Category Archives: Friday Fundas

Friday Fundas

Money Shot

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Money Shot

In this week’s Friday Fundas I chose to discuss an interesting part in a movie or something the producers look for in a script. This is called Money shot or a Payoff shot.

Originally the money shot was a term referred to the shots for which maximum money was spent. This term was mainly used in the pornographic movies. However later this term was used for mainstream genre of movies and also changed its meaning to relate to the shot in a movie which had the most commercial value of the movie. This is the shot after seeing which the audience says “Paisa vasool” (worth the money spent). This has also become a standard practice when reviewing a script the producers look for the money shot which usually is the most dramatic part of the movie. This need not be restricted to the shots with the greatest special effects. Also this shot need not occur in the climax of the movie.

Jake jumps on to Toruk and connects his mind to it to become Toruk Makto
Jake jumps on to Toruk and connects his mind to it to become Toruk Makto

Let us look at some of the examples, in the English movie Avatar the sequence in which Jake connects his mind to the Toruk is the most high point of the entire narration and this would be the money shot of the movie in my opinion.

The bomb scene in the movie swordfish
The bomb scene in the movie swordfish

In the English movie swordfish the bomb blast scene is a very well shot scene and it is the money shot of the movie.

Skydiving scene in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara
Skydiving scene in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

This also applies to Indian movies as well. In the Hindi movie Zindagi Naa Milegi Dobara the sky diving scene of the 3 friends is the money shot of the movie.

Baasha Medical College scene
Baasha Medical College scene

In the Tamil movie Baasha the medical college sequence is the money shot of the movie. This shot occurs in the first half of the movie. This does not have any great visual effects but the high point in utilizing the potential of the star value of Rajinikanth makes this one the money shot of the movie.

Identifying your money shot in the movie is very much important. Every successful movie has a money shot, but every movie with a money shot need not be successful as the success depends on the entire movie and the money shot being the highest point of the movie which elates the audience.

Friday Fundas

Method Acting

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Method Acting

When watching a movie how well you connect with the characters. While we have discussed many factors in screen writing and characterization in the previous Friday Fundas we would look at acting performance by the actor itself. Even though the characterization and environment are perfect if an actor does not act convincingly audience would find it to be clichéd and not connect with it. There are many theories on acting. In this week’s Friday Fundas we would see once such theory which is popular in acting technique known as Method Acting.

Method acting in short relates to a group of techniques using which the actors get into the shoes of the characters they play by establishing an emotional connect with them. These techniques are based on the teachings and concepts of Constanin Stanilavski. His ideas had been adapted by many prominent teachers like Lee Strasberg, Robert Lewis, Sandord Meisner and Stella Adler.

Lee Starsberg’s method acting involved in the use of sensory and affective memory of the actor to bring out the character. He used techniques which involved the actors in imagining a similar emotional situation in their personal life and then enacting it on the screen. Starsberg used the question “What would motivate me, the actor, to behave in a way the character does?”

Sanford Meisner used a different technique in which he devised a technique called as Meisner technique. In this he advocates the actors to immerse themselves in the moment. He found just relying on their personal experiences is very limiting and only allows them to only focus on themselves but not on other characters on the set. His technique helped in overcoming this aspect. He used to run exercises that would enhance the interpersonal connect of the answers in a scene.

Robert Lewis believed the acting cannot be just bought out by focusing on the emotional act but it also involved in training the voice that would suit to the situation. If these are trained separately the output may not be effective.

Stella Adler was an actress herself and she had some of the actors who went onto become some of the greatest actors including Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro and Warren Beaty. She trained directly under Stanilavski which helped her in perfecting the technique a lot better. In her Method acting technique she used the personal memories of the actors as did Starsberg. But along with this she let them practice on creating an “as if” imagination. The actors had to imagine as if they were really in the given situation. This helped them in bringing out the emotions very effectively.

Some of the famous actors who practiced this technique are Christian Bale, Jack Nicholson, Marilyn Monroe, Danny Day Lewis, Al Pacino, Heath Ledger and many more. Not only Hollywood actors but also many of the Indian acting stalwarts like Kamal Haasan, Mammootty, Dilip Kumar and Naseeruddin Shah practice this technique. Now you would be able to appreciate the efforts Heath Ledger has put in for the Joker character much more.

An actor needs to do a lot of homework to get the act right if not the audience would not connect with the character and with the movie.

