PROCEDURE FOR SHOOTING A SCENE
Now I'll go into a more detailed analysis of how to shoot
any scene during the feature film production process.
Tell your DP, with all the departments tuned in on it, what the shot
is, for example, "Give me a full Master Shot of the action, or a wide
shot." Then walk off to your actors and begin rehearsal.
Don't put your eye to the eyepiece right away unless you're also the
DP. Your DP will ask the 1st Camera Asst. to put a wide lens on the
camera, in case of 35mm cameras
typically a 25mm, or in case of 16mm cameras a 10mm.
The Sound Person might choose a shotgun mic, because of the
wide coverage and the inability of the boom operator to get in close to
the action to record dialogue without being picked up by the wide lens.
The Script Girl (or Continuity Person) will tell the 2nd Camera Asst.
what to put on the slate, for example, "Scene 4A, take 1." The Asst.
will write, typically with chalk (although if you have money to burn,
rent an electronic slate, that impresses the hell out of Entertainment
Tonight, those damn electronic numbers rolling on the slate -- remember
you don't need them because you're not using video synching on your
sound, because you're not using video, period!) The Asst. then writes
on the slate " 4A - 1." The slate is ready now.
Of course, the slate will already have been prepared before
the production started, with the title of the film on top, the scene
and take squares marked and labeled in the central part of the slate,
the name of the DP below and the name of the Director below that.
Neither the Production Company or Producer names typically appear on
the slate, because film is the Director's medium -- well, I wish it
were the case all the time, but all the same, if a film is picked up by
a major, or any sizable distribution company, the new company will put
its name on the film, and the copyright, and the Producer name might be
changed to Executive Producer, Associate Producer or Co-Producer;
therefore, any title that appears on the negative masters of the film
should not contradict the final ownership of the negative elements of
the movie. It interferes with legal matters of ownership.
In the case of the Director and DP of the movie, those are
names associated with creative ownership. Distributors and studio heads
don't give a damn about creative ownership. They buy your film lock,
stock and barrel! You can scream as much as you want about how you made
the movie and how without you so-and-so would be a nobody, but in the
end the studio that owns your film can make any claim they want stick.
There are exceptions, but rare....
Anyway, enough about the damn slate! Just goes to show you, there are
even no minor details in the movie business.
The actors are rehearsed and the director stands next to the
camera -- on the right side of it, remember? The slate person stands in
front of the camera, about five to ten feet on wide shots, because
otherwise the slate will be too small to read! You don't want the slate
to be any closer, because then the camera operator will have to adjust
the frame and the focus puller has to pull focus and all this
distraction and jerky moves might screw up the proper framing and
critical focus of the shot at the start of the take.
Once the wide shot is set up, framed and focused, you don't
want to fuss with it for a lousy slate that won't be hard to figure
since, hopefully, you won't misplace your Master! (the complete scene
played out in wide shot, which is often used as reference to assembling
the entire scene, that being typically a scene made up of several
medium shots, over the shoulders, two-shots and close-ups. More about
this in the section on editing.)
Again, we're back to jabbering about the slate!
Go ahead, call for action, you've rehearsed enough and everybody knows
what's going to happen.
All right! The first thing you say as director is, "Camera!"
Next, don't call "Lights," even if it's your first time directing.
You'll lose brownie points, everyone will think you're really pathetic
-- besides you're outside in broad sunlight, you got a couple of
reflectors out there (that's all you could afford,) so what "Lights!"
they be that you're calling for? This is no time for being a comedian,
you're about to do a Master! It's hard to get all those people
coordinated, so no funny stuff, and that goes double for anybody else
on the crew!
The next thing that happens immediately after you say
"Camera" is that the Sound Person turns on the Nagra! Then the sound
person yells, "Speed," which means the Nagra has reached steady
(running) speed, therefore it'll be recording smoothly without wow or
flutter! (Among other things.)
