Cinematic Storytelling A Comprehensive Guide for Directors and Cinematographers 1st Edition by Thomas Robotham ISBN 9781000408164 1000408167

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ISBN 10: 1000408167
ISBN 13: 9781000408164
Author: Thomas Robotham

Cinematic Storytelling A Comprehensive Guide for Directors and Cinematographers 1st Edition Table of contents:

1 What is cinematic storytelling?

The pictures help us feel the story

A cinematic approach through keyframes – not shots

Cinematic storytelling exists for every form, length, and budget

Going beyond formulas or easy solutions

Clear presentation that informs and orients

Including us in a character’s subjective attention

Shifting perspective and physicality

Dynamism in dialogue

Summary

Common shot list abbreviations

What you can do …

2 Foundations in the script

The life cycle of the story

Script to screen is a kind of metamorphosis

Scripted versus movie storytelling

Symbolic versus sensory presentation

Fluid and elastic reading versus fixed-duration viewing

What is common in all three examples

Summary

What you can do …

3 Coverage defines attention

Coverage delivers story information in context

Storytelling before mechanics

Framing = story attention

Envisioning framing

Framing patterns underlie cinematic coverage

Plainly visible scripted elements link to framing patterns

1) Character actions

2) Character looks

3) Character dialogue

4) Settings

5) Objects

6) Evocative imagery

All patterns come equipped with contextual cues

Coverage patterns function through time, like music

Recombination of patterns allows flexible context shifting

Summary

What you can do …

4 Cinematic thinking

Breaking free from shot-first thinking

Presenting the scripted story through keyframes

Subject matter in terms of singular, compound, and plural

Energy and flow

How shots can emerge from contextual choices

Building up contextual cues leads to final shot selection

Moving forward to patterns of keyframes

Summary

What you can do …

5 Patterns for character actions

Character actions

Action patterns tie camera angles to storytelling functions

Observation

Participation

Connection

How actions function in the storytelling

Action patterns don’t always fit conventions of coverage

Action patterns are particularly flexible

Vicarious engagement and audience judgment

Physical action is fast and easy to understand

Social interactions are complicated

Summary

What you can do …

6 Patterns for character looks

Character looks

Subjective attention is not always true POV

Why Look/See and not simply POV

Look/See forward and reverse

Look/See and inner vision

Look/See patterns are the gateway to subjectivity

Avoiding looks for creative reasons

Look/See becomes dialogue

Summary

What you can do …

7 Patterns for dialogue – structure

Character dialogue multiplies complexity

Interaction and reciprocal pairs

Staging and the 180° Line of Continuity

Resetting the Line of Continuity

Staging across offers a big range in intensity and intimacy

Staging on a diagonal offers front or back angles

Staging side-by-side offers a shared view

Staging in depth offers the masking of emotions

Staging offset provides a diagonal that isn’t shared

Staging and “the situation” to help feel the options

Setting up context and changing the context

Summary

What you can do …

8 Patterns for dialogue – examples

Examples of the variety in dialogue pattern usage

Observing interaction may be all that’s needed

Connection and disconnection through proximity

Simple choices support rising and falling action

Action leads to Dialogue, with intimate subtext

Offset staging provides meaningful imbalances

Conventional coverage, staging across, relying on proximity

Staging in depth and withholding of mutual connection

Side-by-side with a burst of misleading context

Across, diagonal, symmetrical, and asymmetrical

Dramatic perspectives, only possible with staging across

Crossing the 180° Line for dramatic intent

Moving beyond two-character dialogue

Multiple-character dialogue scenes

Three-person dialogue = 2 + 1

Grand tour from a central pivot

Summary

What you can do …

9 Patterns for settings

Taking us into the storyworld

Settings as background with functional significance

Establishing a setting as a chapter marker

Settings with intrinsic story significance

Settings coverage in slideshows and tours

Characters as features of the setting

We find characters or they emerge from settings

Settings through character perspective

Settings for pacing the audience experience

Settings to visually compress time

Settings can provide time for emotional reverberation

Summary

What you can do …

10 Patterns for objects

Objects have either functional or intrinsic significance

Functional objects are within the scope of character agency

Establishing functional objects before critical action

Objects can have their own story agency

Forces can be objectified

Objectifying characters

Objects with intrinsic significance as symbols

Summary

What you can do …

11 Patterns for evocative imagery

Evocative imagery puts emotions in the foreground

Mood and tone in the compression of time

Characterization through evocative imagery

Providing time for processing strong emotions

Evocative imagery in relation to montage

Separating experience from consensus reality

Signaling departure from conventional narrative

Summary

What you can do …

12 Patterns and movement

Movement is the last piece of the puzzle

Movement within the frame

Characters move through the frame

Character movement alters proximity and frame size

Character altering angle and perspective

Movement within the frame doesn’t require stationary camera

Movement of the frame – independent of character

Tour and survey of settings

Observation beyond characters

Hand-off brings us to the next character

Movement of the frame – dependent on character

Frame instability with subject fixation

Subject fixation and following

Simultaneous reset for staging change

Injection of dynamism

Summary

What you can do …

13 Scene shaping and interconnections

Scene shaping through cinematic means

Consistency, modulation, and change shape our experience

Scene shaping depends on only three patterns

Cinematic shaping across multiple scenes

Scene interconnection through sustained action pattern

Shaping the first phase of a big dialogue scene

The second phase brings pattern and movement change

Witnessing gives us distance and judgment

Handling settings in our three-scene example

Moving from example to general usage

The next step will be process oriented

Summary

What you can do …

14 Developing the coverage plan

The process of coverage plan development

Breakdowns identify story structure at three levels

A cinematic approach divides the visible from all else

The coverage plan is central to principal photography

Working through the process at the scene level

Step 1: Segmenting the scene into phases

Step 2: What the audience needs to know

Step 3: What is actually seen

Step 4: Keyframe qualities to align declarative and inferential

Step 5: Decide qualities of movement

Step 6: Scene-to-scene interconnections

Step 7: Mapping out camera positions for keyframes

Step 8: From overhead diagram to the shot list

Scene by scene, you design the coverage plan in keyframes

The resilient shot list comes from a coverage plan

Summary

What you can do …

Reference materials

Overview

Reference: Conversion and cross-application of patterns

Action pattern conversions …

Action cross-application …

Dialogue pattern conversion …

Dialogue cross-application …

Settings pattern conversion …

Settings cross-applications …

Reference: Scene-to-scene considerations

Beginnings and endings

Major story points and act breaks

The life-changing moment for the main character

Production considerations in planning for sequences

Coverage for planned intercutting between scenes

Use of chapter markers

Soft interconnections between scenes

Implications of scripted transitions

Reference: Pitfalls for new filmmakers to avoid

Index

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