Friday Fundas

All about Lingaa Dam – The real story behind

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All about Lingaa Dam – The real story behind

Note: This article is inspired from various search terms that has lead users to my Lingaa Movie Review. If you are looking review on Lingaa movie click here.  The facts presented here on Mullai Periyar Dam are based on Wikipedia article. The facts on correlation to Lingaa are purely based on my views and may not be accurate.

In the past week I had been noticing the search terms that had been leading users to my blog. The search terms indicate that many of movie enthusiasts are looking to learn the actual story that had inspired Lingaa. Many of them believe that there was a person by name Lingeswaran who had constructed the dam for people during British rule and they are in search of information to learn more about it.

This article is an attempt to provide some facts on which Lingaa story is based on.  First of all the story of Lingeswaran is loosely based on a real person who had constructed a Dam amidst of all odds. The dam which he built in real was Mullai Periyar Dam in Idukki district of Kerala. And the person who built was a British engineer John Pennycuick. Yes you are reading it right; the dam was built by a British engineer. To celebrate his contributions Madurai PWD has a statue for John Pennycuick in their premises.

Why was his contribution so great? Let us look into the real story

 

John Pennycuick statue in Madurai PWD premises
John Pennycuick statue in Madurai PWD premises

The Real Story: 

Periyar river was originally flowing westward originating from the Western Ghats and flowing towards Arabian Sea. A large volume of water was getting wasted as it did not flow through many lands. Right from the late 18th century there had been discussion to turn this water eastward towards Madurai to augment the small Vaigai river that would provide enough water to do irrigation. But the efforts were given up as the project was deemed to be infeasible both technically and financially. It was only during 1887 the construction of the Mullai Periyar dam began under the leadership of John Pennyquick. But frequent floods had created many obstacles from the dam being constructed and the British government stopped funding the project stating the in feasibility.

John Pennycuick was not ready to give up. He went to Britain sold his wife’s jewelry and family property to raise the money needed for the construction of the dam. The Dam was finally completed in the year 1895 and still keeps the region surrounding it green for many generations. Pennycuick said “I am going to be only once in this earthly world, hence I need to do some good deeds here. This deed should not be prorogue nor ignored since I am not going to be here again”.

Similarities and Disimilarities with Lingaa

As you can see Lingaa’s story resembles Pennycuick’s in many ways. In fact the dialogue of Lingeswaran about living in this earth for once so resembles the quote of Pennycuick. Raja Lingeswaran sells all his property to complete the construction of the Dam as did Pennycuick. Both of them had to do this as the British government had stopped funding the project. The difference was Pennycuick was actually a Britisher and there were no drama of a villain in real life. The villain was nature itself then. In the movie Rajini had to fight against some gruesome villains to complete the Dam construction.

 

Where was Lingaa shot

Solaiyur is a fictional village in the movie and there is no such dam that exists. Lingaa was shot in and around Sagara Taluk in Karnataka. This is the region where Jog falls is located. The dam seen in the movie is the Linganamakki dam which is built across Sharavati River.

If you read Indian history you would realize the importance of a Dam in the development of India. Particularly in a country where there are non-perennial rivers and perennial rivers that cause a huge amount of flood there by causing more damage. Dams are great savior for our development and progress not only in the area of agriculture but also power, infrastructure development and many more. At the time of Visveswaraya who had constructed the KRS Dam the civil engineering discipline in India was at its peak and inspired many to take it up.

Hats off to the Lingaa team for narrating such a story through cinema.

Friday Fundas

An affair to remember… Ninaithale Innikum!

An affair to remember… Ninaithale Innikum!

Every movie lover would have an artist behind to spark the love for movies. For me it is KB Sir.

Director K Balachander gave meaning to the title Iyakkunar Sigaram (Summit of Directors). He had learnt so many rules of making a good screenplay that he can break them with ease to stand apart from the crowd and be a trail blazer for the Tamil film Industry. Many say his loss is irreplaceable but I feel he is immortal and would live through his movies.

