V

Composition therefore is not just a pictorial matter: what happens in the narrative also helps the cinematographer in deciding the exact disposition within each shot. But how do we coordinate all these objectives? Is clarity more important than structural balance? Should colors also provide symmetry? Do these considerations vary with each shot? And what do we do when they clash with one another? To top off the discussion, Billy Williams even questions whether composition can ever be learned. He says: "It's something that you're born with. . . . There are people who can never compose properly." 16 For professionals, of course, the operation is instinctive. They know it when they see it. Zsigmond, for instance, declares: "composition is in my blood. I walk into a room and I set the camera and it's there; I cannot explain why."17
What do we gather from this discussion? Mostly that clarity is the leading consideration of cinematographers and that the other parameters (symmetry, color, movement, etc.) most often remain subservient to the meaning of the scene as a whole. Beyond that, cinematographers fall back upon intuition to explain how the job gets done rather than point to clear cut rules. What this innate sense consists of is not certain: one suspects it could very well be no more than a largely unconscious assimilation of compositions in thousands of films the technicians have seen and admired.
IV
How do we make the composition clear? What does it mean in practice? In many films, the solution is to bring the frame around the subject. This makes sense because traditionally the center is the place of honor, it is where the eye goes first. The very action of shooting something implies that we value it on some level and therefore it stands to reason we would offer it the position in the picture against which everything else is balanced. Furthermore, as Rudolf Arnheim remarks, "a sense of permanence goes with the central position."18 What is less important or transitory is therefore pushed back to the periphery. If we have a group of people in the frame, for instance, they are often positioned within the field according to their relative importance. This approach goes all the way back to religious paintings where the divinity necessarily occupies the visual center of the picture, surrounded first by angels and saints, then by bishops and other servants of the Church, and finally, on the outskirts or very small at the bottom, by the faithful. Similarly, in many family group pictures, the cen-

 



Film Production Theory2000
Film Production Theory2000
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2004
Pages: 126

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