Deep staging for cinematographers

Large room = deep interior shot.

Directing action so that it creates movement on the depth axis mostly falls in the domain of the director. But the cinematographer also has some staging tricks to promote depth. It is probably obvious, but let’s put it out explicitly: one main reason small movies look small is that they are shot in small spaces. It is really that simple. Shoot in a small room, and you’ve got a cramped and confined scene. Shoot in a hangar, and suddenly there is space and air to the shot. A larger space will naturally create a deeper frame. It is no coincidence that a typical big production stage is spacious and the sets are often larger than life. Shooting in a large space is really the simplest way to have depth in the image.

Unfortunately, the large set is often a luxury in the low budget world. But there are tricks that help photograph a deeper space. All of the following are based on a single underlying principle: select a viewpoint so that a (seemingly) great range of depth is put on display.

• Pull the subject away from walls. This is a simple and effective technique to increase the depth of the scene, even more so when shooting squarely against the wall. By pulling the subject (and the camera, to preserve subject size) you are effectively pushing the background farther back. This also opens the opportunity to place well-differentiated props between the subject and the background walls: this heightens the sense of depth by creating more depth planes. And this trick has bonus benefits: less distracting shadows on the walls; free space for back lights, if needed; and space for running cables, positioning stands, etc.
  

  Movie furniture likes to be arranged away from walls. (Throughout the illustrations note how they often employ more than one of the described techniques.)

• Shoot against a corner. For any subject positioned in a space with a rectangular floor plan the longest distance between the subject and a point at the walls is towards a corner. So take advantage of this and include a corner of the room in the frame. This gives the deepest frame possible. Having the corner in the frame will also create natural diagonals, especially with close-to-subject viewpoints and wider lenses, resulting in a more dynamic composition.
  

  Here having the corner and the side wall in the frame allows wall texture to emphasize linear perspective.

• 

  Over-the-shoulder framing creates a natural foreground plane.

  Have the subject deeper in the frame, behind a well defined foreground. The foreground may frame the subject, or simply serve to enhance the sense of depth in the image. One special case of this principle is the over-the-shoulder shot which is a classic coverage device, and can be seen in pretty much all movies: some defocusing of the foreground character (with their back to the audience) creates an unobtrusive foreground plane. Another special case: have foreground elements or props create leading lines into the frame. Leading lines are a compositional device for guiding the eye and increasing subject importance, but they can also assist depth perception when oriented along the depth axis.

  

  Top: The subject is framed by scene elements in the foreground. Bottom: Table edges lead inside the image. Sidewall bookshelves strengthen perspective even more (compare to the shot from Se7en).

• Show the space outside the room in the frame. In its easiest incarnation that means including open interior doors in the frame. This adds the space of the adjacent room to the scene and effectively deepens the shot. It also creates a natural exit point for the eye in the frame. A bit harder (but possibly more rewarding) is including the exterior in an interior image. Either through windows, or through open exterior doors. The difficulty lies in matching light levels: this may require raising interior light levels or gelling windows with ND sheets to prevent blowing the exterior to white. There is also the danger of strongly disbalancing the composition when letting overly busy exteriors in.
  

  Doors and windows can effectively extend image depth.

Light and depth

Light is the main weapon of the cinematographer. It has a multitude of functions: creating illumination for proper exposure, manipulating mood, modeling character and texture, conveying time of day and time of the year, focusing attention, tweaking composition, etc. But here we are interested in its power to differentiate planes. Lighting separate areas of the frame in distinct tones is a major tool for space differentiation. And space differentiation is a prerequisite for perceiving distinct depth planes. It is a basic principle: if two areas look different, they are easily accepted as separate. This is somewhat related to light as a modeling tool: lighting different planes of an object to different tones separates the object’s features and reveals form.

The most popular way to achieve this is alternating light and dark planes in the frame along the depth axis. The juxtaposition of shadow and light is a very effective approach for space structuring because areas are cleanly separated, and this helps the mind to map the spatial relationships within the scene.

Space definition through selective lighting and light and shadow alternation along the depth axis. There are five light and dark layers in the second shot. Black and white images illustrate luminance distribution pretty well due to the lack of chromatic influence.