When the entire film industry was making stories on the Kings, the riches or about the people below poverty line KB Sir came in and created an exclusive identity for middle class in his movies. This might be one of the reasons for a wider appeal to his movies. The conflicts established by him in each of the stories were unique. He started with writing and directing stage plays. With a great reluctance he took the opportunity for writing screenplay for movies and later fell in love with it that he started to make his famous stage plays as movies. You would see this in his early movies like Neerkumizhi (water bubble) in 1965, Ethir Neechal 1968(Swim against the tide), Major Chandrakanth and so on. If you see most of these movies would be a single set movie with very few scenes shot elsewhere. As people started seeing these movies they felt it was way different than the movies they had been watching and they were slowly beginning to realize the role of a director in movies. Till then what seemed to be a MGR movie, Sivaji movie now there were new type of movies addressed as Director Balachander movies. He became the role model for many directors to come later.

One of the iconic movies directed by him is Aboorva Raagangal in 1975. The movie features Kamal Hassan and introduced a new actor Shivaji Rao rechristened as Rajinikanth. Both of them later went on to take the Indian film industry by storm. Aboorva Raagangal dealt with intergenerational romance between two families which was quite a controversial topic during that era. But it went on to win 3 National Awards. Post this KB sir had directed many movies with Kamal Hassan and Rajinikanth in the lead which included Avargal, Moondru Mudichu and Ninaithale Innikum.

Music used to play a significant role in his movies. Aboorva Raagangal was divided into chapters, which were named after a swara or raagam. Ninaithale Innikum was a full-fledged musical which also dealt with a genre of mystery and romance. You would see the prominence of music in his later movies like Sindhu Bhairavi, Unnal Mudiyum Thambi, Azhagan, Pudhu Pudhu Arthangal and many more. Music in most of his movies were composed by M.S Viswanathan. In Sindhu Bhairavi he joined with Ilayaraja. He had introduced A R Rahman in his production venture Roja directed by Maniratnam. A R Rahman also composed music for the movie Duet directed by KB sir.

KB sir emphasized on the empowerment of woman in most of his movies. His lead women characters right from Avargal, Arangetram, Sindhu Bhairavi, Achamillai Achamillai, Kalki were bold, forward looking and very powerful.

He used metaphors predominantly in his movies. These were fondly referred to a directorial touch in Tamil Cinema. There also used to be a character which is insignificant in the gamut of the plot but plays crucial role in emphasizing a point, mood or the gravity of a situation in his movies. Rajinikanth’s character in Aboorva Raagangal, Irumal Thaatha in Ethir Neechal, the dumb and deaf painter in Varumayin Niram Sigappu, Telephone in Azhagan, Chaplin uncle in Punnagai Mannan and many more are examples of this. He had also given some great comedy movies like Bhama Vijayam and Thillu Mullu in which he had experimented Rajinikanth playing a full-fledged comedy role. This had introduced a different dimension of Rajinikanth which is still exploited well by many directors.

KB sir had dealt with many genres of movies, his initial movies were centered around family drama, later he shifted to social drama which covered impact of society on people’s lives, he also has given some of the gems in romance genre which included Marocharitra in Telugu, Ek Dujhe Ke Liye in Hindi, Punnagai Mannan.
KB sir is a true king maker. He had not only made the two star waltzes Rajinikanth and Kamal Hassan but also had rediscovered Nagesh as a character artist, introduced Prakash Raj and many more. He is so spontaneous and appreciates good art in any form. Once he sees a good movie he took time to write an appreciation note to the director who had made the movie.

Truly KB Sir is a film maker that everyone would wannabe. His affair with cinema will always be sweet memories … taking with lyrics from one of his movies … it is An affair to remember … Ninaithale Innikum!

Friday Fundas

Rule of Thirds

Rule of Thirds

The movie screen space is a confined one compared to our real life vision. It gives the ability to take a limited view of the scenery and present it to the audience. What the audience view is what has been captured through the camera. The camera position, viewing angle and the position of the characters on screen all of these play a vital role in making the visual effective.  Many a times you see a homemade video and wonder that there is something that is not right. If you watch it close then it might be how and where the camera was placed. In order to make effective visuals there is basic grammar called the Rule of Thirds. Again as it goes with many other rules many of them have broken this rule as well, but not before understanding its purpose.

This week’s Friday fundas I would be talking about rule of thirds which deals with framing a visual. Often when you see people taking vacation photography they keep the object of focus in the center of the screen. Even the Horizon lies in the dead center of the screen. Next time you click a photograph try and adjust your camera to keep the object on the one third of your frame and see what effect it brings. This is what rule of thirds is all about. This applies to movies as well.

