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Parent Category: Engels

Category: Training

Created: Tuesday, February 14 2017 19:15

Published: Tuesday, February 14 2017 19:15

Written by Bart

Kennemer Dunes national park, today. Act first [ think later ]

Min/max temperature: -3°C/6°C; humidity: 66%; precipitation: 0 mm, sea level pressure: 1030 hPa; wind from SSW 15.9 km/h; visibility: 8.0  kilometres; snow depth: 5 mm

"The standard screen format used to be four by three -- the same as a TV screen. In opting for a bigger screen the industry had to go wide: with a higher one, people sitting in the back of the stalls would have had the top of the image chopped off by the overhanging balcony. Cinemascope (and its successors, like Panavision) used anamorphic lenses on the camera and projector to squeeze the wider image onto normal 35-mm film, and this gave a ratio of 2.35:1. […] A face in the centre of the screen would come out fat, and one on the edges thin, so close-ups had to be framed a bit off centre. […] Discussions went on for some years about what one should do with Cinemascope. Great for westerns […] but how do you frame [ a ] domestic drama? […] To make [ a ] room look wider [ the art director ] gave it two windows […] Then the director […] didn't like the windows and they were replaced by a single one. In those days there was always this peculiar struggle going on between directors and art directors about the wide format. Over time these conversations didn't happen any more. We simply got used to it. […] The way I see it, there's a lot more to being a cameraman than lighting the set […] On a film you have [ camera operators, ] carpenters, painters, plasterers, electricians, property men, stagehands, hairdressers, make-up people. The cameraman has something to do with with all these people because everything is seen trough the eye of the lens. If you find something not up to standard, you have to get the person who's responsible for it and have it put right. […] I often had to get tough with men who weren't pulling their weight. There used to be a lot of lazy people in the filmindustry. [ Later ] attitudes had changed […] more professional. Out in Jordan on Lawrence […] I happened to be having a drink with some newcomer. 'You've mellowed, Freddie,' he said. […] 'You used to be a bit of a bastard.' 'It's not me that's changed,' I told him. 'It's you blokes. If you were a lazy sod I had to turn into an old bastard. It was the only way to get things done.' But there are still occasions when a film needs a cameraman who's 'a bit of a bastard' -- someone prepared to push to get things done."

Freddie Young, 'Seventy Light Years, A Life in the Movies, an Autobiography as told to Peter Busby', page 67, 137, 138, first published in 1999 by Faber and Faber Limited, London

"[T]rust the process […] Intuition -- an element in using "self as an instrument" -- is very important […] but […] it is also necessary to understand the reason for success, as well as the derailing factors linked to any process. […] When it goes well, it's like magic. […] But [ those ] who do not understand the forces that make the "magic" happen [...] may be at a loss if the process begins to derail."

Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries in 'The Hedgehog Effect', page 33, 34. First published in 2011 by John Wiley and Sons, USA