Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Transitions

So I'll admit I've been watching a lot of Spaced lately, which I hadn't seen before. Stylistically it's really streets ahead of even stuff like Community. Virtually every shot is some sort of genre-inspired transition. That's not actually factual but it feels like it's true.

Back in the olden days we would get yelled at by distributors and trailer editors for not having a moving camera. So by the time we shot Alien Insurrection we'd decided to do as much of the movie handheld as possible. This was a real bear with the HVX2000 and the Letus adapter with a 35mm lens on the front.
Since then I've had a tendency to go for a more "immediate" sort of "you are there" look with shooting handheld. The Firefly TV series might have had a hand in encouraging that tendency in me.
But the thing I realized from watching Spaced is that I never shoot transition shots. 
This is mostly because I have no idea how we'll want to edit a scene when we shoot it. This may in fact be a fairly large whole in my filmmaking methodology. Maybe I should know how we're getting from one scene to the next.
Of course, as a technique it way pull attention to itself. "Ooh! Look how smart we are doing this dolly move which is picked up by the next shot." So yeah, there's that. But I think I'm still in the Firefly style rather than the very formal style with glacially slow camera moves. I think
Our next movie is clearly a handheld and security camera extravaganza. But after that? Do we use a dolly more?

6 comments:

Aric Blue said...

Whenever I watch any Edgar Wright, I think I'm not thinking about transitions enough. Holy shit is Scott Pilgrim full of genius transitions...

Andrew Bellware said...

Maybe I should just stop watching anything that Edgar Wright directs and I'll feel better.

Kangas said...

But then you lose out on a lot of fun, and without that fun the only fun left is Slurpees. I can't afford to lose it.

Andrew Bellware said...

Yeah, you're right. I'll see what I can do about that.
Sure could use a dolly...

Kangas said...

I have one of those cheap-ish dollies that goes on PVC piping, but it's pretty smooth for about 10 feet on fairly level ground. (or, you get people to shim the whole fucking thing on rough ground)

Would I like a full sized panther dolly? SURE.

I guess what I'm saying is, YOU buy the dolly, I'LL store it at my house. Fair deal!

Andrew Bellware said...

I was thinking you would buy the Panther and I would store it. Dang.