Report On Cinematography In 2D Animation

Abstract

This report is about Cinematography and its uses in the industry for films and animations. This report will also explain the benefits for understanding Cinematography and how that can affect the film or animation. It will also explain scenes in movies where the cinematography is used exceptionally well and how it conveys the emotional narrative to the audience.

Introduction

For this report, Cinematography in whole will be examined. Including in this report will be the investigation between good and bad Cinematography and how it can affect a film or animation. The reasoning for researching Cinematography as a whole is because I find Cinematography fascinating and as I’ve looked more into it, I find the whole concept that framing some scenes differently can portray so much more information to the audience than just framing it normally. I plan to use this knowledge from researching Cinematography to further my skills in animation, storyboards and even concepting. I have obtained this research via the internet, finding studies on Cinematography, but also analysis of certain scenes in movies on YouTube, and framed photographed shots from various movies, showing the lighting and how that effects the scene.

Cinematography

In order to create a film, an animation or even a game; it is always best to know and understand cinematography as it is an essential part of filmmaking. Cinematography is all about the creative visuals that help reinforce the narrative in the scene and end up giving the audience an emotional experience. For a Cinematographer, they must understand essentials like good story, lighting and composition as they are just as much of a storyteller as directors are. The difference is they direct the visuals, not the actors. It’s not really about the equipment you use, any person can go to a shop and buy a camera. It’s all about how you use it, but this is often overlooked by contemporary filmmakers. “We are telling emotional stories with the images; it’s not just making beautiful pictures. I think that is a big misconception. People think, ‘It’s good cinematography because it’s beautiful,’” (Rodrigo Prieto, Oscar Cinematographer Roundtable, 2017. )“More so than going out and shooting a beautiful sunrise or some incredible image, some things that I shoot that are not very interesting embody a certain emotion that is really powerful in the context of the film,” (Caleb Deschanel, Oscar Cinematographer Roundtable, 2017. )These quotes are particularly interesting. Rodrigo Prieto is explaining to the other cinematographers that Cinematography isn’t just about pretty scenes or how beautiful they can make it. It’s the same for Caleb Deschanel, in the second quote that affirms this. Cinematography is about portraying emotion and mood within the narrative of the film using the camera movements, composition and lighting. A cinematographer doesn’t need to document a sunset or a sunrise because it’s pretty. But if it has an impact on the movie they’re filming, then they will use that to make the audience feel.

Techniques of Cinematography

In order to create visuals that will heighten and underline a narrative of a movie, the cinematographer must understand and modulate such things as;

• Camera movement
• Camera placement
• Composition
• Focus
• Lighting

These tools, especially lighting is incredibly important in filmmaking. Lighting is one of the main filmmaking tools that obviously distinguishes raw home footage from a professional studio made film. For example, locations and people don’t look the same way our eyes perceive them after they’ve been captured on film, so the cinematographer must use the exact lighting to create realism in the film, so it isn’t like an uncanny valley for the audience. You would sense something is strange in a horror movie for example if the lighting throughout the movie was bright and over saturated, unless there was a certain reason.

A Cinematographer uses lighting as a nonverbal indicator of mood and emotion in a film. In this section, an examination of the popular scene in the movie “Se7en” will be shown. The techniques and lighting will be examined in order to understand why the scene was shot this way. In the last scene in the movie “Se7en”, the characters; Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and Detective Mills (Brad Pitt) arrive at the last crime scene, John Doe (Kevin Spacey) blackmails them to go to, having said if they didn’t, he would plead insanity. The area around them has large powerlines hovering over them. This scene is the only scene in the movie that isn’t raining. You could say that there is symbolism in the area; the powerlines and the triangles and “7”’s shaped in the powerlines. Triangles are used in concepts and in scenes to provoke the feeling of anger, unease etc.