The sound begins first because sound tape is cheaper than film, and a
little extra sound is useful for a couple of other reasons, and also
the camera comes to speed a lot faster, within four frames at sound
speed.
The Next thing that happens is that the camera is turned on,
usually by the operator, unless there is a complex camera move and then
the 1st Asst. turns it on.
The operator or 1st Asst. (as is agreed between them) calls out, "Mark
it!" and the slate person stands with the clapper stick of the slate in
the open position and calls out, "Scene four, Apple , take one!" and
claps the slate together by bringing the clapper down on the stationary
slate! This way the slate will be held steady and visible when it's
read by the lab technician off the negative roll, for the purpose of
printing the selected takes!
Then the slate person exits frame quickly -- without knocking any
props, lights or certainly any of the actors down.
Now the director yells (this being a long shot, everybody is
far into the distance usually,) "Aaaaaand! Action!"
John Ford was asked by an interviewer what was the most important
qualification for a director and he said, "A loud voice!" He said
that's how he ended up being a director! Of course he was joking,
right? You don't know who John Ford is? Come on!
The action commences! The stage-coach enters the western
town, the Marshall steps up to the platform awaiting the delivery of
the captured outlaw, people scurry about, some approach the area where
the stagecoach will stop and the camera is whirring along in locked
(stationary) position filming the whole scene.
The stagecoach reaches the depot and the horses are pulled back and
come to a dramatic and picturesque stop.
The Marshall steps up and pulls open the door of the stagecoach with a
scowl on his face. A beautiful damsel appears seated opposite the
outlaw, who's none other than Henry Fonda (what's he doing playing an
outlaw, he's a good guy ... oh, well) and he as we expect says, "Ladies
first!"
The Marshall's real pissed off that the lady had to share
the coach with an outlaw, (like he never read the script,) but
reluctantly lets a smile play on his face anyway, and says, "Mame?" He
helps the lady out and then as she's met by some family members and
goes to one side with them, the Marshall receives the outlaw into
custody and leads him to the jail house across the street.
Okay, "Cut!"
The director turns to the DP, "Did we get that?" The DP
already knows from gestures he's already exchanged with the operator
that the take is acceptable, not without problems, but nothing serious.
The DP says something like this, "We got it, overall it was good." Then
the DP adds, "The Marshall was standing a little too close to the
stagecoach when it pulled in, we lost him a little in the middle of his
opening the door."
"All right," the director says, "We'll cover that in a medium, what
else?" The DP continues, "The actress stumbled on her dress a little --
"
"I saw that," says the director, "Anything else?" "No."
The director turns to the sound person. The sound person is
dozing -- nah, just kidding. It was an easy take for sound. Almost none
of the sound recorded here will be used as the primary sound dialogue,
because the sound person knows that the editor will be using the sound
recorded during the medium and close-up shots that will be following.
The shotgun mic won't record useable dialogue here; however, the sound
recorded is very useful as atmosphere for sound effects of the
stagecoach ambiance! It will be used by the editor most certainly in
some way!
The sound person says simply, "Sound is good."
The director approaches the actors with a smile and says,
"That was great!" There's no need for take two! You're not David Lean,
you don't have two years to do this picture!
If good-old David was a more practical director, he would've gotten to
making and we would've enjoyed seeing his "Nostromo," the great Joseph
Conrad novel he was preparing to shoot in Latin America. His untimely
death prevented him from making this final film for which he'd tried so
hard to get a studio to back him.
You almost never use a Master in its entirety. Some
directors don't even shoot a Master on every sequence. If you have over
$250,000 you could shoot a Master on every major sequence, however, and
masters are useful in structuring and creating recognizable logistics
and atmosphere for the locations and complex action sequences of your
movie.
But if you're about to shoot a medium of your beautiful actress as she
emerges out of the stagecoach, you don't need the part that she
stumbles in the long shot. And the Marshall you will establish standing
all by himself in another medium, to get a read on his face and his
expectant attitude toward the outlaws arrival, so you'll use that.