To understand the rule of third you would need to divide your frame into 3 equal halves both horizontally and vertically. The object of focus is placed along the one-third line. For example if you have a character speaking you place the character on the vertical one third line and the eyes or forehead of the character along the horizontal one third line on top. This eliminates the empty space over the head and to the side of the character and enhances the visual along with the surrounding.

Rule of Third - Positioning the character on one third of the frame
Rule of Third – Positioning the character on one third of the frame

The shot shown above is from the movie The Prestige. See how the character Christian Bale is placed on the one third of the line with a sharp focus.

Sometimes you would need to break this rule or rather I would say adjust this rule to have the character in the center of the screen to focus attention. Still keeping the top of the character to the one third of the screen is important to eliminate the empty space. Although this looks simple it is very important to remember to use this rule when capturing a shot.  As an experiment you can take the photographs you have shot and see how you have positioned the object of focus. Next time you take a photo try applying rule of thirds.

Related: Friday Funda Archives | Eyeline Match | 180 degree Rule

Friday Fundas

Character Arc

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Character Arc

A gruesome villain who has been torturing people all throughout changes his mind and seeks apology just before the curtain falls. Well this might be a scene that you might have seen in many movies. Few of them would have been convincing and few other leave you wondering what changed his mind. Well the various phases a character traverses through in a movie is called a Character Arc. In this week’s Friday Fundas we will understand Character Arc.

In the movie “As good as it gets” the character played by Jack Nicholson is that of a man with obsessive compulsion disorder. As the movie traverses his character undergoes modification and reaches a point where he would have to overcome his fear to get the love of his life. In the early scenes of the movie you see him walking on the platform without placing foot on the joining lines of the tile and in the climax scene you see him walking normally with his girlfriend. The Character Arc of the character traverses from a man deeply troubled with OCD symptoms to a changed man who overcomes his inhibitions. There are various points in the narrative which consists of incidents or turning points that impacts the nature of the character. How well these incidents are placed and convincing would also convince the audience about the transformation to the character and also makes them glued to the character.

Usually in a three act structure the character is established in the first act. The second act is divided into two parts. In the first part the villain or the situation that the hero is averse of chases to such an extent that the hero reaches a breaking point and starts changing. Now in the second part the hero chases the villain or the adverse situation. The plot deepens, gets complicated and reaches a point which seems to be a point of no return. At this juncture at the beginning of the last act the hero makes decision which transforms the character into a new self.

Character Arc showing transformation of Rajinikanth's character in Shivaji
Character Arc showing transformation of Rajinikanth’s character in Shivaji

Let us look at this with the help of an example. In the Tamil movie Shivaji the lead character played by Rajinikanth is a computer architect who returns to India for good. He wants to bring in positive change to the society by offering low cost education. However he is pushed down to the streets by the villain. In the mid-point which is the breaking point he tosses a coin to decide if he would have to fight against the situation or not. This is the first transformation of the character. In the second half he fights against the villain and reaches a point where his life is threatened. In the last act he comes in a new avatar and takes over the villain to establish truce.

A Character Arc can be either positive or negative. In the case of Shivaji the arc was positive as it resulted in the character emerging victorious at the end. In the case of Tamil movie Nanda the character dies at the end there by going through a negative arc.

Whichever way the character arc goes the transformation of the character should be in line with the events for it to be convincing. If not audience would be disconnected from the character.

Now if you can think of some of the characters you remember well in the movies you have watched you would notice that their character arc has been very well done.

Related: Friday Fundas Archive

Friday Fundas

Eyeline Match

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Eyeline Match

In last week’s Friday fundas I had discussed about the 180 degree rule that is associated with the spatial relationship of the characters on screen. I had discussed about a scene in which two characters are talking to each other. Now consider the same scene is shot by alternating between the close up shots of each character as they talk. In reality this shot could be taken with covering all the dialogues of one person first and then covering the responses. During editing these are arranged in proper sequence. One of the items to take care when doing such a scene is Eyeline Match. In this week’s Friday fundas I would talk about Eyeline Match.