Seemingly chaotic splashes of light in a dark environment can be as much effective and compositionally interesting. Light and shadow can be loosely interspersed. A particular depth plane can have both light and shadow. It is desirable to alternate them along the depth axis, and not necessarily keep a similar light level across the plane.

Streaks of light break up the uniform darkness and introduce receding depth planes.

Hard light is easier to use for structuring space. John Alton's noir work is exemplary in this regard. Note how scene geometry and action are defined without sacrificing mystery.

This also applies to subject separation. As described previously, delineating subjects is beneficial for depth perception because it helps the brain to judge interposition and occlusion. There are a couple of ways to aid delineation through lighting. First, through contrasting subject tones with background and foreground (where applicable) tones. This is essentially the above method of contrasting light: subject and background are positioned and lit so that bright elements of the figure fall against a darker background, and dark parts fall against a brighter background. This effectively models subject outlines.

Side lit characters will generally exhibit light variation in a plane. The checkered lighting principle is demonstrated here on Robert Redford. The checkered arrangement can be achieved with a single crosslight and careful camera positioning.

Side light can delineate well with flat backgrounds as long as the bright side of the figure is brighter than the background tone, and the dark side is darker than the background tone.

The second method is used with dark subjects on dark backgrounds. It involves backlights or rimlights to rim the subject and separate it from the background. In general, any light aimed at the subject and positioned at an angle greater than 90 degrees with respect to the camera-subject axis will produce some sort of an outlining effect.

Cinematographer Robert Richardson often uses backlight (especially top backlight).

Both pools of light and lines formed by practical lights themselves are prime candidates for exploiting diminishing perspective and the principle of relative size. This is a popular way to create interest and accentuate depth in hallways or any possibly bland but deep space.

Lines of practicals reinforce perspective in this hotel hallway.

Hard light is also a natural source of leading lines. It creates both shafts of light (through a bit of smoke) and striking shadows. Both light shafts and long shadows (especially from a relatively low backlight) can be used to lead the eye deeper into the frame.

A few words on color and depth

Cold walls nicely contrast skin tones and also cool off-the-wall spill a bit.

Color can be used in a similar way for the purpose of depth enhancement. In fact, in the dawn of color film some cinematographers thought that color alone is enough for separation and differentiation, and didn’t hesitate to light the whole scene flat. This is a bit optimistic: after all, the eye is more sensitive to brightness variations than changes of color. Nevertheless, color plays an important role. It is no coincidence that some color grading schemes are popular (looking at you, blockbuster teal). Warm skin tones pop more against a cold background (also see color perspective in the previous article of the series). That’s one reason why blue is often production design favorite color for props and walls.

The Shawshank Redemption was shot uncorrected on a tungsten balanced film stock. In this particular shot some blue has probably been pulled back in color timing. Note the overall blue tint (especially in highlights) and how skin goes a bit desaturated, but still retains some warmth.

One way to infuse a cold tint is shooting with cold light while keeping the white balance at a warmer color temperature. This is sometimes achieved by exposing tungsten balanced film stocks to daylight or near-daylight balanced light without on-lens correction or with partial lens filter correction. This will throw greys towards blue, and when done with good measure skin will be desaturated but not overcooled, especially when paired with some warmer fill. Opposing light colors create color separation, which is a good base for additional DI color work, with or without bringing white balancing back in post. The same approach is, of course, valid for digital cameras through creative white balancing.

You can find the previous parts of the Creating Depth series here: part 1 and part 2.

Creating Depth, Part 3: Light, Color and More on Deep Staging

Linear perspective

One-point linear perspective: Parallel lines converging towards a single vanishing point on the horizon.

Linear perspective (also referred as diminishing perspective) is both a mathematical theory of projecting 3D spaces on a 2D plane and a related technique of depicting space in a drawing. Incidentally, this is exactly what our photo image plane does with the photographed space.

But here we are interested in perspective in the context of perception. That is, the way objects appear to the eye depending on their distance. All perspective cues exploited by the brain follow from the simple fact that objects appear smaller with increased distance from the eye. When the absolute size of an object is familiar, its distance can be judged depending on the size of its projection on the eye’s retina. When the absolute size of an object is unknown, but there are at least two objects of the same kind in view, the relative size of the objects suggests a notion for their relative distance. The property of parallel lines to converge towards the horizon is also a good depth cue.

