The cinema as a graphic art : on a theory of representation in the cinema (1959)

THE COMPOSITIONAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE SHOT People carrying rifles and dragging cannon march past in uninterrupted procession. The drama of the defence is conveyed by the tense dynamism of the procession passing through the streets of Petrograd at night. This procession could have been filmed in the manner shown in Fig. 5. But in this construction the spectator does not feel the dynamism of the unbroken procession, as the right dynamic distortion has not been found for the figures. For these shots a sloping platform was constructed, up which the people passed. If a set-up had been selected which preserved the horizontal, the compositional scheme shown in Fig. 6 would have resulted. Here the line of the platform runs almost parallel with the diagonal of the frame, and so the effect of the dynamic slope of the figures is partly lost. The camera-man Tisse modified the frame horizontal limits by tilting the camera sideways, so as to bring them into parallel with the line of the slope. The result is shown in diagram in Fig. 7. Fig. 8 is a frame from the film " October ". In one of Harold Lloyd's films a similar method was used to produce an impression of a man bewildered by a misfortune with his car. (Fig. 9.) This method of modifying the horizontal limits was frequently resorted to by camera-man A. Golovnya in the films " The End of St. Petersburg " and " Deserter ". In addition to its importance in such instances of shifting the frame limits in order to achieve a definite significant and emotional effect, the frame is also of great importance when we are determining the compositional relationships between close-ups and long-shots, in other words, in the unfolding of space. Figs. 10 and 11 are reproductions from works by Degas, a painter who is highly characteristic for his ' picking of set-ups '. (b) THE CAMERA-ANGLE The term ' plan ', which is used in the cinemas of many continental countries as the equivalent of ' camera-angle ', is borrowed from the theatre. In these countries the term l first plan ' is used in the theatre to indicate the distance from the proscenium to the first line of wings, and in the cinema for the ' close-up ' ; the ' second plan ' indicates the space between the first and second line of wings, and so has come to be used for a medium shot, while the ' third ' or ' distant plan ' is applied to the depth of the stage, and is used in the cinema for a ' longshot \ As in its elementary beginnings the cinema developed under the direct influence of theatrical tradition, the mechanical borrowing of theatrical terminology was a common phenomenon. In certain departments of film production some of this terminology is in use in English, as for instance the scenario terms ' interior ', and ' scene '. In English the term ' plan ' has been replaced by ' camera-angle ', which is used to indicate the scale of the object's image in the frame, whether it is in ' closeup ', or ' long-shot ', for example. The point at which a long-shot merges into a medium-shot and so on is very approximate, for the cinema does not recognise any exact demarcation between the various sizes of the object in the frame. In the early days of the cinema the planning of the scene was restricted to the general distribution of the objects in the frame limits, which were regarded as a special form of theatre proscenium. Only a primitive form of long-shot was exploited. Then came the development of the mediumshot , which enabled us 3i