Eyeline Match is a movie editing technique. Whenever a character on screen is looking into the off screen space then audience would want to follow the gaze of the character. They would want to see the object, person or scene the character is looking at. Hence this is normally followed by a cut to the scene involving the object, scene or person the character is looking at. In our conversation scene character A is talking to character B. Now the shot involving character A talking is taken first. It is important to match the eyeline of character A such that it gives a feeling that the character is looking at B. Usually the actor playing character B is placed off camera for the character A to look at. Sometimes there is a mark placed off camera on which the character A focuses on while delivering the dialogue. The same technique is employed when taking the shot of character B responding to the conversation. In this case the camera is placed on the opposite direction. Now we know there is a 180 degree rule governing this. As we are going to focus on a different character there is no rule broken here. However in order to get the eyeline match right the same camera lens is maintained and also the camera is placed equidistant from the 180 degree axis as the previous shot. For instance if the camera has been placed 3 feet from character A then the same distance is maintained for character B during the next shot. Look at the following two shots from The Dark Knight movie where Batman interrogates Joker. The eyeline match makes it look they are looking at each other and talking.

Dark Knight - Batman interrogates Joker
Dark Knight – Batman interrogates Joker

At the editing table when the editor assembles these shots in order it appears to be a continuous flow of sequence for the audience. They feel that both characters are conversing with each other. However if these positions are not maintained correctly the characters would seem disconnected from each other and so would be the audience from the scene. Although this is a simple technique, when followed right it would create a pleasant visual.

You may also like: 180 degree rule | Creative Geography | Kuleshov Effect | Friday Fundas Archive

Friday Fundas

180 Degree Rule – Can I cross the line?

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180 Degree Rule – Can I cross the line?

Let us consider you are watching a movie and there is a scene which shows a car running at a considerable speed. You see the car entering the left side of the frame and exit on the right side of the frame on a highway background. But now in the next shot without any transition you see the car entering the right side of the frame and exit on the left side. What would you feel? Would you feel disoriented in figuring out which side the car is going? And if the car is actually moving forward? Well to avoid this phenomenon the film making process has framed a guideline called as the 180 degree rule.

180 degree rule is going to be the topic for this week’s Friday Fundas. 180 degree rule refers to the spatial relationship between the characters on screen. Let us look a setup in which two characters are conversing with each other. There is an imaginary line called the axis that connects the two characters. As depicted in the figure below the camera could be placed on either side of this line. This is denoted by Camera A and Camera B.

180 Degree Rule
180 Degree Rule

The shots as taken by the Camera A and B are shown in the illustration of Shot A and Shot B respectively. You would see based on which side the camera is the characters left and right position changes. For instance the green person is on the left in shot A while in shot B he is on the right. If the scene involves dialogue between the two characters and then it is advised to keep the camera on one side of the 180 degree axis line. The camera can move to any position within the side but cannot jump over to the other side. If it jumps over to the other side then it causes the audience to get disoriented like our example on the car scene.

If the shot after the original shot has the camera on the other side of the line then it is called as the Reverse cut. This usually disorients the viewers and their ability to connect to the visuals is lost. However many directors have broken the 180 degree rule to give more conveying newer meanings. These are part of the new wave film making. At most care should be taken when breaking this rule. Some of the directors who had broken this rule and succeeded are Stanely Kubrick (Shining), Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) and the Wachowskis (The Matrix).

The Matrix Bullet Time
The Matrix Bullet Time

In the movie The Matrix the bullet time technique is used and while crossing the line the frame is frozen on that time and the logical arrangement of cameras produces a continuous motion to cross the line there by adjusting the orientation of the viewers as well. Many film makers use a buffer shot while crossing the line. The buffer shot would involve a shot along the 180 degree line which separates the two sides. This minimizes the jolt and help in re-orientation of the audience.

Gollum
Gollum

In the movie Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, Peter Jackson has crossed this line to show Gollum’s split personalities of the good and the bad. The shots in which the Gollum is speaking good, he is on the right side while the shot in which he speaks evil, he is on the left side.

180 degree rule is not a hard and fast rule but film makers should give due respect to this and use this diligently to produce a visual connect for the audience with the movie.

Read other Friday Fundas

Friday Fundas

Chroma Key – How to make Superman fly the sky

Chroma Key – How to make Superman fly in the sky

In the previous Friday Fundas section I mentioned Cinema is a magical medium and how optical illusion can create perceived reality with techniques like Forced Perspective. One of the readers had asked an interesting question on how scenes similar to Kumbakarna and the tiny soldiers, Gulliver and Lilliputs are made. While some of the scenes may be forced perspective but the scenes which involve the Lilliputs walk over the giant body of Gulliver is covered by what is known as the Chroma Key Compositing or Chroma Keying Technique. This also popularly called as the Green Screen effect or the Blue screen effect.