Lenses and perspective

Any rectilinear lens creates a (linearly) perspective image of the scene (a fisheye lens renders curvilinear perspective). A common misconception has it that wide lenses strengthen perspective and long lenses weaken perspective. This is not true. Perspective is entirely dependent on viewpoint. Relative positions and relative sizes of objects only change if the eye moves. It is not the angle of view of the lens that manipulates perspective, rather the shift of camera viewpoint forward with a wide lens, and backward with a long lens, in order to frame a subject in a similar way. This change of camera viewpoint creates the perspective differences often wrongly associated with the angle of view of the lens.

With the same size of a reference object in the frame, the wide lens exaggerates foreground-background relations and space appears expanded. Conversely, the long lens seemingly compresses and flattens space. Consequently, one good general rule for consistent space representation is to avoid mixing focal lengths when preserving the size of an important object in the frame. So this rule does not apply when changing from a wide shot to a close-up, etc, because objects change their sizes in the frame. The Vertigo effect (also known as a dolly zoom shot) demonstrates what happens when the change of focal length while preserving subject size is realized in a single continuous shot – space seemingly expands (pushing the camera in while zooming the lens out) or contracts (pulling the camera out while zooming the lens in).

In this context, lens choice is an instrument for perspective control. A normal lens presents a certain naturalism in space rendering. This is the focal length of choice when the camera must disappear. What exactly is a “normal lens” is worth an article of its own, what with all the misconceptions surrounding the term, especially in the moving pictures realm. Quick definitions for the purposes of this article: a “normal” image has its center of perspective at the viewer’s eye; wide-angle images have their center of perspective in front of the viewer; telephoto images have their center of perspective behind the viewer. Any non-coincidence of the viewing position and the center of perspective in the image creates a perceived perspective distortion, which can be used for artistic purposes.

Children of Men was mostly shot with an 18 mm lens (on Super 35).

Wide-angle lenses can render a stylized dramatic space and exaggerate movement on the depth axis; the intimate viewpoint adds a feeling of immediacy. Films by Stanley Kubrick, Terry Gilliam, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Barry Sonnenfeld often exploit these characteristics. Telephoto lenses can emphasize the graphic qualities of the image and promote the abstraction of a plane from the space; the viewpoint is detached and formal (or voyeuristic, depending on context). Kurosawa (who was very particular about these things) used mostly long lenses together with multi-camera setups during the second half of his career.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy used long lenses and distant viewpoints extensively on exteriors to build a feeling of spying on the action.

Forced perspective

Forced perspective is a technique that exploits the principles of familiar size and relative size, and plays with the expectations of the brain to create an illusion. Depending on context, objects are made to appear either closer or further away than they are, or smaller or larger than their actual size. In the first case, cheating the size of the object manipulates its perceived position. In the second, cheating the position of the object manipulates its perceived size. Size manipulation was perfected in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tweaking actors’ positions and moving set elements around in sync with the camera allowed keeping the illusion even on moving shots.

Small props and small people in the background fake a longer train and a deeper scene. Hitchcock shot this on a stage.

But the topic of this article is more concerned with faking distances. In its most popular form the technique uses objects smaller than their real life size to increase the perceived distance. This is most often done to effectively increase the perceived depth of the entire set. Filmmakers adopted this practical approach of faking depth very early. It was already an art in the days of the German expressionists. Using mattes to fake distant backgrounds is nothing more than a special (but simple) case of forced perspective. These used to be painted panes strategically placed on the set. Nowadays this is done mostly in post with greenscreens and CGI.

Aerial perspective and color perspective

Aerial perspective is usually demonstrated through mountain vistas or cityscapes. I am staying true to tradition.

