I will do my best to explain what I can. Hopefully, it will make sense to anyone who's ever used a camcorder or, at least, spent some time at the multiplex.

First Things First

We'll start with probably the two most important things to check anytime you're using any kind of camera: focus (is the subject sharp and clear through the camera viewfinder?) and exposure (is there enough light to see the subject but not so much to overpower the camera?). No matter what kind of craziness is going on during the shoot, make yourself double-check both these settings before you start rolling. Otherwise, you might end up with a dark, blurry movie.

If it's not on the screen, it doesn't exist.

You need to give your audience some visual clues as to where your action is taking place. If you're shooting in a cemetery, your audience won't know it unless you show them something like tombstones, a sign that says "cemetery," or a coffin next to an open grave. Worst case, you can always have one of your characters say something like, "Man, this old cemetery sure is creepy." Be warned, though. If there's no visual indication the character is, indeed, at a cemetery, your audience might think you're cheating.

Conversely, what you don't show is just as important, sometimes more important, than what you do show. Movies, even documentaries, tend to distort the truth. The images on the screen never tell the whole story of what was happening on the location or set. Almost always, the camera operator is "shooting around" crewmembers, equipment, and anything else that would take the audience out of the world of the movie.

Even with movie sound getting more complex (and louder) every summer blockbuster season, film is still a visual medium. That being the case, it's a good idea to make whatever's happening on screen as interesting as possible.

The most obvious way to do this is motion, either real or implied. Bar brawls, car chases, airplane dogfights and sex scenes often hold our interest simply because something is happening. Things are moving.

Even when there's no action on screen, you can still have motion in a shot by moving the camera, like making a long slow pan across a landscape, or slowly moving the camera toward an actor during a dramatic speech.

Television shows like LAW AND ORDER, which feature lots of dialogue and not so much action, are shot with handheld cameras. Handheld cameras are never perfectly still, so there's always at least a little bit of motion in a scene, even if said scene consists of two cops sitting at a desk having a calm conversation.

Motion can be implied during the editing process. In the post-MTV era, filmmakers often shoot everything at many different distances and angles and edit it together so the audience never sees a particular shot for more than a second or two. Director Michael Bay is a leading proponent of this method.

Composition

Even a long shot of something static, like a guy talking on the phone, can be interesting if you put some thought into composition. In film and video, "composition" refers to the arrangement of subjects and their surroundings on the screen. Since movies are most often a two-dimensional format (I'm still hoping for a 3-D renaissance!), people usually think of film composition in a left-right, top-bottom way.

Even though film and television are flat, the real world is not. If you pay attention to foreground and background, you can add depth to your two-dimensional compositions.

In one HIDE AND CREEP shot, Michael Shelton is talking on a cell phone in a hunting shack. Director of photography Robb Rugan decided we should shoot the actor from outside the shack, through a dirty window. The window sill is littered with old dusty beer bottles. There are so many nice little visual things about the shot, it gives the audience something to look at other than a guy talking on the phone.

There's also a shot of co-director and actor Chuck Hartsell on the phone in a video store. Chuck is a ways off from the camera, and there are racks of videotapes in the foreground. Both of these shots do a nice job of visually establishing a sense of place while the actors' phone dialogue advances the plot.

Another way to add a little visual flair to your compositions is to be creative with camera placement. You can shoot from crazy angles just for fun, like we did for one HIDE AND CREEP shot of Kyle driving a truck. We shot it from the passenger-side floorboard, and it just looks cool. And a little more dramatic than if we'd shot him straight-on from the passenger seat.

Zoom

I like to take advantage of the zoom lens when shooting close-ups of actors or objects. Instead of moving the camera close to the subject, I'll keep the camera back and just zoom in.

Some directors spend a lot of time discussing the "visual aesthetic" of their movies. They'll talk about how the color green symbolizes fear and how the use of the 18 millimeter lens in scene 37 gives the audience an early, though subtle, clue that the killer and the cop are actually the same guy with a split-personality disorder.

I don't know about all that, but I do think it's a good idea to put some thought into what you do with the camera. In HIDE AND CREEP, we decided early on that we'd use a tripod (whenever practical, at least) for the non-action shots. The camera would either be still, or we would pan and tilt on the tripod as smoothly as possible. We decided to do most of the action shots hand-held with looser movements. Not crazy "shaky cam" stuff like in BLAIR WITCH, but more erratic than the tripod stuff, to hopefully heighten the sense of action, motion and/or tension in the scene.

Some examples of camera-movement methodology in other movies:

• ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND: no lock-down shots, all hand-held, very documentary-like.
• PANIC ROOM: the camera is almost always in motion, but it's not hand-held -- lots of tripods, jibs, cranes and Steadicam stuff.
• DR. STRANGELOVE: lock-down shots inside the military base and war room, smooth handheld work inside the airplane (to remind the viewer the plane is in motion), and shaky hand-held shots (emulating the look of Vietnam war documentary footage) of the battle outside the military base.

There's a good bit more to say about shooting. Enough, in fact, to make this "Action" column my first ever Movie Poop Shoot two-parter.

So, on May 13, Uma Thurman will...

I mean, I will continue the production discussion in part eight: Action! (Vol. 2).

You might remember the ALICE IN WONDERLAND movie I've mentioned from time to time. It was written and directed by HIDE AND CREEP director of photography Robb Rugan, and many of the HIDE AND CREEP crew guys worked on it. Robb recently put up the trailer at http://www.eatmedrinkme.com, and it kicks some pretty serious ass. I hope you'll check it out.

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR | ARCHIVES