SHO�T SH O�T LI LIKE KE
SCORSESE SCORSE SE The Visual Secrets of Shock, Elegance, and Extreme Character
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Published by Michael Wiese Productions 12400 Ventura Blvd. #1111 Studio City, CA 91604 (818) 379-8799, (818) 986-3408 (FAX)
[email protected] www.mwp.com Cover design by Johnny Ink. www.johnnyink.com Interior design by William Morosi Copyediting by Gary Sunshine Printed by McNaughton & Gunn Manufactured Manufactur ed in the United States of America Copyright © 2016 by Christopher Kenworthy All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kenworthy, Christopher. Shoot like Scorsese : the visual secrets of shock, elegance and extreme character / Christopher Kenworthy. pages cm ISBN 978-1-61593-232-0 1. Scorses Scorsese, e, Martin-Martin--Criticis Criticism m and interpretation interpretation.. 2. Cinematography. 3. Motion pictures--Production pictures--Pr oduction and direction. I. Title. PN1998.3.S39K46 2015 791.4302’33092--dc23 791.4302’33092--d c23
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2015013291
CONTENTS I N T R O D U C T I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .x
C H A P T E R 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
THE MOMENT OF CHANGE:
Taxi Driver
C H A P T E R 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
FRANTIC ACTION:
The Wolf of Wall Street
C H A P T E R 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29
TENSE CONFRONTATION:
The Wolf of Wall Street
C H A P T E R 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
CONTRASTING MOTION:
Raging Bull
C H A P T E R 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .63
THE DYNAMICS OF POWER:
The Aviator
C H A P T E R 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75
LAYERS OF DEPTH:
The Aviator
C H A P T E R 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85
SUDDEN ACTION:
The Departed
C H A P T E R 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .97
REVEA LING THE VILLAIN:
The Departed
C H A P T E R 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .105
BARRIERS:
Hugo
C H A P T E R 1 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121
MAKING CONNECTIONS:
The Age of Innocence
C O N C L U S I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .132 .132 A B O U T T H E A U T H O R . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .133
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INTRODUCTION Everybody knows that Scorsese uses the greatest actors in the world, so how can you hope to shoot like he shoots? The best actors need the best directors. Without the right camera moves,
an actor’s performance is hidden. You can learn to reveal story and show the depths of your actor’s performance by learning the
techniques that Scorsese likes best. Scorsese is a great storyteller, but his greatest skill is telling a visual story that makes room for the actor’s performance. This means that whatever actors you are working with, you can use his techniques to make their performances shine when captured
by a camera. Scorsese is a lover of ilm, but he isn’t afraid to use conventional framings and techniques. As many of these chapters show, if he
wants you to know there’s a gun in somebody’s hand, he cuts to a close-up of the gun, rather than using fancy camerawork. If
two people are talking, he will use the same setups you see in TV shows, with simple over-the-shoulder shots. He also has his trademark freeze-frames, slow motion, and lashguns, which he never
tires of using. These approaches make his ilms functional, but what makes them great is when he takes things a little further. Although he’s happy to be conventional a lot of the time, in impor-
tant scenes or vital moments he shows richer style and lare. There are times when his shots are incredibly deep and ostentatious, and his dialogue setups are so creative that you can hardly
believe you’re watching the same director. His skill is to know when to use the more imaginative shots and when to relax into more conventional work.
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He’s made a lot of ilms, including many great ilms that aren’t even touched on in this book, but the essential techniques are all covered here. This book shows you the moments when he rises
out of the ordinary and uses strong visual symbolism to create subconscious feelings in the audience. With Scorsese, you often watch a scene and think it had great acting, but you don’t realize how incredibly well planned the shots were. This book shows how his concentration on framing
and screen direction, along with simple camera moves, makes him able to tell astonishing stories. Whether he’s showing a calm
conversation among the aristocracy, or a taxi driver falling off the edge of sanity, his ilms are always thrilling to watch. By the time you’ve inished this book you should be able to set up scenes with the same depth and grandeur as Scorsese, and apply it to your own style of ilmmaking.
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HOW TO USE THIS BOOK Watch every Scorsese ilm you can before you read this book, and buy copies of the ilms that you can keep, so you can watch these scenes (and others) to decode the techniques. The chapters are
illed with spoilers, so make sure you watch the ilms irst. Most of the scenes are from relatively early on in each ilm, to avoid giving
too much away, but you should still watch all the ilms covered here before reading the book. You can work through the book in order, or pick a chapter that interests you, or work through according to your favorite ilms. The techniques can be applied to your own work. If you’re creating a scene that needs sudden action, there’s a chapter dedicated to
that, and you can go straight there. You can also pick out individual techniques from a scene and use them in your own scenes. Before you read the chapter, watch the scene in question if you can and try to see how and why it works. Once you’ve read the chapter, watch the scene again, perhaps with the sound down so
you can focus on the camera moves, and see how the scene has been crafted.
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W shows the character acting out the change visually. Most
in some way, Scorsese
importantly, he uses camerawork to emphasize the nature of the
character change. In this sequence, Robert De Niro’s character has cracked for the
irst time in the movie, and goes from being unconventional to aggressive. He is framed centrally for most of the sequence. Rather
than ilming this scene with conventional coverage, Scorsese keeps the antihero in the center of the frame so that we can focus on the character and his growing intensity. When a character snaps, let the audience see that personality change as visually as possible, by framing the character
centrally throughout the scene.