You did have a pretty good Master, the stagecoach came to a
great stop, the cloud of dust was not too big to cover up the whole
scene, the crowd looked okay (no one stared right into the camera and
waved "Hi Mom!"-- now move on to your next shot.... Which is a full
shot of the Marshall stepping right up to the camera and pushing his
hand out to open up the stagecoach door!
Your DP and camera crew are already scrambling to follow you
there with all the gear. The gaffer is repositioning his reflectors.
The sound department are dragging their cables and finding themselves a
spot to work from, where they'll be out of the way and comfortable.
The make-up person is touching-up the Marshall. The Asst. Director is
positioning the extras with the help of the Script Girl. And the
continuity is concerned with repeating everything as in the Master.
The camera is in place. The scene could be shot MOS ("mit out sound,"
half German, half English cockamamie expression coined by early German
directors which means "without sound;") but, don't do it. Record sound!
You need every bit of sound when you're editing, remember? Where you
gonna get the money to get horse sound effects, footsteps, extras
jabbering, or even the sound texture of the very environment itself? Do
it now!
"Camera!" "Speed!" "Mark it!" "And action." The actor makes
the wry gesture of the Marshall and pushes his hand toward the camera
as though the lens is where the door handle is, and "Cut, print! Thank
you, Marshall." (Use actors' character names on the set, most prefer
it. It keeps them in character, and you won't have to memorize fifty
people's names the first day on the set!) Next set up!
The camera flips around. Everyone gets set again. The
actress appears as the door of the stagecoach is flung open by the
Marshall's hand. (Use the Marshall, unless you're paying the actor
$1,000,000 for two weeks and you need to save him! Because the same
actor will produce the best and most consistent response from the other
actors in the scene, who are being filmed now, so you don't need a
double's hand -- even if you can match it well, by using the same
sleeved jacket and so on; and sometimes when you're forced to use a
double for whatever reason you do have to worry about matching the hand.
Now you go to close-ups of the actors' faces. You'll want to
capture the surprised expression of the Marshall. The pleasant
impression of the actress, and so on. You break down the scene along
lines of shots that you've hopefully planned as director and which
you've discussed with the key members of the crew, such as the DP and
in this example the art director.
Now, some of you might be offended at the lack of artistry I
seem to be suggesting, by promoting shooting techniques which are so
fast and workmanlike in nature, to the point of becoming hackwork you
might say. However, you should take my
recommendations in the context of doing whatever you can to complete
the movie. If the stagecoach sequence is a pivotal scene in the movie
or if you have the budget to work for, say nine months, on the
production phase alone, all right, you can get arty. So you get a crane
shot of the stagecoach coming in; you shoot some of your shots through
the windows of certain buildings that will figure in the upcoming
sequences; you might position certain bits of action in these
buildings' windows, where some characters can even engage in certain
bits of dialogue, pertaining to the outlaw, let's presume, as they look
out the windows; you may shoot through the carriage window from
opposite sides, sort of over-the-shoulder angles of the outlaw, the
lady and the Marshall; and generally you can get all kinds of effect
shots or gags, as they're called sometimes, by using fog machines,
fans, dolly shots or whatever your imagination comes up with.
Just remember, if you do any of the sorts of things I've
mentioned, without the budget or time, you'll never (as in forever)
finish your picture, you might get sued by your investor(s), you'll
lose the respect of your coworker and you may never make another movie
again!
There are always exceptions, right? And there's an exception with this
example: you can do everything I suggested above, plus some, in
complicating the sequence, if your movie is about what happens when
this stagecoach comes into this town in the old west!
And then of course if that's the case, why go ahead, but be prepared to
show your movie on an old beat up TV set to your friends, (them being
your only audience,) when you're past your prime and the wife insists,
"Go on, Joe, show us the western!"
You might be laughing again and saying, "So how come 'Joe' didn't blow
his brains out?"