The basic of Chroma Key is overlapping two images and make them merge with each other. Let us consider the flying action of Superman and the image of sky behind him. As images are built of pixels you would want to replace the background from the image of superman in flying action with that of the image of the sky. In order to achieve it you would want to make any pixels around Superman transparent. Well Chroma Keying is the technique to do that. The technique involves choosing certain color range of pixels and making it transparent.

A shot from Man of Steel using Chroma Keying
A shot from Man of Steel using Chroma Keying

In the initial days this was done using a blue screen at the background and then blue color was made transparent to merge with another frame to make it look like they are happening in the same space. It should be noted that no other character or object in the first scene should have blue color. As Superman has a blue costume instead of a blue screen a green screen could be used. In the modern days a green screen is used prevalently as the image sensors in digital video cameras are more sensitive to green there by allocating more pixels to green channel.

Prior to the digital era Chroma Key was also performed on the films. It was popularly referred to as Matte technique. The technique is as old as 1930s. The scene comprises of two scenes one the foreground shot and the other the background shot. The background of the foreground shot when taken would be a blue screen. Now the camera color negative of this shot was printed onto a high contrast black and white film using either a filter or the black and white film to limit the blue color. The resultant film produced transparent color wherever it found blue. The end result is the foreground object with a transparent background. This is called the “Female matte”. This was now copied onto the high contrast negative of the background scene which is called the “Male matte”. The end result is the negative of the film with both these scenes merged with each other.

One of the key challenges in this technique was camera movement. The camera movement used when shooting the foreground should be used exactly the same way while shooting the background scene. Later techniques were developed to automate this process to move the camera exactly the same way.

Well next time you see Superman fly or Batman jump across buildings you would remember there is always a Chroma Key behind it.

Related Posts: Forced Perspective | Bullet Time | Friday Fundas Archive

Friday Fundas

Forced Perspective

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Forced Perspective

Have you ever taken a picture standing in front of Taj Mahal or Washington mall monument actually far away from it and rising up your hand so that the photo looks like you are holding the tip of the monument or tried to take the photo in an angle which appears like you are holding the sun in your hand? I am sure these images strike a bell to you… Well if you have taken these shots… then you have employed a popular technique of optical illusion in movies known as the Forced Perspective.

In this week’s Friday Fundas let us look at the amount of magic this simple technique can create. Optical illusion forms a major part with visual effects in Cinema. It is like a magic show, constructing a scene in a certain way revealing certain portions while hiding the rest to create an illusion. In the Forced perspective the depth of field gets hidden from the viewer. Like in your photo with Taj Mahal you don’t see the distance between the person and the Taj Mahal so you feel they are holding it.

Let us look at some examples in the movies. Consider a movie like the Jurassic Park. Minatures of Dinosaurs had been used in many shots. Have a miniature dinosaur very close to the camera and a person far from the camera. The camera angle is such that it covers the shot so that it appears that the dinosaur is looking down the person while the person is looking up.

Lighting plays an important role with the forced perspective. Both the objects in the scene should have the same amount of lighting so that they actually appear standing close to each other rather than standing apart. As you know light’s intensity decreases as it moves farther away. So the power of lighting should cover the near and far object sufficiently. If not you would reveal the actual distance and there would be no more illusion. Another example is Hagrid’s character in Harry Potter who is tall as compared to the others. Forced perspective was employed to shoot these sequences.

Lord of the Rings Trilogy took Forced perspective to a different level. As the movie involved dwarfs, wizards and hobbits it was very much important for them to create this illusion perfectly. With a still camera the forced perspective is easy to achieve, what if the camera is moving. In order to solve this problem they had constructed the partial set in Lord of the Rings to be move as the camera moves. The movement is done in such a way that the angle of the camera and position of the set does not reveal the actual depth of field between two characters. This is better explained by Peter Jackson and Technicians themselves. Watch the following video

Cinema is a magical medium. The tricks have to be performed the right way to make the show successful. A lot of thoughts go into designing the techniques, and it does involve a lot of science not just art.

Friday Fundas

Creative Geography – How Aamir Khan went from Chicago to Switzerland within minutes

This week’s Friday Fundas covers yet another interesting editing technique in movies popularly known as Creative Geography.