Aerial perspective describes the effect of atmosphere on scene appearance. It is often called atmospheric perspective or tonal perspective, the latter term widely used in the context of visual arts. The scattering of skylight from various air particles creates a veil of sorts over the scene. Effectively, some amount of scattered skylight is added to the reflected scene light. The longer the distance from the viewer to the object, the stronger the effect. As a result, distant depth planes have lower contrast, lower saturation and higher brightness than closer planes, and their tones appear to converge towards the luminance (and color) of the distant sky. Aerial perspective is another reason for the presence of texture gradient in large-scale scenes. The eye needs contrast to differentiate detail, so there is a gradual loss of fine detail perception with increasing distance. And since reflected scene light is also scattered by the atmosphere, object definition itself is affected in the first place: atmosphere acts as diffusion.

The accumulation of scattered skylight also creates a color shift. Since short wavelength light scatters more, there is more green and especially blue in the scattered daylight. That’s why distant objects seem to acquire a blue cast. Consequently, the conditioned brain readily agrees that warm tones in an image tend to advance, and cold tones tend to recede. This is sometimes called color perspective.

Smoke helps define depth planes through contrast differentiation. Top: Selective lighting and a bit of smoke help lift the midground from the foreground and the background. Bottom: Smoke is also a way to pop silhouettes and visualize light shafts.

Atmospheric conditions are certainly hard to control, but the tonal perspective effect can be mimicked on a smaller scale, and that includes interiors. This is achieved through the use of artificial smoke and fog. Their higher particle density leads to much more pronounced atmospheric effects and faster color modulation with increasing distance. So infusing atmosphere into the set also creates atmospheric perspective. Even a little bit of smoke adds some fill to the shadows in the far end of the set, establishing an axial gradient of contrast. This lowers the contrast of the background and softens it, helping the subject to stand out. Rain can work in a similar fashion as a device for enhancing depth. The water droplets are much bigger particles, but they also obscure objects, scatter light and veil the distance.

You can read the the first part of the Creating Depth series here. And the next part is on light and depth.

Creating Depth, Part 2: Perspective

Why depth is important for a 2D image?

Exteriors naturally lend themselves to deep images. There are at least 4 significant distance planes here.

Depth is not a universal quality to look for in an image, but most non-abstract images benefit from an enhanced depth illusion. After all, an image renders a reality (existent or imagined), and reality is 3D. A cinematic 2D representation should appear sufficiently three-dimensional. Depth defines space. Injecting depth into an image furthers the spatial awareness of the viewer and helps orient them into the depicted world. Ideally, the objects in the frame should appear recessing behind the screen.

This is depth’s main function in a cinematic image, but not the only one. There are often purely pictorial benefits. Multiple depth planes create visual interest and stimulate the eye to wander and explore the frame. This may or may not be desirable, depending on content and intent. For example, an extreme close-up will usually gain nothing from distractions and complexity. And sometimes an image needs to be unclear, claustrophobic or to imply a confined space. Depth, on the other hand, both opens space and gives scope.

Obscurity can be a virtue. Here the face blends with the environment for a stronger impression.

Without the ability to triangulate distances through stereo (binocular) vision, spatial perception is drawing on experience about spatial relations between objects. The brain needs other cues to perceive depth. These are usually about space differentiation and, in one way or another, lead to the brain separating objects, figuring a space between them, and identifying multiple depth planes in the frame. So, helping the separation of scene elements and enhancing the sense of distance between planes in the scene promotes the illusion of depth. The cinematographer manages depth through viewpoint choice and movement, composition and blocking, and lighting. But there are other tricks that can help, and we will also talk about some of them.

In painting they often differentiate foreground, middle-ground and background. There can be more discernable distance planes though. But, in general, we can assume that at least two discernable distance planes are necessary for reasonable space definition in a frame.

The foreground frames the planes in the back. A popular compositional device to add depth.

Depth of field

One misguided “truth” you can often find on the internet is that full frame cameras render images with more depth due to their ability to create shallower apparent depth of field (compared to Super35/APS-C). This is wrong on many levels, starting with pure semantics: shallow focus and depth don’t really belong to the same sentence. Shallow focus is not the same as separation. The advantage of larger sensors is better pop and delineation (see the last section below).

