Date: Thu, 25 Dec 1997 12:05:53 +1100
From: deX <dionne-AT-ThePla.Net>
Subject: re: ft-l: Mise en Scene


At 08:13 AM 12/24/97 PST, bill wrote:

>   That's the version inherited from the theater, but the film 
>definition has got to include lens focal length, camera position and/or 
>movement and editing, which determines the overall rhythm of a film 
>sequence.

once again i must take exception. as an 'experienced editor', bill, i would
have thought that, of all the people who toil diligently on the Making of a
film, you would understand the importance of performance matching and the
precedence this must always take over mechanical frame-matching. light and
framing can be manipulated in post-production - performances CANNOT. 

of course performance matching is not restricted to actors, which, as an
experienced editor you are also no doubt (painfully) aware, we talk of the
stream 'which played in scene eleven' or the highway in the background of
person A's singles in scene twelve. streams and rivers, waterfalls, etc.
are evil things, all a part of that greater evil - nature; and as an
experienced editor i am sure you know how relatively simple it is to tweak
your LightworX in order to match the the first half of take two with the
second half of take nineteen shot 5 and a half hours later with different
ambient light, compared to trying match takes four and and ten which saw
the subtle stream in the foreground change to overflowing rapid because of
a big storm upriver. 

the rhythm and what, to the naked eye, appear as subtle variations
(epicritic) in an actor's rhythm and delivery when blown up  700 times
become terrifyingly pronounced. when you are working on footage of an actor
who for the given scene is using a style and method of performance that is
largely known as epicritic [somebody like montgomery clift comes to mind as
a classic textbook example] every point on his/her emotional arc,
trajectory, whatever, is mapped onto his/her Face with a twitch and
clenching or slackening of a small group if not single facial muscle. as an
experienced editor, you are no doubt aware of how hard it is to concentrate
and pay attention to the performance details which determine rhythm, which
are, to the untrained eye, quite invisible on a small edit suite monitor
and yet become the key players on a theatre movie screen.

rhythm is determined by many things, primarily performance and nature, and
eventually the mechanics of executing the Shot or Sequence. the things you
have no control over or can't cheat are always most important. even though
you may want to shoot a certain sequence in a particular way with an
editing idea in mind, if you go back to a location for the last day of
shooting and overnight the buildings in the background have been
demolished, well the footage from that final day (if you don't have the
budget to digitally replace the bulidings later) will change your final cut
of that scene dramatically if the buildings were key players. in situations
like this no-one gives a fuck about focal lengths, the whole interpretation
of the scene has to be revisioned on the spot.

of course editing, camera position, etc. do have a role to play in
determining rhythm, but these things are merely functions of much more
important determinants of "overall ryhthm".

sorry, i'm gibbering again...

deX.


     --- from list film-theory-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---