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6.28 L’assassinat de Duc de Guise: The low camera height accentuates the foreground figures.
balance they began to experiment with letting the flow of depth patterns highlight first one action, then another. Alongside these developments in staging came strategies of camera placement that deepened the space. Most early cinematographers put their cameras four to five feet above the ground, but Ben Brewster has noted that L’assassinat de Duc de Guise (1908) seems to have popularized a waist-level camera height. This choice, which became standard practice at the Pathé and American Vitagraph studios, probably arose from a desire to bring figures forward while keeping both head and feet in the frame. In strengthening the impression of depth, the lower camera position reweighted the shot: foreground figures loomed larger, and characters dropped quickly in importance as they moved back into the set (Fig. 6.28).36 The device thus provided a useful tool for directing attention.
Whether they put the camera low or high, 1910s directors were committed to extending depth through creating closer foregrounds. Brewster has suggested that as film exhibition moved from vaudeville houses and music halls to smaller venues like nickelodeons, the shrinking of screens encouraged filmmakers to bring the action nearer to the camera. This tactic retained the “life-size” scale of figures that audiences had come to expect.37 Here is an excellent example of filmmakers innovating a stylistic solution to a problem of visibility. In addition, as we have seen, greater depth allowed the director to concentrate attention by virtue of the larger size of foreground elements and the eye-catching quality of movement toward the camera. Both features are seen to amusing expressive effect in Pathé’s Le Petit Poucet (1909), where the low-positioned camera creates a giant (Figs. 6.29, 6.30).
The joke in Le Petit Poucet depends partly on a cunning floor, which appears flat but actually makes the giant stride slightly uphill so that he towers over us. In such ways set construction could enhance depth. After 1906, angled wings began to replace backdrops, and soon longer side walls came into use. Interest
ON STAGING IN DEPTH
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