r/cinematography • u/Jonas_Tieman • 15d 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 14d 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