"Go ahead, laugh, laugh," as Solieri said in AMADAEUS (and
Mozart laughed his cute little laugh); but, just make sure that you
learn from the example of shooting the stagecoach sequence, keep it
simple, don't get carried away, don't try to impress "the stars" on the
set -- there will be time for art, later!
Let's take another example, a different type of scene and run through
the same procedure for filming, just to give you a bit of variety, so
you can more easily apply the technique of shooting a scene.
The example is of a "variety show" movie sequence in a
feature film. There's an audience, a stage and actors off-stage waiting
to go on.
The camera is set in the center isle, in the middle of the audience,
say in a five-hundred-seat hall. The stage is empty.
Below and to one side of the stage, in the basement, the actors are
getting ready to go on, some are in dressing rooms putting on make-up,
others are by the stairwell chatting and giggling. Make sure the 1st
Asst. Director knows they're supposed to chat and giggle, otherwise
he'll yell at the top of his lungs, "Quiet on the set!" every five
seconds.
The Director calls out, "Camera." The sound person shouts,
"Speed!" The operator turns on the camera, and says, "Mark it!" The
slate is taken, a beat for everything to quiet down -- this in a
musical scene, then the 1st Asst. Director (from the stage area, where
he has the vantage point of seeing both the orchestra and the actors)
yells (pre-arranged), "Orchestra!"
The orchestra strikes the first notes and commences the opening number.
The Director signals with his hand for "Action!" The PA pulls the
curtain. The 1st Asst. Director waves the actors on-stage and the
number
begins. Suddenly the stage is full of singers, dancers and all kinds of
characters. The Director is beaming with pride. One hand signal and all
this wonderful music, singing and dancing -- all for the Director! No
wonder everybody wants to direct!
All right, when does the Director yell, "Cut!"? If this is a
Master Shot he continues to the end, regardless of minor mistakes or
flaws in singing or dancing. If it's a three minute number, the
Director might do two, three, four or five takes. There might be one
"perfect" take, which can be used in it's entirety; but most of the
time the whole number is going to be cut up with mediums and close-ups
of the performers, singers, dancers, actors coming up from the basement
(filmed later, set-up by set-up,) shots of the audience or of certain
characters, and so in the end the editor might use bits and pieces of
every take!
So if you're a smart Director, keep a sharp eye. Did you get
every bit of the action and the singing from among the total of all the
takes that you did? Are the bits and pieces in nice long chunks that
could be editorially easy to manipulate? Then you really don't need one
perfect take. But again, if you have the budget, this is where another
exception comes in to the rule I went crazy over when discussing the
stagecoach sequence. This is a musical, you might just want to use one
take of the whole number. Go ahead, get one "perfect" take. Now, you're
calling me all kinds of names, I know... But, do this only if you have
the budget, like a million smackeroos, I mean!
There are a couple of other reasons you might want to have a perfect
take. Someday, you might want to run this perfect take alone in a
promo, commercial, trailer or as part of a documentary that encompasses
only that number, and not the entire sequence as it appeared in the
movie! You're contemplating a long career, right?
There are many complex types of shots that require more than
one "Action" call. For example, a scene is filmed, lets say a gangster
pulls up to a gas station, gases-up and pulls a gun at the attendant
... and laughs (why shoot him, there's too much violence in movies,
let's act responsibly here). The attendant backs off, the gangster
drives off, the dust of the car settles and now, by pre-arranged
instruction, the Director call, "Second Action!" And here another actor
steps up to the gas pump and does some lines of dialogue with the
attendant, let's say.
If a second camera is being used on the scene, then you will
need both cameras running simultaneously and two slates may be used,
Camera A and Camera B, and again there may be more than one action if
there is an explosion to be set off or some other action is to occur
later during the take.
With such special types of shots, there are many ways you can plan the
"Action" calls and "Hand signals" to be able to facilitate the filming
of complex takes, while allowing the sound person to get good, useable
sound without excessive directorial instructions interfering with the
recording of the scene!
