Chosen Clip: Clip 1 from Frances Ha (2012) Dir Noah Baumbach Directed by Noah Baumbach in 2012, Frances Ha follows young New Yorker Frances Halliday (Greta Gerwig) who, at age 27, is living with her best friend Sophie (Mickey Summer) whilst in an attempt to get her life heading in a succesful direction. The film examines and humanizes the importance of growing up in different cultures, experiencing the highs and lows of a sacred friendship, the realities of early adulthood and making sacrifices in order to get to where you need to be. The stand out aspect of cinematography used in this scene and Frances Ha as a film throughout is the careful choice by Baumbach to shoot digitally, but to edit the film as monochromic. Sam Levy (director of …show more content…
Omtting colour and using natural lighting helps not only this scene but the entire story to develop as it provokes more concentration from the viewer into this raw dialouge and acting. The classical style of cinematography is used by Levy in shooting Frances Ha. The scene is shot with a steadycam – evident through a smooth pan following Dan from the couch to the kitchen. For the majority of the scene, the camera is fixed in one position on Frances and Dan through a mid shot as they are seated on the couch. This shot size is framed around the subjects for a measure of distance (Bordwell and Thompson, 2008). The pair are sitting very close together and the shot further outlines this by being close to the subjects – without being labelled as close up shot. It is a tight frame, with a tight fix on the subjects. This communicates to the audience that these two are a couple and they are very comfortable with eachother and have been for a long time. The depth of field and focus range is very slim. This is a result of the distance between the closet and farthest objects in the scene being very small. Baumbach wants to focus soley on the characters in this scene as the position of the frame is extremely neutral. The lens is level with the pair sitting down on the couch with no high or low angles used. For Baumbach, it was not a case of symbolic cinematography, but instead to provide a more a neutral perspective to develop the
The director mainly used eye level shots, to leave it up to the audience to judge the two main characters of the movie, although certain power struggles in the film are shown from high angles to illustrate someone dominating a conversation or argument. Figgis also uses some point of view shots to show the imbalance during Ben’s drunken periods where the camera is placed at an oblique angle to show tension and approaching movements. The images in the film are in high contrast with streaks of blackness and harsh shafts of light to underline the dramatic events that occur.
Lewis uses lighting to dramatize the opening scene of the film and characterize the protagonist of the story. The most noticeable utilization of film noir lighting is in the beginning
A variety of camera techniques are used throughout the beginning sequence to enhance the mood and involve the audience. Camera techniques are harmonized with lighting effects to culminate this dramatic scene. I will begin by discussing examples of this. In the village, many close-ups and long shots are used to enhance facial expression and to set the sombre mood.
The image is brighter and sharper in the film. The contrast of the film really affects the mood. Since the contrast is so bright the viewer is bound to stay focused and aware because everything is so catchy and noticeable. Also, the exposure changes throughout the film. At the very beginning the film starts in black and white and changed to color as the story progressed. The filmmaker uses a lot of Long Takes, each shot of Dorothy meeting someone new is pretty lengthy.
The film Pleasantville directed by Gary Ross is about two modern teenagers, David and his sister Jennifer, somehow being transported into the television, ending up in Pleasantville, a 1950s black and white sitcom. The two are trapped as Bud and Mary Sue in a radically different dimension and make some huge changes to the bland lives of the citizens of Pleasantville, with the use of the director’s cinematic techniques. Ross cleverly uses cinematic techniques such as colour, mise-en-scene, camera shots, costumes, music and dialogue to effectively tell the story.
Lighting is used as a major technique in this film as it is often used to set the mood. Due to Vidal’s world always being shown enveloped in blue-grey hue, it immediately shows the viewers that is isn’t a welcoming place to be. This shade of lighting helps create a detached feeling which is in great contrast to the golden, homely, and warm lighting of Ofelia’s fantasy world portraying a safe and enchanting atmosphere.
The camerawork emphasizes the sense of detachment between the characters, and Billy’s inability with connecting with others. In addition, the film has a contrasty, bleak look to it, like a faded photograph. Gallo shot the movie on reversal film stock to capture that contrast and grain, in attempt to reproduce the same look of football games from the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
Another technique that is used is changing light with reference to the plot structure. The use of lighting has allowed the audience to see the obvious contrast between the beginning when Szpilman was having a happy life, and after the Nazi came and occupied so that how Polish Jews are getting dehumanised. For instance, the light was extremely bright at the beginning of the film, Szpilman was playing the piano at the radio station and having a meal with the family. When the Nazi
One of the ways why cinematography made the film was the lighting. To get the feel, the lighting appeared to be fake shadows that were painted on the set. The fake shadows that were painted on the set gave the lighting appeared to be harsh and sharper to set the mood for the audience. If it weren’t for the painted shadows, the movie wouldn’t have been so successful in the horror genre. Since it was a silent movie, if it weren’t for the shadows, you wouldn’t of seen it as a horror film, but as an original film that was trying to be creative.
In addition to camera movements, he uses camera distances and framing to create images that make the audience feel cheerful. When he frames a shot, if it takes place outside, there is ample amount of bountiful nature within the frame. The most prominent example of this is toward the end of the film when the narrator is describing the after effects of the massive storm. It is a medium close up but the narrator is only in a small portion of the frame, the rest if a
Most of the actors are wearing darker clothing as well which makes their faces stand out even more. This lighting style also adds to the tension and the mystery of the scene. It makes the audience on edge. The contrast filled lighting of film noir is also effective at bringing out the extremes of emotions and thought. The darkness of the genre makes anything that goes wrong seem less taboo, because the lighting of the genre sets up the norms for the world that the film lives in—and in that world, bad things happen. The lighting of the film helps the audience understand the world that the characters are in.
The textual features used in the film make it evident that the construction of the film has been influenced by French culture. A variety of different techniques have been used by Jeunet to give the film a feeling of fairytale and fantasy, emphasising innocence. Jeunet has used extremely saturated colours to give the film a fantasy and dreamlike feeling, the colours used to emphasise this are red and
His cinematography “creates an exceptionally inviting, varied look for this nocturnal story, and special visual effects are smoothly integrated into the action. The makeup that adds pale eyes, ghostly pallor and tiny blue veins to the principals' faces manages to create a frisson of danger without marring the actors' attractiveness” (Maslin). Rousselot used dark-lensing, a way to attain low key shots and thus created a huge contrast to the sets and costumes (Maslin). This made the characters seem as though they were the only important things in the otherwise dark and gloomy shots.
Frances Ha, released in 2012, is a film primarily focused on a young quirky white girl named Frances who lives in New York City and is trying to figure out what she is supposed to be in her life. The film is edited together as a series of montages that display her appealing character moving through a dark period in her life where she is having trouble functioning as an adult, to where she discovers and embraces what is in herself that she excels at. Nearly all of the scenes in the film have Frances as the lead subject, only cutting away from her to show activities that are proceeding around her. Greta Gerwig’s unique professional career and personal life made her perfect for the lead role as Frances, a character full of hopefulness, spontaneity and quirkiness. Although Greta’s performance appears on the surface to be improvisational, an examination of her background, use of body language and representational dialogue shows that she is more of a method actor.
Another aspect of this film is that it is in black and white. This gives it a serious tone. The lighting they used also gave a dramatic effect. There is a scene where two gentlemen are talking but you can see Kane dancing in the reflection of the window. This reminds the audience that he is still important to the scene even though he isn't directly involved. This