Where Do You Put the Camera?

0:02 If there is one question that crosses every filmmaker's mind,

0:05 it’s… “Where am I going to put the camera?” Because after all...

0:10 we can put the camera almost anywhere.

0:12 We can shoot wide...

0:13 medium, tight, cowboy, over-shoulder, head-on, profile, silhouette clean, dirty,

0:18 two-shot, three-shot, four-shot, static,

0:20 moving practical, CG, location, volume, dolly,

0:23 car mount, gimbal, drone… (MARTIN SCORSESE):

0:24 “But I do find that after all these years, and with all the new technology...

0:29 there are more choices.

0:30 And it’s kind of good in a way, except that...

0:33 more than two thirds of those choices, you don’t need to make.

0:36 –Right, because you end up wasting time?

0:37 –It’s wasting time.

0:38 So that raises the question: when we're placing the camera,

0:42 what are the choices we need to make?

0:46 First, we need to decide...

0:51 Every scene has an intention, a reason to be in the movie.

0:54 And it's our job to figure out that intention.

0:56 Even if we wrote the script.

0:58 (GUILLERMO DEL TORO): “You write it, you think you figure it out...

1:00 Then the director says,

1:02 ‘Who the fuck wrote this?’ Even if it's you.” Sometimes the intention is

1:07 as simple as “the audience needs to see this piece of information… –You alright?

1:11 You want something to read?

1:13 Magazine?

1:14 …in order to move the story along.” But other times,

1:17 a scene will require more nuance.

1:20 And this is where the art of interpretation comes in.

1:23 (STEVEN SODERBERGH): “Here’s an example of a perfectly simple scene...

1:26 that it took me a good hour and 15 minutes to figure out how to shoot.

1:30 The scene wasn't important.

1:31 What was being said wasn't important.

1:33 –Oh God I think I lost my card.

1:35 –Are you serious?

1:36 –Oh Jesus, I’m so stupid.

1:37 –You are so stupid, you know that?

1:38 Even though a scene might have five, ten, fifteen things going on...

1:42 it is ultimately about one thing.

1:44 (SODERBERGH): And so I just sat down at a certain point and I thought, okay...

1:49 The scene is about a guy in the cart.

1:51 That’s what the scene is about.

1:52 And as soon as I figured that out,

1:54 designing that shot was easy.” And Soderbergh has placed

1:57 the camera to direct the audience's attention to that one thing.

2:01 “But it’s really that simple sometimes like...

2:03 What information do we really need to get

2:05 out of this scene?” The next decision is...

2:10 “Laughing, ha ha.

2:11 Chaffing, ha ha.” Whether we solve it with storyboards, figurines...

2:15 or during rehearsal How the actors move

2:18 often informs where the camera should go.

2:20 (ROGER DEAKINS): “How do you construct the shot though?

2:22 What’s the process of actually working out...

2:24 choreographing the camera related to the actors?” –The story is a dull one.

2:30 –Burn it, Pidgeon!

2:31 –Sir (DICK POPE): “Fundamental this, absolutely fundamental.

2:35 We watch the action first.” Let’s take a look at the same scene,

2:39 blocked two different ways.

2:41 In the 1969 version of True Grit Rooster Cogburn is

2:44 standing on a staircase by himself ...when Mattie Ross approaches.

2:47 –Mr.

2:48 Rooster Cogburn?

2:49 –What is it?

2:51 –I’d like to talk with you a minute.

2:52 Because of where she's standing, the two of them are placed at an equal height.

2:56 While in the 2010 version...

2:58 Mattie is already at the bottom of the stairs waiting for him.

3:01 –Rooster Cogburn?

3:02 –What is it?

3:03 –I’d like to talk to you a minute.

3:05 –What is it?

3:05 And as a direct result, he towers over her.

3:09 In this blocking, he keeps moving and she has to chase him.

3:13 But in this blocking, she stops him.

3:15 No matter how he moves, she's already there.

3:18 (JOHN STURGES): “You don't go out there with...