Now, we've come to sound. Sound is just as important as
picture! On low budget pictures -- and as far as the studios are
concerned everything I'm talking about is low budget, because at this
writing, major studio movies are well past the $25,000,000 mark set
five years ago, with some movies costing over $100,000,000, for example
Kevin Costner's WATERWORLD -- Call me, Kevin, I'll tell you which
country you could've bought and still made your picture! --- as I was
saying, the independent distributor listens for the quality of the
sound track in judging what the value of the film is. When the sound
track sounds bad or is below standard, the distributor typically asks,
"Was this thing shot in the garage?" Often the answer from enthusiastic
film makers is, "Yes!"
Distributors just don't understand, that young film makers
feel that the movies they shoot in the garage are better than some of
the majors' products! And sometimes they are! Otherwise why am I
writing this book!
So ... do good sound recording in your film. Spend your money wisely,
however. There are some equipment that should not be rented when you
don't have the budget to work with such equipment! For example, Radio
Mics! You're saying, there he goes again harping on radio
mics.
Sure, it's nice to have a boy and girl scene on the other
side of the river, with the camera tracking on the other side of the
shore, the water is shimmering and the long lens creates magic across
the water and trees passing between the camera and the actors; but,
wait a minute, do you have the time and money to rig up such a scene,
what with the dolly tracks and the radio mics and the number of
logistics of directing actors from across a river?! Is this scene
important for your story?
Now, don't get me started again. We're trying to talk about sound here.
Use a boom. Put a mid-range mic on it. Have the boom
operator flip the thing between your actors ...
Don't ask such questions! What do you mean, "A stereo mic?" And then
you've got
to rent a stereo Nagra! You want to spend your money on that? Does
anyone have more money than Spielberg available to him when shooting a
movie? He used stereo recording on RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARC! The editors
couldn't edit in stereo, the tracks got screwed up, they had all kinds
of problems. They had to re-record everything back to mono and then
re-synthesize the stereo from mono -- which they could've done by
recording mono in the first place! Get my point? You're better off
working with a limited budget! You won't be tempted to go off the deep
end!
Besides, the mid-range mic with the boom produces the same
realistic perspective as the camera lenses and the resultant frames and
angles of the shots are matched by the aural perspective of the mic
placements, since these placements are by the very necessity of having
to keep the mic out of the shot the correct perspectives of the sound
as is experienced in the pictures!
Therefore, a close-up should sound like a close up, a medium shot like
a medium shot and, yes, even the long shot should sound like a long
shot! (I didn't mean "So you shouldn't hear it!" You're really too
much, you know, why are you putting words in my mouth?)
The shotgun mic works well to give the perspective of
certain long shots, especially when you're not working on the set and
when the ambient sound will prevent you from using the same mid-range
mic you've been using on everything.
One other bad feature of the radio-mics, besides their unreliability
(signal loss, rubbing against actors and destroying lines in action
scenes, sometimes at the slightest movement of the actor and the
unnecessary expense of renting a headache -- OK, OK, I'll lay off,) the
other bad feature is that the dialogue sounds the same in the long shot
as in the close-up. Take an example of a couple of detectives walking
through a crowded park. The two actors playing the scene are rigged up
with the mics, say beneath their neckties, with the transmitting units
patched to their backs (but the camera doesn't pick up the lumps on
their backs.) And as they walk through the crowd, the camera is holding
tight on them, in a sort of a two-shot.
And on the screen when you're viewing the end result of the
scene, you hardly hear the characters talking away around them as if
they are silently mouthing their speech, like they were mutes, or
something was wrong with them. Well it's something wrong with the
scene, with the execution, with the technology, I mean it's just as
wrong as if your nose was protruding from the back of your head and you
had one eye in the middle of your face where your nose was, get my
point?
And as for the sound of the two actors, it's just awful. I mean, you
can hear it all right, especially if they did 10,000 feet worth of
takes on the scene; but, the quality of the sound is tinny and the
perspective is all shot to hell!