Slight defocus guides the eye and adds depth without obscuring scene elements. (click to enlarge)

Showing the relations between objects in the scene requires sufficient depth of field to render these objects recognizable. But slight defocusing, with objects getting smoothly and slowly out of focus with increasing distance from the focus point, can enhance the illusion of depth. Two reasons for this. First, slight defocus mimics the workings of the eye (especially in dim environments), creating a natural image. Second, it simulates one of the cues of depth perception: texture gradient. The eye sees nearby objects in fine detail, and objects in the distance appear less detailed. While this is usually related to linear perspective, a similar effect happens with objects slowly falling out of focus. Artists sometimes emulate the slight defocus of the eye by painting only the main subject in fine detail.

Bokeh brightness variation creates a nice frame, but calling the background a "depth plane" would be taking "plane" a bit literal.

Very shallow focus is a viable cinematic device for some purposes, but it will never render a space with sufficient depth. Anything in front and behind the focus point becomes an impressionistic blur, isolating the focused object. Deep focus is often considered yielding flatness due to every element in the scene being equally sharp. But equal sharpness is far less objectionable (if at all) than very shallow focus when depth is concerned. It can even lend pictorial qualities to an image. And while there is no way to inject depth in a very shallow focus picture, there are approaches to separate depth planes in a deep focus image.

Deep staging

Deep staging (or deep space) refers to a specific approach to blocking action and camera. Important elements of the scene are placed on different depth planes. This creates natural distance points for the eye to wander to. Deep staging is often used with long takes, sometimes including dolly, steadicam or handheld camera moves. It is emphasized by actors entering the frame, thus creating an additional plane of interest; actors leaving the frame, shifting interest to another plane; or actors moving from one plane to another, creating depth vectors in the frame. A variant of the last is the so-called “walking into a close-up” shot, used by Hitchcock, John Ford, Kalatozov and others. This technique has the actor(s) moving from a deeper plane to the foreground, ending in a medium (or a tighter) close-up.

Deep focus and deep staging complement each other beautifully. But modern trends usually combine deep staging with selective focus and focus racking between planes to guide the attention of the viewer according filmmaker’s intent. There is also a tendency to rely on coverage and to defer sequence construction to editing. Coverage also relies more on close-ups, over-the-shoulder shots and other standard frames. All this doesn’t play well with imaginative deep staging and deep focus. Neither does the shift towards less lighting. Deep focus and long takes require both pre-shooting commitment and relatively small apertures (and more light). This makes staging deep interiors a challenge.

Films by the duo Kalatozov/Urusevsky often feature deeply staged shots with pronounced foregrounds and expressionistic camera angles.

Deep staging and deep focus were used extensively by some of the greats: Orson Welles, Roman Polanski, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, among others. Citizen Kane is the textbook example. Orson Welles and cinematographer Gregg Toland used torrents of light, a wide lens (24 mm), small apertures (f8 to f16) and split focus to render the startlingly deep interiors. 24 mm may sound tame by today’s standards: the film being shot in the Academy format, 24 mm is a humble 39 mm full frame equivalent (in horizontal FOV). But in that time it was considered unforgiving to actors and used sparingly. And certainly not with actors in the foreground. 50 mm was used universally for interiors, and f4 or larger apertures were the norm. Welles and Toland coupled their choice of optics with genuinely deep staging for maximum effect, which infused drama in their images.

Left: a classic three person / three planes arrangement with a strong foreground. Middle: Another beautifully crafted three planes shot, with the figure in the deep background giving scope to the set. Right: An example of split focus.

Sharpness and 3D pop

Before moving on to more interesting stuff, lets touch on a minor point. The quality of the lens and the resolution of the medium have impact on textures and texture gradient. An image lacking clarity at its focus point will appear flatter than a crisper image. And when coupled with slight focus fall-off, the crisp image will demonstrate a more readily noticeable texture gradient.

