Scene Shot Breakdown - Self Education

rayw

rayw

I'm deconstructing a single scene chosen almost arbitrarily to improve my own camera work and film making skills as a director.

I just thought I'd bring you guys along for the ride, mostly to the benefit of any nubes via any advice/perspectives from those with more experience pointing out the error(s) in my ways.
(There's an old Navy-days* story in there someone should remind me later of).

This is the 50 second clip, it's from the Tony Scott film UNSTOPPABLE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMQM9s1VME8

Here's my breakdown using screengrabs:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/...mPt-nnva0yy9c0/edit?hl=en_US&authkey=CIPboI0M

At some point in the very near future I will attempt to recreate this simplified version of the scene's essential elements.

The intent is to learn my own equipment better & faster as well as cultivating a better understanding of how to approach a scenario.

One would hope that after deconstructing and reconstructing a dozen or so of these kinds of scenes my skill would improve for both emulating and departing from them.


Any and all useful advice and actionable pointers are greatly appreciated.

* "Yes", I know my port from starboard sides.
 
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Typical pace for a big budget Hollywood movie is about 2 pgs/day @1 min/pg & 12 hr days = this took 6 hours to shoot.

There are also reframings in the shot, the zooms that act as a cut without cutting - so when looking at the pacing, consider those as well. The last couple of shots demonstrate this as we cut from a snap zoom into the subordinate's face, then cut to a closeup of a look to screen left.

The thinning fog throughout the scene may allude to the decision making process of the subordinate process... or just differing amounts of either created or natural fog throughout the shoot day.

I had to do one of these for a scene in a film that I enjoyed for a class a while back... I really found it enlightening and used a couple of different techniques to look at the scene, including answering a bunch of questions about the scene after it was deconstructed. I used "Serendipity" and the scene where John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale first meet.

This is a great way to learn filmmaking. Assume that everything in the scene was chosen to make a statement about the story, each color on screen, how fast the leaves are moving in the wind, how much the background moves in relation to the subject in the frame... now answer why each of those decisions would be made. Even if not right, it's a great mental exercise for thinking more artistically about how a scene is constructed. (although most of the BTS I've watched has pointed to this being a more accurate method of creating scenes than not).
 
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Kholi -
I might have been tinkering with the text on google.docs when you happened to have been looking.
Seems to be (mis)behaving now.

Knightly -
Very nice. Thank you.
Having listened to enough dir/prod commentaries I will certainly endeavor to assume statements are being made down to the last detail.
That does appear to be a beneficial exercise.
Lord knows there's plenty of detail to scrub out of someone's work.


Alright, not that I've actually had time to practice or apply anything from the UNSTOPPABLE scene break-down, but here goes one from INCEPTION - Most Skilled Extractor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUmsLUF9e1Y

Shot Breakdown:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/...F5s7ll4cZo7b8o/edit?hl=en_US&authkey=CPz6ruIF

Looks to be much more simple.
(I had to lighten it considerably for the screengrabs. I hope no cinephiles pillory me)!

* * * *

I knew there was something that bugged me about this scene.

Although you can see second character shoulders moving about and even what appears to be Saito's arm bringing up a wine glass to drink from, there are no obvious two shots.

Theoretically, especially with this being a completely unnaturally lit scene without any sun issues, this could have been shot without any of these actors in the room at the same time using stand-ins for shoulder shots and an out of focus double for Saito's drink.

Sometimes scheduling can create a situation where a scene needs to be shot this way.
Question if it can be done well? Yes, it can.
I think this scene went fine.
Nothing overtly suspect with it.
 
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Number three!
(I'll give these break for a while).

Shawn Levy's DATE NIGHT - Lift The Number
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blo-xNiuwys

Shot Breakdown:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/..._8CNaTOAt-UBQ/edit?hl=en_US&authkey=CN33hJYL#

** Audio captured from farthest distance indicating boom pole :
Several times in BTS pieces I've seen this sort of crowded club environment where the actors can clearly be heard on the audio recording - WHILE - all the extra's in the background mill about and silently pretend to be mouthing conversations.

The crowd chit-chat murmur you hear in the final piece is recorded on a separate track from who-knows-where or when then layed in at a level allowing the principal actors to be heard.

There is no way to record both the principals and that crowd chit-chat murmur simultaneously.
052111-106
 
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polfilmblog said:
Sorry, I thought Unstoppable blew monkey chunks.

I did see a student film that recreated the rooftop shootout scene from Die Hard. That was pretty good, probably online.
Click to expand...

Oh, I'm certainly not endorsing any of these movies, the directors or cinematographers.
Only trying to figure out how to not make any no-budget product of mine not look like the a$$ of the monkey that blew chunks.

After a casual lookabout I couldn't find any student recreation.
Sounds interesting. :(
 
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I've enjoyed this thread, Ray. Reverse engineering scenes is something I want to get into. Right now, I'm in school and we're working off a script and making our own storyboard which includes the shots as we see it. This includes the shot types, but not the distances as you have included. What's that about? Only asking because I am clueless. I was thinking it relates to lens selection, but that's a guess. Throw a brother a bone. ;)
 
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About the lack of two shots and use of stand ins, I've been thinking of doing this so I won't have to pay my actresses for extra days. Doing it inside would seem easy. Anyone done for an outdoor shot? Is it hard to match the light?
 
