Drama Films: Camera Angles and Movement (technical codes)

Lighting:

High-key and low-key lighting are used to create different effects across the genre. High-key lighting is used in a scene without any tension as it has little dramatic effect. It is also used relate/link positive connotations to characters and events occurring in the film. In comparison, low-key lighting is commonly used in intense scenes and scenes that derive negative connotations. It consists of a lighting pattern that has both dim and bright areas in the frame.

Movement:

Drama typically uses three camera movements: horizontal, vertical or both in combination. Filmmakers use pans or dolly tracks to illustrate horizontal movement - the dolly tracks can also be used to move into and out of a shot. To display vertical movement, a tilt up or down is used. When combining the two movements, a crane or a jib-boom is typically used. These two devices allow the camera to move left, right, up, down or diagonally.

Lens and Focus:

Zoom-ins and zoom-outs are generally used throughout the genre as a short-hand way to establish the genre promptly and efficiently. The depth of field constantly changes throughout a drama film. This generally happens during a conversation to display who is talking or is used to guide the audience when they should be focusing on a particular object. Focus pulls can occur, changing shots from shallow focus (part of the frame is soft/ out of focus) to deep focus (the entire frame is in focus).

These three parts of the camera affect depth of field:

1. Aperture
2. Focal length
3. Focus distance

The Aperture

The aperture is the factor that most influences depth of field. The wider the aperture is, the shallower depth of field will be. A low f-number such as f/2.8 will likely render an image with some soft focus. Conversely, the narrower the aperture is, the deeper depth of field will be.

The figure below illustrates the relation between aperture and the amount of depth of field. For this illustration, image that the camera is on the left hand side of the image, represented below by the aperture. The 100mm value represents the focal length of the lens, which does not change in this scenario:

The area in red represents the depth of field, or the distance in front of the camera in which the picture is on focus. The black represents soft focus. Notice how the depth of field changes together with the f-number on the left.

The black vertical line represents the area that is sharpest in focus, which we call critical focus. Note that you always have more depth of field behind your plain of critical focus than in front of it.

Focal Length

Next to the aperture, the second factor that most affects depth of field is focal length. The longer the lens, the shallower depth of field is. A wide angle lens (a short lens), for instance, would render an image with more depth of field than one with a telephoto lens (a long lens). Study the figure below and notice that the f-number is the same while focal length changes:

Focus Distance

Focus distance is the last factor to determine depth of field. The closer the focus distance is to the camera, the less depth of field you have. You probably have noticed this. On close-ups of actors or objects, part of the frame is usually blurrier than on wide shots of landscapes.