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Filmmakers are often told not to waste time showing somebody entering a room. Start the scene in the middle of things, you are told, or it usually will just get edited out. This is often true, but if
your character is crossing a threshold or entering new territory it is vital that we see the crossing of that threshold. De Niro walks
through the door and even as he closes it behind him, his eyes are
ixed on a point behind the camera. We can see the change and determination as he crosses that threshold. Good screenplays give your characters many thresholds to cross. Show this, even if the barrier is as modest as a glass door. The audience will sense that change is afoot. As De Niro walks forward the camera moves away, as though pushed back by the force of his presence. It moves back at his walking pace and he remains centrally framed throughout this walk. This is achieved through slight pans during the dolly move.
As you can see in the inal frame, the camera operator didn’t chase him too exactly, but his face is always in the central third of the frame. This gives him an astonishing sense of presence and momentum. Let the camera’s move be dictated by the actor’s speed and motion. When the actor approaches the camera, back off, keep the same distance throughout the shot, and pan as needed to
keep the actor in the center of the frame.
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The camera pushes in on Cybill Shepherd at a pace that is noticeably faster than De Niro’s walking pace. This creates a small moment of panic for the audience, as though he is looming up on
her.. Shepherd is also framed quite centrally her cen trally,, but unlike De Niro she does not move during this shot. This has the effect of making her
seem like a victim of his world. She’s trapped in the same framing, but is unable to move. At the end of the shot, the camera pans onto
her so that she is almost in proile, which is the opposite of De Niro’s direct gaze. This makes her seem more vulnerable than him. Push in fast on a motionless character, using a central framing, and you will make the character seem vulnerable, especially if you pan to put the actor in profile. As the camera rushes toward her, we glimpse her coworker and friend, Albert Brooks, on the right, but he is quickly pushed out of frame. This fast camera move isolates her from her coworkers in a moment, making it feel like she is alone in the room with De
Niro. The shot lasts just over two seconds, but achieves several powerful effects that let the audience know this is going to be a
dramatic scene. When you want to show a character’s fear, let your dolly move isolate that character from the other people we have glimpsed in the room.
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De Niro encounters his irst obstacle, as Brooks comes in from frame left. De Niro is stopped, but the camera does not stop at the same time. It dollies back for another second. This emphasizes his momentum and makes us feel that nothing is really going to stop
him getting what he wants. When your character is stopped by an obstacle, keep the camera move going for a moment to show the strength of the character’s momentum. Shepherd moves into the frame, but with her back to the camera,
and we don’t cut to see her face. She is there as a presence for De Niro to react to. The camera stays on him and he remains central. As he lunges forward, Brooks restrains him, but it is De Niro’s face that remains in the middle of the shot. We are forced to watch him and his reaction to the unfolding events. When your main character’s emotional journey is vitally important to the story, make sure that actor remains in the center of the frame, and don’t let the other actors’ faces intrude on the scene.
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Brooks repeatedly urges De Niro to leave and pulls him toward the left of frame, but De Niro always heads back to the center of the frame, even as Brooks tries to physically move him away. When
Brooks succeeds in moving him to the left, the camera pans to keep De Niro centrally framed. You can see in the second frame
that De Niro has moved in relation to the background, but the camera has panned to keep him central. This shows that the character is unrelenting. Your character can resist any attempt at removal, but if forced to move to a new position, pan across to reframe the
actor centrally. When Brooks inally succeeds in dragging De Niro to frame left, there is a rapid camera move that puts him back in the center of the frame quickly. As De Niro heads to the door the camera dollies forward — toward the point where De Niro was previously standing — and pans hard left. Even though his back is to
us, he has again been placed in the center of the frame. By having this momentary sense of defeat, the tension is increased when the fast camera move happens, and we sense that De Niro is far
from defeated. Let it look as though your character has been defeated by breaking the central framing, but then dolly and pan rapidly
to reestablish that framing. The audience will sense that more trouble is coming.
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A physical struggle begins in the doorway, as De Niro shows that
he is not willing to be thrown out. We are at another threshold, and he’s refusing to be controlled, so it makes good visual sense for
his inal reaction to happen here. By the second frame, Shepherd has again entered on the right (her face still unseen) and Brooks is pushed away, almost out of view. Although De Niro is small in
the frame, and his stance borders on the comical, it’s clear that he won’t let anybody control him. He is alone in the center of the
frame with nobody obstructing the view of him, showing both his isolation and his continued determination. When the scene seems to be over, show your character reacting or resisting, and move the other characters aside, so your character is alone in the center of the frame. De Niro heads back toward camera, still staying in the central third of the screen, and although the backs of the other actors ill most of the frame, it is still De Niro’s face that we see. No matter how they block him, the framing keeps our focus on him and his
journey through the scene. Even at the point where he is about to leave, he’s facing the camera and framed centrally. Keep your main actor’s face more visible than any other face, so we continue to listen to the actor’s on-screen rant.
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We cut to a shot of De Niro exiting the building, and he’s right in
the center of the frame. The main incident is over, but to have him wander away from the center of frame at this point would make it look as though the confrontation had broken his resolve. Even
as Brooks follows him out, the camera dollies left to keep De Niro central. We see that his character has changed and nothing will
change him back to the way he was before. If the scene moves to another location, continue with the central framing until the scene is completely over, to avoid weakening the character’s conviction.
De Niro heads briely toward the camera, and the dolly move stops. Then, as he turns 180 degrees and heads down the side of the building he’s just left, the dolly reverses and tracks to the right, to keep him central. It is very rare to reverse a dolly move,
because it can look obvious and awkward, but when guided by the actor’s motion, the move feels right. Most importantly, it preserves De Niro’s central framing. The dolly travels faster than De Niro and moves away from him, so that we are slightly ahead of him.
Although he remains in the center of the frame, this distancing makes him appear to be less in control than he would like to be. Although Althou gh the the central central frami framing ng should should continu continue e to the end end of the the sequence, you can move your camera away from the actor, to
create the sensation that the character is being overwhelmed by events.
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