Today we're going to look at one of the most useful filmmaking strategies I've ever encountered
It's a strategy that I first read about in Sidney Lumet's amazing book, 'Making Movies." Sidney Lumet calls it a 'Lens Plot'
A Lens Plot is kind of like a stylesheet for your shots and lighting. It's a way to make sure that your shots all serve
your story, as a whole.
Many filmmakers take a moment-by-moment approach when creating a shot list.
This line is dramatic, so let's cut to a close-up. This beat is funny, so let's keep the shot wide this moment is energetic
So let's go handheld. The trouble is all this careful application of film grammar can amount to a whole lot of nothing.
What we're going to look at is a strategy to help you make sure that your shot choices serve your overall story.
So let's define exactly what we're creating here.
There are three ways to approach the lens pot. There's the static lens plot.
There's the narrative lens plot and last the elemental lens plot. So let's start with a static lens plot.
This is the simplest lens pot a set of requirements or parameters that apply to your entire film.
And sometimes it's referred to as the "look of a film."
Wes Anderson for example has a specific look characters tend to be shot straight on or in perfect profile
"Congratulations with Mr. Gustave."
"They're gonna fight me for the son of a bitch.." And there's a lot of symmetry in the framing
These rules are part of Anderson's static lens plot. They're consistent from one scene to the next.
"Roosevelt, how's that lanyard coming."
"Horrible."
There are lots of elements that you can consider when you develop your static lens plot.
Things like aspect ratio, color palette. Will you limit your shooting to only certain lenses?
But the key to selecting them is to make sure that they serve the story you're trying to tell
Here's an example
When Spielberg made Schindler's List
He made some critical creative decisions. One of the subtle choices that most people don't notice
Is that Spielberg denied himself one of his favorite tools. The techno crane.
There are no big crane shots in Schindler's List because it literally grounds the film you really
Spielberg wanted to tell a story that felt grounded visceral and real
Large mechanical camera moves would have gotten in the way. It was a storytelling choice. Not just an aesthetic one
The static lens plot is a great starting point but there's more you can do.
This brings us to the Narrative Lens Plot
The key to the narrative lens plot is gradual change over time to reflect or support the narrative
My favorite example of this comes from Sidney Lumet's classic 12 Angry Men. Pretty much, the entire film takes place in a jury room.
"Say I would like to get started." Lumet wanted to emphasize the growing sense of entrapment
So the earliest scenes in the film are shot with what he calls normal lenses 28 to 40 millimeters
As the story progresses he shifts gears and uses longer lenses
50, 75 and eventually 100 millimeters. As your lenses get longer the background appears to come closer and closer
The subtle effect over the course of an entire movie is that the walls seem to close in.
The room seems to get smaller and smaller.
That brings me to the final lens plot. The Elemental Lens Plot.
Where you assign specific visual rules to individual elements such as a character or a location
The clearest example I've seen is in Soderbergh's film Traffic.
Where a complicated story unfolds in three different places with three sets of characters
To help us keep them all sorted out Soderbergh gives each of the three locations its own unique
look
This wasn't just a color grading decision different locations in the story were shot on
different film stock to ensure that they would have a distinct look when the film was cut together
The elemental lens plot is really about making things clear
Especially when you have similar characters lots of locations or a potentially complicated storyline
So to figure out the look of your film create a lens plot ask yourself if your
films look is static or if it evolves along with the story ask yourself if certain
Characters locations or even trucks should have their own looks
Jot down your notes and then connect it to your gear requirements
Once you do that, they're ready to turn your lens plot into a shot list. Be sure to check out StudioBinder for that
We have an entire shotlisting solution where you can breakdown your shots with lens info the equipment specs to make sure you're well
Prepared for your production. When you're done, you can share your shot list with your team. So check it out
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And if you're out there filming something, break a lens!