Bottom image is a softened version of the original (top), approximating a softer lens. Note the weaker delineation of the subject and the softer textures, resulting in a subtly flatter image. (click to enlarge)

A more obscure quality related to resolution and optics is the so-called 3D pop. The subject in focus in some pictures appears to pop out of the surroundings, and out of the image. Photographers sometimes call this Zeiss pop or Leica pop, depending on their affinities, because it tends to show in images shot with some Zeiss and Leica lenses. Pop is often mystified and its origins seemingly difficult to pinpoint. The most important element is delineation of the subject in focus. This needs great microcontrast (MTF result) in the spatial frequencies that contribute to the required resolution, preferably across the whole image field. Good MTF results at higher spatial frequencies may look nice in a MTF chart but are at best irrelevant, and at worst – creating aliasing. For example, a FullHD full frame image will only benefit from spatial frequencies up to around 15 lp/mm. For the same pixel resolution, larger sensors have an advantage: they need this great MTF at lower frequencies, compared to smaller sensors (which is easier to achieve). Minimized lens aberrations help for clean edges. And the edges obviously need to be in sharp focus. Again, a bit of focus fall-off towards the background helps, but heavily blurred backgrounds will make the subject look like a cut-out. Some decent subject-background contrast (through light and/or color) also contributes.

Pop’s connection to depth lies in interposition. Interposition is one of the basic depth cues. When an object occludes another object, the first object is apparently in front of the other, and closer to the observer. Popping (clearly delineating) the front object is one way to separate it from what lies behind. If the objects blend into each other, they may be perceived as a single entity.

Sharpness and pop are influenced (in a bad way) by lossy image compression. They will often get lost in heavily compressed video. Motion blur also obliterates them, which renders them pretty much irrelevant in scenes with motion and more applicable to still images.

Part 2 of the Creating Depth series is on depth and perspective.

Creating Depth, Part 1: Introduction, DOF, Deep Staging, Resolution

Michael Freeman is a popular author amongst photographers. He has written a myriad of books on photography related topics: lighting, exposure, composition, etc. As the title implies, The Photographer’s Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos is concerned with the subject of composition. This is a vast subject. Composition encompasses everything involved in the graphic (or visual) representation of the scene in the image. And everything means everything.

The usefulness for video of being familiar with (or, even better, being adept in) pictorial and still photo composition was discussed in some detail in the review of Pictorial Composition (Composition in Art) by Henry Rankin Poore. Michael Freeman’s book is a good complement to Pictorial Composition. The latter is a classic text; somewhat formal and theoretic; focused on the image itself and exploring the result. The Photographer’s Eye is more based into practice. It covers a lot of topics and also discusses the process of shooting with a mindset grounded in composition.

One of the strengths of this book is that it makes the reader aware of many compositional elements, some of which are not readily apparent. Even if it doesn’t usually go in depth, implanting the notion of these into the mind of the reader will inevitably lead to some useful thoughts. This is also good inspiration material. The Photographer’s Eye is one of these books that make you feel ideas sweep in your head. Both through concepts and specific examples.

The book covers pretty much anything connected to composition. It starts with the frame as a compositional device and touches upon formal balance and tension (there is more on this topic in Pictorial Composition). Then it goes into details on various compositional elements: content, lines and shapes, motion, rhythm, light, color, depth. Also discussed are the pure photographic elements in their connection to composition: optics and perspective, focus, exposure. The last third of the book delves into intent and process. More specifically: exploring locations, hunting the perfect image, reaction, anticipation, organizing subject matter, repertoire. All of these are useful skills for video; mostly for run & gun and documentaries, but also for improvisation. The topic of intent, style and process is expanded and further developed in a follow-up book called The Photographer’s Mind.

The Photographer’s Eye is richly illustrated. Many of the photos are editorial/documentary material and thus fall into the “telling a story with pictures” department. This makes them highly relevant to video shooting. If you can tell a story with a sequence of pictures, or – better yet – with a single picture, then you can surely do it with moving pictures. Another interesting side is presented by the more graphically oriented product photography illustrations. Cinematography books don’t usually explore the purely graphic side of composition as they are focused mainly on the practical aspects of framing. But graphic knowledge expands one’s visual arsenal and deepens the understanding of shapes and lines. This helps to see beauty in unexpected ways.

Book Review: The Photographer’s Eye by Michael Freeman

I wrote here that cinema is usually associated with widescreen aspect ratios. And this is indeed the case for many. In fact, the general expectation and audience conditioning that cinema is widescreen is one reason people automatically shoot videos wide when they want to get the film look. Of course, when theatrical projection is intended, it does put some limits on the aspect ratio due to standard projection equipment and projection gates availability at theaters. Or rather, projection gates unavailability for more exotic aspect ratios. But there are workarounds for this in the digital age. One can simply pad the frame of choice with black bars to fit it in the closest standard ratio. This is much easier to do now when no optical resizing is involved.

