In part 1 and part 2 of this series on understanding space in film, we explored the idea of the frame creating the illusion of space both in it and outside of it. Continuing with that, we’ll introduce some more kinds of spacial concepts.
Foreground Mid-ground and Background
Showing the difference between foreground, midground and background
One way of creating depth in an image is controlling the foreground (FG), mid-ground (MG) and background (BG). A simple way of approaching this is to think of each plane as a plate of glass where you place your subject and various other objects within the frame. A simple OS (over-the-shoulder) shot uses all 3 of these planes. The person closest to the camera (who the shoulder belongs to) is in the FG, the subject we’re focused on is in the MG and everything behind the subject is the BG.
Orson Well’s Citizen Kane used deep focus to create depth in many of his scenes by using this approach. He staged his actors in different planes and kept them all in focus.
Orson Welles staging actors using deep focus
Limited Space
Limited space uses two or more of the frontal planes to create depth. The idea is to create a flat plane which separates one plane from another. If there is only one plane, the image is considered flat.
So how do you create limited space? Let’s say you have a wall in the BG with an open doorway. By placing one character in the doorway and the other in the MG closer to the camera, you’ve just put the idea of depth in the viewer’s mind.
Using limited space in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The key to this is that each plane needs to have some kind of cue that the human eye understands instantly. A person is the easiest cue since we roughly understand the approximate height of a person. Another thing to watch out for is to avoid using a shallow depth of field. By blurring the BG, you create negative space around your subject and it flattens the image.
Ambiguous Space
In order to create the idea of depth, you usually have to relate it to something. Ambiguous space is the removal of those cues so the viewer doesn’t know what they’re looking at. A normal place at an odd angle or a close up of a part of an object are 2 examples.
Even with an object in frame, you can still create ambiguous space such as a hall of mirrors. You know the relative height of the subject but in a hall of mirrors you don’t know which is the subject and which is the reflection. By adding many images or textures you can disorient the viewer.
Many times you can reorient the viewer with movement, the subject walks into frame in an oddly framed place, picks up an object away from the camera revealing it’s full shape or the mirrors all shatter revealing the subject on his or her own.
In the next several parts, we’ll start introducing all the cues you need to create or limit depth! Feedback, comments or questions, are welcomed below!
Production still of Carlos Gallardo from Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi
Last time we were looking at Clerks for lessons we can take away from previous independent films which was shot for under $30,000. Today, we look at a film that was shot for even less, Robert Rodriguezs El Mariachi was shot for a little over $7,000.
El Mariachi is action shlock to the nth degree, no one will ever praise it for its nuances, and thats ok. Rodriguez has subsequently made films that cater towards an adolescent mindset but his directorial debut did so on such a tiny budget.
Before we go any further, I want to make a very specific point. This film was shot for about $7,000, a print was never struck in that budget, it was processed to VHS instead. Like Kevin Smith, Robert Rodriguez found himself in the right place at the right time for this film to blow up among the players in Hollywood. He would later be given a budget to recut on film from scratch.
Still, a shooting budget for $7,000 is still impressive, especially for an action movie. So howd he make it? Well first, he was the entire crew. Second, he sold his body to science.
He spent a month in a hospital for a drug trial to help finance his film and while there wrote the script and met Peter Marquardt who did not speak any Spanish. He was eventually cast as Moco, the local drug lord and had to learn his lines without understanding what he was saying. Theres even a scene in the pool where Peter is reading the lines off of his hand while wearing sunglasses to hide that fact.
The movie was shot in a small town called Acua, Coahuila where Rodriguez and his friend Carlos Gallardo, who would play the lead role, had access to several locations. During production two local journalists became critical of the production running around town so Rodriguez cast them into the movie in an effort to win them over.
Because film stock was at a premium he actually cut a lot of the movie in camera. The 16mm camera itself was extremely loud so audio was recorded separately after the visuals were shot. This made made for an interesting time editing as dialogue would routinely go out of sync with what was filmed, which is why there are a lot of cutaways in the film during scenes with dialogue. The films kinetic style was born partially out of this necessity.
El Mariachi was never meant to be seen on the world stage, it was meant as a low budget direct to video for the Latin-American market. The same film made with a much larger budget and a crew would never have gone anywhere. With such a small budget, Rodriguez had to think on his feet and come up with creative solutions to problems as they arose. But what really sells the film in the minds of cinephiles was how he financed it and how he did so much with so very little.
Every film tells two stories, the one on the screen and the one behind the scenes. This is the best part of independent filmmaking, sometimes the story behind the film is just as entertaining.
And informative.
Theres probably no better place to learn the craft of low-to-no budget filmmaking than movies that screened at the Sundance Film Festival. The films in this series arent all that obscure and may label me (shudder) pretty mainstream but I like them. So, first up on my list, Clerks.
Clerks
The black and white movie that launched a thousand dick-and-fart jokes. Kevin Smiths debut film is crude, rude and visually uninspired. But damn was it funny! There was nothing quite like it at the time. It tied for the Filmmakers Trophy at Sundance with Fresh and was bought by Miramax soon after.
Smith went to a film school in Vancouver where he met Clerks producer Scott Mosier and DOP Dave Klein, but soon dropped out. Smith financed the film himself for less than $30,000 selling off his comic books, maxing out his credit cards and dipping into his savings for university. Theres something to be said for taking the money you would put into getting an education for film production and just use it to produce your own film.
The location chosen for Clerks was where Kevin Smith was working at as a, well, convenience store clerk. He quickly wrote the screenplay around that location and then called in Mosier and Klein to produce and shoot his film after they had finished film school. Rounding out the cast and crew with his friends, students and local theater actors he began to shoot his film.
Because Smith was still working as a store clerk during the day, most shooting was done at night for a grueling 21 day shoot. To cover for the fact that it was night outside, the gag of the steel shutters being down with the sign I Assure You Were Open due to gum being jammed in the lock was written into the script.
After principle photography was finished, the film was then edited by Mosier and Smith on a flatbed Steembeck at RST Video (they really got a lot of use out of their locations!). The film then premiered at IFFM to a crowd of only a handful of people, some of which walked out. One of the attendees, however, was Robert Hawk who was an advisor to Sundance and began to open doors to Smith.
When you look at the impact of Clerks on indie cinema, its really hard to ignore. It went against all common sense in filmmaking at the time, financed out of the filmmakers pocket for almost no money using a cast and crew of friends, some of which had never made a film. It was, in short, crazy. But if you want to work in this industry, crazy is a great trait to have!
Next time, were moving a year forward to one of my favorite action movies with an even smaller budget, El Mariachi!
In part 1 we introduced the idea that as filmmakers, our canvas is the frame and everything happens inside of it. There are notable exceptions as some films have a live theatrical component to them but for the most part the screen is what you have to work with.
What if I told you this isn’t necessarily the case?
You’ve already jumped to the logical and easy conclusion, 3D films.
Three-Dee
3D has come of age and despite your preference for or against it, Hollywood is pushing forward with the technology. While stereoscopic movies is nothing new (Jaws 3D anyone?) the technology for viewing it has come a long way.
The way that it works is that 2 cameras are set up very near each other to capture images that are slightly different from each other because what your left and right eye see are slightly different. If you put your hand in front of you and close one eye at a time, you’ll notice it covers slightly different objects before you. Usually the cameras are placed in a system that uses one-way mirrors because it’s impossible to get camera lenses close enough to each other to create a decent 3D image.
Open Space
If your not shooting in 3D, there is still a way to create images that jump off the screen. This is known as open space, where the viewer is tricked into believing that there is more happening outside of the frame even though the frame confines everything inside of it.
