A practical manual of screen playwriting : for theater and television films (1952)

THE FILMIC COMPONENTS 10g The close-up This was so especially with the close-up, which goes even closer to the subject and shows only full-screen heads, faces, hands, feet— in fact, any significant detail that can point out and point up, for the audience, and thus heighten the dramatic impact. With the close-up at his disposal, the writer has a tool that is unique, in so far as contrast with the stage play is concerned. For in the theater, the size of the actor or his props remains constant, and allows only for a size variant limited by the depth of the stage and by artful spot lighting which was the stage forerunner of the cinematic close-up. In the motion picture, however, the audience's attention can be drawn to, and centered on, any revelatory or significant detail. Thus, the screen-play writer's opportunity for selectivity is increased tremendously. It is the close-up that has made the motion picture the singular art form that it is today, and that can make it the supreme expression of art in the future. For dramatic impact to top off a scene, there is nothing so effective in the entire lexicon of cinematic devices. In David Lean's British picture Great Expectations, the boy, Pip, is shown running wildly through marshes, past gibbets and into a churchyard cemetery, the camera traveling with him. It holds on him when he gets to one of the tombstones. Then suddenly it pans around from Pip to an abrupt close-up on the leering, menacing, distorted features of the escaped convict. The result is an electric shock to the audience and a high spot in a film replete with high spots. Although the close-up results in a larger screen image, for television it is suggested that it be used only when added particularization— more than could be obtained from a close shot— is called for. Here, also, remember to re-establish with a medium or medium close shot for an orienting frame of reference.