Cinema aspect ratios

So how do you approach film aspect ratio choice from an artistic point of view? It is all connected to composition. The aspect ratio should set the frame which is most appropriate in the context of the film concept; a frame offering compositional opportunities that best serve the story or the idea behind the story. It is really as simple as that, and as difficult as that. Different aspect ratios have different characteristics best suited for different scenarios.

The "haircut" maximizes the onscreen area of the face

Many people associate the grandeur of theatrical viewing with 2.39:1 images (2.35:1), historically called CinemaScope after the anamorphic film process of the same name, and lovingly known simply as Scope. This is also the ratio that most movie theaters are built for nowadays. This aspect ratio is obviously good for putting vistas on display. That’s why it is the typical ratio of choice for epics. Fritz Lang joked about CinemaScope in a Jean-Luc Godard film: “It wasn’t meant for human beings; just for snakes and funerals.” – a possible allusion to a saying by George Stevens that CinemaScope is “a system of photography that pictures a boa constrictor to better advantage than a man”. It really works well with large scenes and groups of people. But giving actors presence can be difficult in such a wide frame. It is apparent when looking at early CinemaScope pictures that cinematographers were struggling with close-ups. Applying the traditional clean framing often looks awkward. So, to maximize the area they occupy on screen, actors in CinemaScope pictures routinely get “haircuts” – with the tops of their heads cut by the frame – sometimes even in medium shots. On the other hand, getting lost in the frame can be used to an advantage for the purpose of isolation. And then there is the option to play with figures separation and opposition. John Boorman actually likes Scope for character drama because the wide ratio allows him to put distance between the characters, to visualize relations by slotting them in the opposite ends of the frame.

The wide frame also increases subject placement possibilities and presents the opportunity to add tension through highly imbalanced compositions. And there is an added sense of freedom and space to widescreen aspect ratio frames. This last bit is partially connected to the fact that the wide frame naturally lends itself to wider lenses, which add air and space to the view. Sergio Leone had the dynamics of the Scope frame under full control. He shot almost exclusively in 2.35:1. He practically invented the super tight shot in wide frames and his movies are masterclass on spreading action and subjects on the entire frame and balancing it. The wide frame, with its long base, can also play well with formal symmetry. Wes Anderson movies stand as perfect examples.

Actors easily dominate the 4:3 frame

At the other end of the spectrum are the more squarish aspect ratios 1.33:1 and 1.37:1 (1.375:1), sometimes called open matte because they utilize pretty much the whole negative frame. These classic ratios are rarely used for movie productions today, being associated with TV. They are also the simplest to use from storytelling point of view. Michel Hazanavicius, who recently used the Academy ratio on The Artist, notes that the 4:3 frame forces you to have a single important piece of information in the frame. Which is in contrast with the need to manage the super wide frame when shooting Scope. The taller frame can appear cramped or even claustrophobic, but is also more intimate. It gives presence to actors, mostly in close-ups, but also in medium shots. The actor is always more or less centered in the frame and fills the screen. After all, these are the native ratios of the glamour Hollywood close-up and the glorious romantic two-shot.

4:3 is close to the stills photography ratio of 1.5:1 and also a very popular canvas ratio for paintings. So it is much easier to transfer compositional skills and experience from stills shooting and painting. Stanley Kubrick, who had extensive experience as a photographer, preferred this format. He was very specific about the aspect ratio choice of his films and even wrote letters to theater projectionists with instructions about it. He only ever shot two truly wide movies – Spartacus and 2001: A Space Odyssey – the first in Super Technirama, the second in Cinerama; both intended in 2.20:1. Most of his films were shot with the full frame in mind even though his three last movies were actually projected at 1.66:1 and 1.85:1.

In the middle we have the flat widescreen aspect ratios 1.85:1 and 1.66:1 (long time European flat wide standard), and 1.78:1 (coming from HDTV). These are the go-to formats for character drama. They share lots of the advantages of Scope allowing for some compositional variation. But they are easier to shoot in and more balanced which makes them a good starting point when considering an aspect ratio for a project.

