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THE EILMIC COMPONENTS 97
pecially for those made at the larger studios, a more definite designation of time can be made— on the order of TWILIGHT or EARLY MORNING— because there is more money available in the budget to cover the time the cameraman must devote to achieving more subtle lighting gradations.
That done, the screen-play writer indicates, on the next line, something on the order of:
med. shot on jane, as she lifts her baby from the crib, hugs it to her breast, and looks around frightenedly.
Now, how does the writer know that a medium shot would be best suited for this action? What can he accomplish, visually, with it? Would a close shot suit the purpose better? Should the camera pan Jane from the crib to the door, when she exits, or should she simply walk out of the frame, to be picked up a second later as she enters the frame with the camera focused on the door? Or should a cutaway shot be indicated, to someone else either in the same room or in a different locale?
These and many other plaguy questions will come up to bother the screen-play writer. The answers to them will be attempted in the following pages.
Let us look into the business of shots, then, discussing first the proper distances between the camera and the subject being photographed. Unfortunately, despite the hundreds of thousands of motion pictures that have been produced, no accepted standards of exact measurements have been evolved. A medium shot, to one director, may be a shot resulting in an image that will include the subject's knees. To another director it may mean an image in which everything from the hips up is to be seen.
The cinematographic societies have tried to formulate exact measurements, but to date there has been no strict conformance to any of them by the entire industry.
The following material, then, should not be interpreted as the final word in such matters. It merely represents one writer-director's interpretation of the many conflicting dicta gathered from research and experience. The principles have worked for him. There is no reason why they cannot work for anyone else. At least it is an honest attempt to establish standards, a task which has heretofore been sadly neglected and almost studiously avoided.