American Cinematographer - September 2017 - 16

Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC, HSC (standing at camera) finds his frame on
location for The River.

Where Do You Put the Camera?
By Jay Holben

Over my years of teaching, guest lecturing, and writing about
the art and science of filmmaking, one of the most common questions I've been asked - albeit most often after the class, for fear of
embarrassment - is, "How do you know where to put the
camera?"
It's most certainly not a question to be embarrassed about. In
fact, it's one of the most important questions you can ask.
Filmmaking is a language. Every shot is a sentence in the story
you're telling. How you frame the shot, where you place the camera,
and what subjects you choose to show in the frame - those are the
nouns, verbs, adverbs and prepositions of the language of motion
pictures. If you want the audience to understand your story, you have
to create a clear visual language.
Somnambulist riboflavin autodidact mnemonic filibusterer.
Confusing? Yup. Because no matter how impressive your
vocabulary is, a random string of big words is meaningless. Likewise,
just a bunch of cool-looking shots strung together is meaningless.
You've got to form good, solid sentences in order to tell your story.
Over the years I've had directors and cinematographers
suggest shots to me: "What about this? It's pretty cool!"
"Yes," I'll agree. "It is a cool shot - but what does it say for
the story? What does it say about the character? How does it add to
the scene?"
"... It's just cool."
"Yeah. No thanks."
I've had producers talk about "keeping it interesting and
exciting!" While I wholeheartedly agree that, at times, dynamic and
aggressive camerawork is needed for a given narrative, it is never the
rule. The story and performances should be keeping the movie inter16

September 2017

esting. If that's not the case, "cool" shots will never be enough to
save an already doomed project.
What follows is a look at my thought process as I find the
shots that best communicate the visual story I'm trying to tell. This
is based on a decade as a cinematographer and another decade as
a director - in addition to 40 years of study, which truly never ends.
These are just my opinions, but I hope they will help you refine your
grasp of visual storytelling so that you'll be able to say with confidence where to put your camera.
The first step is understanding the story. For me, filmmaking
is all about eliciting an emotional reaction from an audience as I
guide them through the story. And the camera plays a crucial role in
establishing an emotional connection with the viewer, whether that
emotion is anger, fear, laughter, curiosity - even, at times, confusion. Where, how and why the camera is in a particular place should
always serve the emotional core of the story I'm trying to tell.
Therefore, it all starts with the script. The genre dictates the
camera's role - a romantic comedy will have a different camera
approach than a psychological thriller - so that's where we start.
What kind of movie is this?
The next big question is, are we going for an objective or
subjective point of view?
An objective point of view comes from a neutral third-party
- an impartial observer who merely witnesses the action as it
unfolds. I'll lean toward an objective viewpoint if the emotional
content of the scene is extremely high. The juxtaposition of a neutral
observation of a murder, tragic loss or horrible atrocity can actually
amplify the effect for the audience. Stepping back to witness something through the unblinking eye of the camera can, in the right
context, be just as emotionally powerful as bringing the viewer right
into the middle of the action. The objective point of view is generally
a camera placed at a distance, in a wide shot, a profile shot, or in a
generally more neutral position on the eyeline. (More on eyelines in
a moment.)
A subjective point of view, on the other hand, is what I reach
for most often. This gets the audience inside the emotion of one or
more of the characters - really only one specific character per shot,
though. I'm not talking about a literal point-of-view, where the
frame is intended to actually represent exactly what the character
sees, although that has its place. Rather, a subjective point of view
brings the camera as close to the emotional viewpoint of a character
as possible.
This is all about context, and understanding the emotions of
the character whose POV you've chosen. In most cases this will be
your protagonist, but it can shift - even within a scene - to other
characters. A subjective POV allows us to visually connect with the
thoughts and emotions of the character we are relating to. Is this
character in love? Then we might see alternating close-ups of his
eyes connecting with her eyes, or his eyes and her lips as she speaks

American Cinematographer

Photo from the AC archives.

SHOT CRAFT

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - September 2017