3:19 preconditioned notions of how you're going to set the camera for every scene.

3:24 You watch the scene.” –I’m afraid nothing is going

3:26 to be done about Chaney unless I do it myself.

3:28 And there's a place to see it.

3:30 –Nobody here knew my father and I’m afraid nothing is

3:33 going to be done about Chaney except I do it.

3:35 That's where you put the camera.

3:37 The third choice is a bit more abstract.

3:42 (SCORSESE): The shots were designed.

3:44 Or at least, the– I like to call it

3:46 like a “philosophy of a shot” With every project,

3:49 even every scene we choose a general approach for the camera,

3:53 which influences where we want to put it.

3:55 (DEL TORO): “I do this counter-movement in all my movies...

3:58 which is you receive them and you counter with the character.

4:00 It’s in The Devil’s Backbone, it’s in Cronos, it’s in Hellboy 2.

4:04 Because I think it’s great to discover the space first with the character.”

4:08 What's interesting about this is that no

4:11 two filmmakers have the exact same view.

4:13 Some people stick to a general philosophy

4:16 and then they refine within that While others...

4:22 have a different camera style for almost every project.

4:25 (GRETA GERWIG): Well I kind of had an image of Lady Bird

4:27 that I wanted it to be almost like stained glass windows in churches,

4:30 because it is Catholic school and all of that, I

4:32 was thinking of everything as a presentation within a frame.

4:36 But then when I got to Little Women, I had the opposite feeling.

4:39 I felt like I wanted the camera to be alive and curious and a dancer.

4:44 Like I almost wanted the camera to start

4:45 young and then get older, like the girls did.

4:49 What matters is that we choose something that the crew can work off of.

4:53 Because inevitably, some of it will change due to the realities of production.

4:58 (DEAKINS): “I always tell the story of Fargo because they

5:01 said they wanted the feel of a Ken Loach movie,

5:03 that it was kind of observational.

5:05 And the first shot we set up with...

5:07 ...was a 150-foot tracking shot.

5:10 So the first shot, it went out the window.

5:13 It still had that feel at the end.

5:14 You still had that original concept.

5:17 It’s just, sometimes you break it,

5:18 don’t you?” But deciding where to put the camera is not just about story...

5:24 or blocking...

5:25 or theory...

5:26 or practicality.

5:29 It’s about something more personal.

5:31 (SCORSESE): “It always goes down to the basic, the basic.

5:33 As an actor and as a director...

5:36 For us, this is the crucial choice.

5:40 “What do we want to say?” informs everything from the intention of the scene...

5:45 to the actors’ performances… to the behavior of the camera.

5:48 And this question is the most difficult because it’s the most personal.

5:53 No one else can answer it.

5:55 And in the middle of production,

5:56 with everything going on, it can be very easy to lose track of it.

6:03 (SCORSESE): “And what’s in the way?

6:04 Something’s in the way.

6:06 What the hell is it?

6:07 Is it the technology?

6:08 Or is somebody distracting you?

6:10 It’s that simple.

6:12 Sometimes, the thing in our way is equipment.

6:15 Sometimes, it’s the weather.

6:17 Sometimes it’s a lack of resources.

6:20 And sometimes the thing in our way...

6:23 ...is us.

6:24 (FRANK DARABONT): People have asked what directing is like.

6:26 What is the experience like?

6:28 I have to admit that it’s always a bit nerve-wracking,

6:30 none more so than your first time.

6:32 Where you’re surrounded by a lot of people with more experience at what

6:34 they do than you have at what you’re doing –And it’s a cut!

6:40 –Ugh, seatbelt!

6:41 –(LAUGHTER) –AAAH!

6:45 (DARABONT): “The truth of it is...

6:46 is that you have nothing to rely on at the end of the day...

6:49 except your own instincts.

6:51 For me, the process, the creative process is the process of learning

6:55 to trust that your creative instincts will carry you through.

6:59 There aren’t specifically right or wrong choices.

7:01 There are the choices that make sense to you

7:04 and those are the choices that you must make