Below are several articles I would like you to read in correlation with the lecture.
A more detailed description of How Cinematographers work..
The Black Box Blue blog list their Top 10 Directors of Photography (Cinematographers).
TvTropes outline a decent description for The Oner while also providing an extensive list.
Shot4shot goes into depth about the Oner and various other tracking shots from Children of Men.
The New York Times outlines the decline of film stock and How Digital is Changing the Nature of Moves.
And finally, a video on the oners/long takes of Children of Men
Children of Men
ReplyDeleteDirector: Alfonso Cuaron
2006
*drama/societal statement
This film is about a man who lives in a dystopian/post-apocalyptic London and the end of all humanity is imminent because the world’s populations are sterile. His wife, who is a refugee and considered a radical, links back up with him when she discovers a young girl who is pregnant! The man’s wife is killed and with the girl in his charge, he must escort her to a ship that is only rumored to exist, but would be a safe place for her to raise the child and live away from fear and blood-crazed people who chase them all the way along their journey. He gets her to the pick-up spot on a small boat at the last moment and dies in a small life boat just before he can see her rescue realized.
I chose this film because I thought the cinematography and set design was FANTASTIC! The social and socioeconomic issues addressed are obvious and could have easily been cliché or melodramatic but are still shocking and fresh thanks to the pacing, location/setting and sound/soundFX in the film (play on quiet versus noise/chaos). The shots are crisp, varying in shot angles and the image plane changes at a nice pace that keeps the narrative moving along nicely. It seem as though the scenes in the labor camp/ghetto were captured by using a steady cam which adds to the immediacy and heightened suspense of that part of the film.
The theme/moral of the film (regardless of raise, age, gender, etc. we survive as one race—the Human Race) is accessible to anyone from any place and executed brilliantly with crisp shots and great balance of dialogue and action. The sound and set, again, are so important to the story itself that without the touches of sound editing when and where it happens in the film, I think the film would not have been as successful as it was. Specifically, the contrast between the sound in the city to the sound when the protagonist goes to visit his friend in the woods is working really well. The sound differentiation that happens when the main character, Theo, is in the coffee shop and a bomb goes off and we are able to hear the deafening white noise gradually shake back into normal hearing is brilliant. Also the sound of the gunfire and bombing and overall chaos compared to that of the silence that occurs as soon as the baby starts crying is really powerful. It’s as if the only sound in the entire universe (of the film) is that baby’s cry. It trumps all conflict because it is the hope of survival and continuation; of the future. The film was just overall, very strong and put together in a very smart and poised manner.