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knightly said:
It says it should work for anyone with the link ? I'm not that experienced with google docs - so if anyone can point my toward my folly, I'd be appreciative.
Click to expand...

This is the message that appears:

Sorry, we are unable to retrieve the document for viewing or you don't have permission to view the document.
 
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John -
Sorry, we are unable to retrieve the document for viewing or you don't have permission to view the document.
Hmm... It's come up just fine for me a couple times now, although I've noticed googdocs seems to routinely have technical issues I've never experienced with gmail which I use often.
I think Cole did the "share with anyone with the link" thing fine. Stupid computers. I hate 'em. ;)I dunno.

I've enjoyed this thread, Ray. Reverse engineering scenes is something I want to get into. Right now, I'm in school and we're working off a script and making our own storyboard which includes the shots as we see it. This includes the shot types, but not the distances as you have included. What's that about? Only asking because I am clueless. I was thinking it relates to lens selection, but that's a guess. Throw a brother a bone.
Thank you.
(Never can tell when one of us nubes is gonna cheeze-off someone else)
Please, throw up anything you can from your film school. I'm in my soft-meat year @ Hard Knox University!
Shot types is what I see Cole put in his SERENDIPITY: Fate scene breakdown and I acknowledge that's the proper format to convey these things.
I'm including distances so that after doing enough of these forensic deconstructions I can cultivate a more instinctual feel for when to do what. Many shots are obvious as to how they should be composed, while others move in from an American shot to a mid/med shot or an Over-the-Shoulder shot. Do I throw in an insert before doing that or can I just jump from one to another?
Well, I see that they did that in the DATE NIGHT: Get The Number sequence and it looked fine, so I guess it's doable.

Issues regarding lens selection are beyond my current skill and asset level.
I can zoom in & out, manually set my aperture & focus and fiddle with my white balance.
You won't be seeing any AfterEffect bonanzas from me anytime soon.
Just really simple, old school, in camera and editing BS.


Brain Juice! :D
I mean, Brian -
Yeah, I want to... h3ll, I'm dying to try one of these as well!
Definitely doing one indoors for a deep interior or outside after dark sequence would be optimal.
Shifting daylight, the time of day color issues that brings and simple cloud cover (not all overcast days are the same) would sow lighting/shadow continuity minefields.

Scheduling becomes one of those things that you may notice I b!tch about... er, "observe" about people simply not letting go of their screenplay story lines.
Gotta be realllly flexible and creatively dynamic with those things.
Reality changes a lot from script to screen.
People, places and budgets force all sorts of inventive solutions to barriers.

I wanna practice a few of these very much!
I'll share as soon as I can.


Cole -
Rock-in'!
Excellent!
SERENDIPTY is a 2001 film and I've the understanding you've been doing this awhile. When did you break this down? That was a LOT of good work. Really insightful.

Terms like naturalistic acting, straight cuts, and compressed space are things I need to develop fluent use of as a lot of film making involves heavy work beyond the camera and editing bay as marketing and promotion. It helps a lot if we can speak to investors, industry peers and in interviews as if we know WTH we're doing.

Communicating what's obvious and instinctual isn't always easy to an artist.
I already have identifiable problems shifting from visual right-brain to literal left-brain when someone catches me in visual mode.
(Sometimes it impairs my driving, which is pretty pathetic).

I hope you guys can bear with me until I can get my industry jargon up to speed. 'Preciate it!
 
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CamVader said:
:lol: Cole has the "Share with everyone except John" button selected. I'll keep trying. :cool:

Ray - I'll post what I can if you're interested.
Click to expand...

Cole -
C'mon, man. Quit d!ckin' around with John's brain. It's too early in the morning for that. :lol:

John -
FOR SHURE!

Here's the thing, once upon a time in a world far far away I learned that in a classroom setting, which this is and so are your actual classes, if you don't volunteer first, watch the mistakes made by others, vow to not make those mistakes and your own material comes up smelling like roses.

So, emphatically: "Yes", I'm interested!

Same here, I'll put up something worlds better than that audio fart-fest thing I did.
Really learned a lot about audio capture, manipulation in editing and layering that stuff in on that though.
At one point I had the bathroom noises, alarm clock, home phone, cell phone, and soundtrack all going at the same time.

That was a fun ditty, but more importantly I'm growing a respect/appreciation of how audio will bugger a perfectly good shoot that all the editing in the world can't rescue.
 
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Thanks guys, sorry John. This breakdown was from 2007. The storyboard doc is simply screenshots of each framing/edit... if you watch the scene (times are in the breakdown), you'll get the same thing... Showing the stills allows for more analysis of the image, forsaking the movement a bit.

I've recently been analyzing how DPs separate the subjects from the backgrounds and have come up with 3 methods: Chroma (color), Luma (brightness) and in-frame motion... using stills and freeze frames work great for this allowing you to stare at the frame deeply and intently to suck all the marrow out of it...

I like to focus on one aspect of the craft at a time to really procure a deeper understanding of that one aspect and how it relates to the other stuff I've learned to that point.
 
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