Film Appreciation

 

Angle

If a shot is defined as ‘camera distance’ then an angle can be done so as ‘camera position’. It is like placing a light in a position to illuminate an object. There are five basic angles. They are: i) Over –head angle   ii) High angle  iii) eye-level angle  iv) Low angle  v) Oblique angle (which is also known as “Dutch-tilt”)

An angel is identified by the position from which the viewer sees the object. For example, a Low Angle is like using foot-lights to light the object. The object may appear larger, domineering, worshiped or even menacing. A low angle may be used to present Christ-on-cross or even the blade of guillotine coming down.

An Eye-Level angle, like a mid-shot, creates the illusion of reality. The audience of Yasijuro Ozu’s ‘The Tokoyo Story’ (1953) experienced a great sense of watching the social drama of changing Japanese domestic values and personal relationships. The magic of Ozu lied in the fact that he had used static shots from a camera raised just 3 or 4 feet above the ground. So the audience had the eye-level view of the characters crouched in the traditional Japanese style of sitting. This is the uniqueness  of mid-shot at eye-level angle.

A High Angle diminishes the object. But a good maker always breaks the cults and improvises upon it. Remember the High Angle used by Selvaragavan  in ‘Pudhupettai’ for the opening song filmed in a slum back-drop. The character seen from High Angle seems to challenge and deify the audience seated in the boxes.

An Over-head / Top-angle is the most philosophical of all visual. It gives one a cosmic sense. In Oliver Stone’s Alexander an Extreme-Long over-head filming of the battle ground with the forces ready to strike, and the camera swooping down breath-takingly to survey the rank and file, closely but rapidly, is almost suggestive of the ‘Vulture Death’ souring over humanity.

Lighting

As shot and angles suggest the distance and position, lighting sets the mood of the visual as colourisation does. There are three basic types of lighting: High key, Low key and High-contrast.

High key or bright lighting is used for comedy. Low key or dim lighting is used for tragedy. The colour format and the key lighting scheme have been apparently inspired by works such as Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.

A high contrast lighting scheme is used for mysteries, ghosts/suspense thrillers. Alfred Hitchcock used it in an unsurpassable manner for the conversation between Norman Bates and Marianne in Psycho

Prominent and Subsidiary

For a classic film-maker subsidiaries are not there in a frame merely to create an atmosphere or establish the background. He attributes equal importance to the prominent and the subsidiary. The subsidiaries in a frame contribute to the prominent. For example, in Sanjay Leela Bansali’s Black (Hindi) when Amitab Bacchan the eccentric genius in teaching the special children is introduced, there is the poem of Rober Frost’s Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” in the background written on a blackboard as a subsidiary. It precisely talks about the adventurous character of the central character present in the frame. The verse as the Subsidiary intensifies the concept of light, knowledge and teaching defined succinctly