After they arrive, a van drives up and Somerset intercepts in, being handed a box by the driver who was instructed to deliver it precisely at 7: 00pm to Detective Mills. During this, Mills continues to hold Doe at gunpoint and Doe mentions to the young detective how much he admires him, but doesn’t go into detail about it, creating more tension. The senior detective opens the box, only to back away in horror with what the box contains; the head of Detective Mills’ wife. The camera shifts rapidly as Somerset races back to Mills to warn him, to try and make sure he doesn’t listen to Doe but during this moment, Doe explains the contents of the box to Mills. In the image below, the shot has John Doe dominating the frame. The light shines on him, haloing him as if he is well on his way to achieving his religious purpose. John Doe then goes on to give Mills snippets of information, which in turn helps the audience piece together what happened. This causes Mills to stop ignoring John Doe. After the bombshell that John Doe has killed Mills’s wife, the camera changes on John Doe, it is now close up on John Doe, maximizing the impact of John Doe’s next words “Her pretty head. ”As Somerset runs back to Mills and John Doe, being out of breath, the camera follows his movements, bringing it to a stop when he stops by John Doe. The camera in this scene is shot differently for two of the characters.

For the scenes John Doe is in, the camera is shot from a tripod, giving it a steady and firm shot, with John Doe’s face overtaking the scene, showing to the audience that even though he has a gun to his head and is on his knees in handcuffs, he still has control over everything. When Mills is in frame, it’s being shot by a hand-held camera, shaking as it follows him questioning Somerset, demanding to know what’s in the box and if John Doe is telling the truth. The movement of the camera shows the lack of control on Detective Mills’s part, as he’s trying to process the news of his wife. The camera continues to become shakier, as Mills’s life is becoming more and more unravelled as Mills starts to threaten John Doe, shoving the gun against Doe’s temple, part of him rejecting the idea of what Doe has done.

The camera then changes to close ups, so the audience can see the impact of John Doe’s final reveal register on Detective Mills; that his wife was pregnant. The camera then changes to three close up shots of the men, showing their individual expression at this revelation. John Doe waiting for his purpose to be completed; having Wrath kill Envy and complete the cycle of the Seven Deadly Sins. Detective Mills trying to come to terms and not become Wrath. In the end, John Doe wins. The camera ends up pulling back Detective Somerset, who is unable to contain the distraught Mills as Detective Mills shoots Doe repeatedly. But the camera angle is different in this shot. It’s done as if we, the audience are being shot and we are equally deserving of Wrath. With the next shot, both detectives have their backs to each other, looking off towards something past the camera. This shot here showing that their relationship is forever severed by this act of revenge. The next scene picked is from “Silence of the Lambs” movie that was made in 1991, and directed by Jonathan Demme. The scene we will be looking at is one of the scenes at the start, where Agent Starling first meets Hannibal Lecter. By discussing the camera angles and how the characters are positioned, the viewer can come to a conclusion on who is controlling the scene between the two characters through this cinematography.

In the first part of the scene, they both look directly into the camera, examining each other. Even though Hannibal is in jail and behind a high security glass wall; it shows them as equals. Until Hannibal lands the first blow, stating that Starling isn’t real FBI and that the badge expires in one week. The shots then change to over the shoulder. Both characters are creating a defence from one another, but Hannibal has control of the scene. From here on out, the camera angle is pointed down towards Starling and slightly up on Hannibal, showing through the camera that Hannibal has control. Demme, Jonathan. 1991.

As the scene goes on, Hannibal looks straight at the audience, while as Starling looks off to the side, indicating that we are in fact in her head as she’s being questioned by Hannibal. This will be confirmed as the camera seemingly moves to points in the room where Agent Starling is looking only to land back on Hannibal. Starlings purpose in this scene is to get Hannibal to look at a survey and everytime she is a bit too obvious in her attempts, the camera goes back to a stand off type of angle. But Hannibal is curious so the camera shifts to have Agent Starling frame the camera, looking at the audience which insinuates that we are now looking at Hannibal’s point of view. The audience is believed to think that Agent Starling is winning as Hannibal looks at the survery, giving the audience a close up of it to imply it’s importance. But Hannibal once again turns the tables on Agent Starling. The camera then does a slow close up of Hannibal while leaving Starling off balance in the scene. When Agent Starling was believing she had won, but in fact she had lost.

In the last part of the scene, Hannibal is no longer looking face on in the camera, instead he is looking a bit off to the side, indicating that the two are not seeing eye-to-eye anymore. The camera shots in this are simple, but they work extremely well in portraying the scene and how it shows the ‘fight’ of control between Hannibal and Starling.

