b. Because a cutin must have been clearly brought to the attention of the
audience, as well as having appeared in the immediately preceding scene, the cameraman
cannot be satisfied with merely having the cutin material included in the first scene.
The camera angle, image size, and action must be such that where the cutin is screened,
the audience will immediately recognize and understand it. Being part of the immediate
action and having been included in the preceding scene, the cutin is usually a medium
shot or closeup.
c. Cutaways, not part of the immediate action, but pertaining to the story, do not
necessarily appear in the preceding scene, but must have been established, either
visually or by suggestion at any earlier point in the story. Therefore, a cutaway may be
anything from an extreme long shot to an extreme closeup.
Learning Event 4:
MAINTAIN SCREEN DIRECTION
1.
Screen direction.
a. In motion pictures, your subject spends considerable time moving about. When
the subject is seen on the screen going from one place to another, the direction it takes
is known as screen direction. It seems obvious that once your subject establishes the
direction he is going to take, the audience should see him move in that direction until
there is some logical reason for him going in another direction. The audience should
then be made aware that the subject is changing direction.
b. To illustrate, suppose you are covering an Armed Forces Day parade and your
camera is set up as shown in Figure 25. The troops are moving from left to right in
front of your camera and will move from left to right across the screen. If you cross
the street and pick up the same subjects (fig 26), you reverse their screen direction.
Even though the parade is still going in the same direction down the street, it is
crossing in front of the camera from right to left, and will take that same screen
direction. To the viewer, it will look as though the parade is returning to its starting
point. He may be completely confused. Thus, you owe it to your viewer to keep him
oriented.
c. It is not difficult to maintain screen direction when you are shooting
controlled action or uncontrolled action that behaves in a predictable manner. A simple
method for establishing and maintaining screen direction is by using an imaginary line
drawn through the direction of travel. In the case of the parade (fig 27) from the rear
through the front of the car, or left to right. If all your shooting is done from the
same side of the imaginary line there is no problem. All of your shots will have left to
right screen direction. When you are shooting from a script (controlled action), screen
direction is easily controlled. However, when you are filming an uncontrolled subject,
it helps to note the subject's direction at the end of each scene and refer to it before
shooting the next scene.
26
Previous Page
