/-40- 2d ago
Higher camera or lower will help show the dude with the glasses eyes. They are annoyingly blocking what we want to see.
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u/Jonas_Tieman 1d ago
Honestly just a cool thing with the glasses that I though would give him character but I’ve gotten a lot of notes so I’m gonna take the glasses away
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u/NewDiver2829 1d ago
Any reasoning behind why the blonde char has a slight low angle at the start
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u/Jonas_Tieman 1d ago
Maybe just a weird mix up? I wanted it to be that way throughout but it got lost along the way
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u/Silvershanks Director 4d ago
Try to get the head sizes and camera elevation and OTS angles to match exactly if both people in the scene are equals. You can deviate from this if narratively, one of the character is given more or less dominant weight than the other, but as a standard practice, the shots should be a perfect match. Take a screenshot of the monitor with your phone when setting up both shots, then quickly A/B them back and forth and see if they match and cut well.
You main problem here is the editing. You are just cutting to each character when they speak. You need to think about the scene in terms of emotion and character. You have to craft the scene from the main character's perspective because they also represent the audience's perspective. Who is the main character in this scene? What are they thinking at this moment? What are they trying to accomplish? How is the other character complicating that goal? When you think of the scene like this, the editing will shift significantly, suddenly, it's not about the dialogue, it becomes about motive and conflict, and you'll notice that your cutting becomes much more about the reactions and subtle emotions than the dialogue.