Creative Geography is an artificial landscape that is created in movies. This technique was invented by Russian film maker Lev Kuleshov. You might also remember few weeks back I had covered another popular experiment called as Kuleshov’s effect in movies which was done by Lev Kuleshov. Creative Geography involves a subset of the montage in which various segments are shot at different locations. But in the way it gets assembled during editing, all these appear to be one continuous location.

Consider a shot involving a person walking into a big bungalow and then the next shot shows him walking into a large hall. These two locations could be entirely different and in fact miles apart. But in the way the editing is done it appears to be a continuous space for the viewers. The shot of the person entering the bungalow is shot first and then the next shot is shot entirely in a different location in a hall where the person is walking in. The costume of the artist is maintained the same for the sake of continuity.

Let us now look at some examples of this in Indian movies

Dhoom 3
Dhoom 3

In the recent Bollywood movie Dhoom 3 starring Aamir Khan, the entire story is based out of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. However the climax portion of the movie where Aamir Khan rides on the top of a bridge is shot in Contra Dam, Ticino, Switzerland. Actually he starts his bike in Chicago and within few minutes he is in Switzerland. In the movie the dam is shown as a location in the outskirts of Chicago. This is achieved through editing and thus it forms the creative geography for the movie.

Nayagan
Nayagan

Similarly in the Tamil Blockbuster Nayagan the entire movie is based out of Mumbai and follows the life of a Mumbai don. The climax portion of the movie is shot in College of Engineering, Guindy. The college in Guindy becomes part of the creative geography of Mumbai for the movie.

This is again an elementary technique used in movies and it is used by the film makers to achieve the desired outcome of the image they had while writing the script. Next time when you watch movies look out for its creative geography. You will start appreciating the amount of efforts the film makers undergo to give a visually compelling product.

Friday Fundas

Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Sounds in movies

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Diegetic and Non-Diegetic Sounds in movies

When Resul Pookutty received the Academy Awards Awards for best sound mixing for his work in the movie Slumdog millionaire many of us came to know the existence of department of Sound mixing in movies and the background score is not just limited to background music but also includes sound mixing.

Resul Pookutty receiving academy award
Resul Pookutty receiving academy award

In this week’s Friday Fundas we will see one of the basic ways of classifying the sounds in movies. It is done in the following two ways

  1. Diegetic Sounds
  2. Non-Diegetic Sounds

Diegetic sound is basically the sound that arises from the elements of the surroundings. These are natural and realistic sounds of the particular scene. Often this is confused as recording the real sounds during shooting. Actually diegetic sound can be composed, mixed and recorded during the dubbing of the movie. But they would represent the typical sound that would arise in the scene. For example the character is sitting in the hall, reading a newspaper and sipping a cup of coffee. The ceiling fan is turned on. The sounds of a ceiling fan, turning pages of a newspaper and placing of the coffee cup onto the table are all diegetic sounds for this sequence. These sounds can be recorded live or created later in the studio.  These are sounds that can be heard by the characters on the screen. The opening scene in Slumdog millionaire where Jamal is interrogated by a police officer is an example of Diegetic sound. The sound you hear is from the police office blowing the smoke on Jamal’s face. In the Korean movie The Chaser diegetic sound is used predominantly to build the suspense of the scene.

Non-Diegetic sound arises from outside the story space. Usually this is used to create a specific mood to the scene. For instance in the above sequence where the character is reading a newspaper, he is seeing a news article that is shocking, now a background music conveying the shock of the character is added to the scene. This coupled with the reaction of the character helps in creating the mood for the scene. These are sounds that cannot be heard by the characters on screen. Other sound elements like narrators voice is also a non-diegetic sound in the context of the movie. In the Tamil movie 7G Rainbow Colony Yuvanshankar Raja composed a background music using a symphony orchestra that goes well with the mood of the scene. As director Selvaraghavan explains it, even if you are not watching the visual the background music would convey the mood of the film. This is an example of Non-diegetic sound.

Film is a visual media and to connect the audience to the images on the screen sound mixing plays a vital role. Diegetic sounds connect the audience to the environment of the scene while Non-diegetic sounds connect the audience to the mood of the film. Normally in a movie you would have a mix of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds.

Next time you watch a scene from a movie identify the diegetic and non-diegetic sounds.

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