If your budget is over $500,000 and you have an intimate
scene of Clark Gable dancing with Scarlet O'Hara, go ahead, use radio
mics! Why not, how many fortunate Directors are there who get to shoot
such a scene, and the audience would forgive you the false perspective
of the sound; after all, they want to hear the intimate whispers of the
lovebirds without the foot-shuffling and jabbering of the drunken
extras playing your scene (you've made them wait all day, what else did
you expect them to do anyway!)
See, I'm willing to retract on any point. I'm not a despot. This is not
a didactic how-to book on film making!
Make sure your sound crew records ambient sound on every set
and location you work. Nice, clean and long sound takes, so that you
can loop them in re-recording when you're in the editing phase.
Also, the sound person should record for you special sounds that can
save you a lot of trouble later in editing. Some typical examples are:
sounds of doors, of doors opening and closing (they all sound
different,) sounds of water splashing (when such scenes are filmed,)
footsteps and hoof beats of horses and animals (when such types of
scenes are filmed or are contemplated for dream sequences, flashbacks,)
sound of helicopters, farm animals, crickets, ocean spray (always when
such sounds are needed, of course.)
The main point is to make sure that you get as much done as is
possible, so that you don't have to go out and rent the equipment again
and do the kind of sound takes which could've been reasonably
anticipated.
The Script Girl should run the stop watch on every take,
record as much information as she can reasonably get from the different
crew members, especially the camera and sound crews. For example, the
Script Girl writes down on the script itself such information as the
Scene and Take number, the length of the take in time and on the page
(by drawing a line through the middle of words on the page.) This
information becomes invaluable to the editor when the take that is
selected by the Director when the Director calls "Print!" (circled on
the camera report by the 2nd Camera Asst. and printed by the lab) is
not acceptable or adequate for the editorial purposes, for one reason
or another.
At the end of the day, the Script Girl prepares a report for
the Director and the Production Manager (a great Script Girl types the
report at the end of each day,) and this report includes notes on
everything from observations of clothing, make-up and screen direction
of the action, to lenses used with corresponding f stops (lens aperture
opening, indicating the light levels used in filming each scene,) to
totals of each and every take use and the total effective running time
achieved at the end of each day!
The main point is guarding matching of continuity from shot to shot and
especially to enable the crews to match shots after interruptions or
out-of-sequence shooting taking place over several weeks of shooting
sometimes!
The Make-Up and Hair Artist fuss over every shot, making
sure that everybody in the scene looks right.
The Art Director and Prop person make every shot as good as they can
make it, under the time constraints that they have to work.
Stunt people observe the action scenes and take over the role of the
actors they are covering, replacing them whenever the action may cause
them undue amount of stress or injure them, such as falls (sometimes
from heights of 75 feet, expertly performed over air-inflated giant
cushions that are kept out of camera view,) punches, kicks, rolling
down stairs, climbing ropes, crashing through fake glass panes, falling
off horses, diving from exploding helicopters -- (need I say more?
You've seen it all!) -- or other dangerous stunts.
It's nice if the writer is on the set, secretly of course,
so that certain types of opportune elements can be written into the
script or to resolve certain difficult situations or unexpected
developments of the project. I say this with a lot of trepidation,
since a writer can also kill you on a set. The Writer might engage you
in endless discussions, "This is how I envisioned this would be
filmed!" Or, "This sequence should be a lot longer." Or, "I didn't like
the way that line was done!"
Now I'm starting to get excited. Or the Writer starts to coach the
actors behind your back and they seem to be doing better! Well, you
asked the Writer on the set, right? No it was not my idea! I said,
"Secretly!" And here's the rub, can you keep the Writer "in the bag"
like a cat?
The Production Manager/1st Asst. Director also maintains the
scheduling of actors on the set and in make-up, the crew and equipment
effectively deployed, the catering timely and the food warm and the
workings of the set all in good order.