If a ratio doesn’t present itself immediately, it is probably a good idea to see what kind of scenes dominate the story and choose accordingly. It may be difficult to select an aspect ratio for a diverse project where some scenes will work better in one ratio and other scenes in another. This is perhaps best resolved following one’s intuition. A more analytical approach would be going for the wider ratio and then using various tricks to help accommodate character centric scenes. These may include “naturally” occurring frames within frames, various vignettes or even shooting entire sequences in a different ratio.

There are also some lens considerations connected to video aspect ratio choice. Let’s say during a flat shoot we need to frame a close-up with consideration for 1.85:1 and 2.39:1. In widescreen aspect ratios close-ups are almost always restricted by the top and bottom framelines. So in order to achieve the same frame restriction we need to either move the camera back for Scope – and thus alter perspective – or use a wider lens. Loosely speaking, shooting flat for wider frame targets invites the use of wider lenses. Some cinematographers love Scope because they are fond of the various anamorphic artefacts arising in the anamorphic CinemaScope process. More recently, videographers have started to create the look in digital video through anamorphic adaptors on digital cameras, including DSLR cameras. The expanded result is very wide when sourced from HD cameras, usually up to 3.56:1 for 2x anamorphic lenses. Consequently, anamorphic video is virtually always presented in very wide ratios (2.39:1 and wider even after cropped at the sides). In this particular case anamorphic lens aesthetics govern over aspect ratio choice.

Aspect Ratio Choice for a Film or Video: Artistic Considerations

A painting or a photo captures a moment. The moment may convey a story, or it may just freeze a beautiful scene. But no matter how good the picture is from a technical point of view, it is the composition that binds the components together. So the study of composition is concerned with the arrangement of the picture elements within the frame.

But how important is composition in video, and what does a book about painting composition has to do with video? A video shot is really just a superset of still pictures. Video adds another dimension to still frames: time; but in essence video is just a sequence of frames. So it is important to be familiar with pictorial composition. Camera and/or subject movement or inherent subject interest can sometime mask crappy composition. But this masking is really just that: it won’t really hide bad composition, just delay its discovery. And in order to successfully tackle moving images a firm grasp over still composition is a requirement. Interestingly, paintings are often much more complex in terms of composition compared to cinema shots. This is because, generally, the eye has more time to explore a painting and appreciate the details.

Great composition can also be a hindrance. A gritty movie can be hindered by beautifully composed frames. Good formal composition also implies deliberation so it may counter the feeling of immediacy. Selecting an appropriate approach to composition is often an important artistic decision: adding pictorial interest to a shot or refraining from doing so can lead to dramatically different results. In any case, as is often the matter with art, it is good to know the rules before breaking them.

It is always best to learn from the masters and Pictorial Composition (Composition in Art) does exactly this. The classic book teaches the basics of composition through the works of the masters. This is a short book; being around a hundred pages it doesn’t linger over the material. The book does not underestimate the reader, so one may occasionally need to reread passages. The text is concise and there are lots of reproductions and sketches to illustrate the points discussed.

The first and most important subject covered is balance: picture elements weight, formal balance, balancing on various axes, balancing by opposition of lines and shapes, etc. Other topics include: transitions inside an image; circular and angular composition; lines; composing with one, two or three figures and with groups of figures; the compositional characteristics of light and dark tones.

The patient reader will emerge out of this book with a decent understanding of composition fundamentals. This will imbue a greater appreciation of the various visual forms of art and will also enable an analytical approach to image judgement. Being critical is a good thing; honing one’s analytical skills never did hurt anyone. Neither does the ability to articulate what you intuitively feel about an image. Ultimately, this can lead to better shots and better understanding why something works out or not.

What Pictorial Composition (Composition in Art) is not? It is not concerned with motion, so it is not about composing fancy moving shots (although it is up to you to apply what you’ve learnt in any way imaginable). It is not a guide or a “how to” book: it is less concerned with process and more with the perception and analysis of the result.

Book Review: Pictorial Composition (Composition in Art) by Henry Rankin Poore