Lighting in Cinematography

In this section we will be discussing lighting in Cinematography. Lighting is a very big part of Cinematography and it helps portay the scene and build mood. This report will now look at lighting and it’s symbolism in the movie “The Godfather” directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The Cinematography was done by Gordon Willis who has been dubbed the “Prince of Darkness” due to The Godfather and the way he brought the art of shadow and underexposure to colour Cinematography. The beginning scene for example in The Godfather started off with a incredibly darkly lit scene.

In the image above is the first shot in the movie; being a close up. The lighting it coming from above, being a key light. This one image introduces the light vs dark motif and that the movie is about light vs dark; good vs evil. About the darkness within a human’s soul.

The slow zoom out becomes a over the shoulder shot. And then the audience can see that the actor is speaking to someone. Someone who is barely visible, being obscured by the lack of light. That character, who is looking down on the other actor from an angle of power is the Godfather; Don Vito Corleone.

For most of the movie, Don Corleone only has a light shining on him from above, possibly due to the fact of the heavy posthetic make up. But either way, it works incredibly well, giving the mob boss heavy shadows such as the shadows around his eyes make him seem like a mystery. That the audience can never fully understand Don Corleone and that they cannot know what he will do. Because the lighting won’t let the audience see, that they cannot see inside. It’s said that eyes are windows to the soul and Don Corleone’s eyes are always hidden by shadow.

Where as Don Corleone’s son Michael’s face is brightly lit from the beginning. And the further he gets involved in the family business, the more his face starts to slip into the shadows, indicating that his “good” and “evil” sides are warring against each other. In the movie there are only a few types of lighting that Gordon Millis uses; lighting from above or from the side with no fill light so when the shadows hide half of the face of one of the actors, it indicates that every one hides a part of themselves from others. By the end of the movie, the shadow from the lighting, eclipses his eyes, revealing to the audience that his dark has taken over his light. That he has became the new Godfather.

Michael’s face is more shrouded in darkness, more hidden than his father’s face becoming more menacing than his father’s ever was. In the image above, with how Michael is framed being off towards the left, and having no light on the left of his face makes him look evil, like a Reaper of death. Lighting in Cinematography is so important. The entire movie would look completely different if there was more lighting and barely any shadow. It would just look completely wrong. In order to get the mood and emotion across, the lighting has to work well. Here are two examples; one of good lighting and the other, bad lighting. Ayer, David. 2016. Suicide Squad.

Availble on Google. The first image is from Suicide Squad, the second from Inglourious Basterds. Firstly, the lighting in the top image is almost non existant. From what I saw of that movie, this scene is supposed to be in the city, in a alleyway. Where are the street lights? It’s dull, and the only person who is in focus is the one closest to the camera but your eyes naturally look at the figure with the mask. Wouldn’t it look better if all three of them were in focus? There’s almost no depth in this single frame. If someone who had never seen the movie, looked at this, they wouldn’t understand what was going on. Where as with the second image, the lighting is overhead and partly behind them. The lighting is framing their faces and the four characters around the table are in focus. The audience could gather that they are soldiers, they’re having a drink and also playing a game, due to the cards on the two men’s foreheads. With the focus on the soldiers, you can see that the one in the middle and the one to the farthest right are on duty where as the two with cards on their foreheads are off duty by the state of their unbuttoned collars.

The one on the far right isn’t laughing along with the others, perhaps at what was said off screen?

4. Use of Cinematography in 2D Animation

There are a lot of basic Cinematography concepts ignored by many animators, because everything can be covered from a single camera angle. Either they don’t know other options or it’s too challenging to draw the different angles of a character. Artists can also prioritise making the character come to life, since that is the foundation. But Cinematography can pull a audience into the story. To make them feel. That it can make a strong character look even stronger or a weak one, weaker. Although there are scenes in high studio animated movies that have great Cinematography. Allers, Roger. Minkoff, Rob. 1994.

Conclusion

After researching the subjects of this topics, the conclusion is that Cinematography greatly enhances a movie or animation. That with simple camera angles and lighting, a scene can turn from being dull into being vibrant and full of information for the audience, that it can make some recoil in disgust, make them laugh or cry. That Cinematography should be studied by everyone who wants to do work with animations, films or games. Because it can make those moments so much better. That you can convey so much with too little light, or too much light. That with a pan zoom, you can convey fear, anger, or happiness. It’s all up to your creativity and what you want to show the audience.