Chang focus plane-Classic

Every director has a dream of a long shot.

A long shot refers to an uninterrupted display of a complete action or event in a unified time and space. Long shots generally include the following three points: First, the shooting time is relatively long; The second is a single shot including the whole process of framing and the left picture; Third, including push, pull, shake, move, follow, up and down, including a comprehensive lens. But in fact, it's not entirely true. We can see that some of the long shots discussed below do not all meet the above three points.

As a lens language, long lens, like montage, forehand and backhand, not only plays a technical role, on the one hand, it reflects the authenticity of God's perspective, on the other hand, it conveys the emotions that the audience wants to express through the means of lens moving speed and rotation angle, which is why long lens is so popular and obsessed. Many great movie clips are achieved through long shots. Of course, not every director can use the long lens well. This is also the embodiment of the director's skill.

It is impossible to count the long shots in a movie. Here are some classic and familiar movies.

First, classic articles

1 The American film The Necromancer was released in 1948. This is the first film independently produced and directed by Hitchcock, a suspense master, and his first color film. In this film, Hitchcock not only used a long lens, but also achieved "a mirror to the end", while Kodak film at that time could only shoot less than 12 minutes at a time. In order to solve this problem, in the 80-minute film, only ten shots were taken, and the splicing between the shots was as quiet as possible, so that the audience could not notice it and it seemed to be done at one go.

The director's original intention was to make the length of the lens equal to the length of the story, but in fact he still failed to do so, which made Hitchcock very dissatisfied with the film. He bought the right to show the film and hid it in the snow. Thirty years later, the film was released again. Only then did people discover the greatness of this experimental film. This is not the first film to use a long lens, but it is the most classic. Apart from the long shot, the theme and metaphor of this film are out of date even now.

2. The Russian film The Ark of Russia was released in 2002, and was nominated for the Palme d 'Or in the 55th Cannes Film Festival. This film has achieved a real "one mirror to the end", which is the longest shot in the history of film and realized Hitchcock's dream. The content of the film can be summed up in one sentence, that is, it takes you to Yuanmingyuan in 90 minutes, but this is a drama.

Located in St. Petersburg, the Winter Palace was originally the palace and private museum of the czar, and now it is one of the four largest museums in the world. St Petersburg was the capital of Peter the Great in 17 12, renamed Leningrad in 1924 (Moscow became the capital of the Soviet Union in 1922), and its original name was restored in 19 1 year.

With amazing buildings, more than 30 exhibition halls, more than 2,000 actors in different costumes, three symphony orchestras and various historical exhibits, the film shows the glory of Russia and its infinite yearning for the glory of the past. Goodbye, Europa, I will move on.

3. The American film Gravity was released on 20 13, directed by Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón, and was nominated for best film in the 86th Academy Awards. The film begins with a long shot of nearly 13 minutes, showing the grandeur and silence of space. This is my favorite long shot, and its epic level should be comparable to 200 1 A Space Odyssey.

This long shot is made by light box and CG. In order to shoot this shot, Alfonso Cuarón specially built a huge light box in which all performances, lighting and photography were carried out. Because of its amazing special effects, this long shot itself is rarely mentioned.

4. The American film The Son of Man was released in 2006, directed by Alfonso Cuarón Orff, and was nominated for best photography at the 79th Academy Awards. This is a science fiction film, an action film and a literary film.

Long shots in the west rarely reflect action scenes, but this film is one of the few. There are two difficult long shots in the film, one is a war scene and the other is an action scene, which is impressive. From the 26th minute15th second, there was a long shot lasting12nd minute in the car. The car is driving at a high speed, and there are five people in it. The camera was dangling in the car. It is necessary not only to explain the shooting and movements of everyone in the car, but also to film the explosion and pursuers outside the car, including the collision between the car and the motorcycle. The pursuers rushed into the car and fought bloody battles with the people inside.

In order to shoot this long shot, the director modified the car like Transformers and used a special camera. Even so, how to control the accuracy of the impact and the visual integrity of the vehicle is still unbelievable. The long shot of the war near the climax shows the director's precise control and scheduling ability.

The long shot at the end of the film is very religious. "Ground and air are chaotic; The abyss is dark; The spirit of god runs on the water. God said, "Let there be light!" There is light. "

5. I'm Cuba, a movie of the former Soviet Union, released on 1964, a black-and-white movie. Director Mikhail Kalatozov is Russian, or Georgian to be exact, and his language is Spanish. This film is a true model of long shots. Any shot can be used as a textbook and is worth watching again and again.

For example, in the opening shot of the first story, in 3 minutes and 22 seconds, the camera swept the whole roof pattern, then went down two floors (the edge of the tall building was clearly visible at this time), and finally plunged into the swimming pool. Look at its difficulty first. The lens has plane push and pull, vertical movement and underwater photography. To put them in one shot, the director also needs to take into account the scene layout and the actor's performance. The vertical descent of the camera is a magical part, because in this process, we saw the steep edge of the tall building and the actors sitting on the balcony without fences, which proved that the camera rotated during the suspension descent (that is, the camera was artificially controlled). More importantly, in the 1960s when the technical conditions were relatively backward, this lens successfully achieved underwater shooting. This long shot conveys a lot of information, telling almost all the luxuries, luxuries, impetuousness and noise of Cuban upper society.

In the funeral of the third film, with the slowly advancing funeral procession, the camera began to slowly rise to the height of three or four floors, then began to scroll to the right, entered the house from one window, then advanced, flew out from another window and glided in the air. Under the technical conditions of the 1960s, this lens can almost be called a shock. It uses a lot of slings and conveying devices and moves smoothly without stabilizing devices. Its lens language and artistic techniques are far ahead of several times. Even in today's film art field, some shots that can be copied from this work are enough to be pioneers.

This film is ill-fated After the filming was completed, neither the Soviet Union nor Cuba admitted it, and the Soviet Union even hid it in the snow for many years. 1992 The film was re-released at the Montreal International Film Festival, which shocked the whole film industry.

6. Flying South in Wild Goose, a film of the former Soviet Union, released on 1957, a black-and-white film. The director is Mikhail Kalatozov, and the language is Russian. This film won 1 1 the Palme d 'Or at Cannes Film Festival. Although the film describes the war, it highlights the romantic love tragedy in the war.

The director's use of long shots is quite skillful, even hard to detect. For example, in the 24th minute, the heroine said goodbye to her lover at the station. The camera first followed her down from the bus and squeezed through the hurried crowd. Finally, the camera shook, the troops entered the painting, and the whole camera was completed in one go. Although the performance of the film in long shots is so good, the performance of the film in mirror transport, light and shadow, editing and so on is textbook level. Obviously, the director paid little attention to the long shots in the film, and several difficult long shots were edited into montages by the director.

7. Whale Circus. Hungarian film, released in 2000. Hungarian black and white movies. The director is the famous Hungarian master Bela Tarr. The original film novel "The Melancholy of Resistance".

The movie *** 145 minutes, only 39 shots were used. One of the most shocking scenes is that people rush into the hospital, and the camera slowly follows, moving from room to room like onlookers. The patient was dragged out of bed and beaten by the mob, and everything in the room was overturned and smashed. However, the most surprising thing is that no one shouted, cried and cursed in this scene. We only heard the knocking of metal, the breaking of objects, and the silence of thugs and victims, but it was this silence that made the scene more powerful. When two thugs pulled down a curtain and the camera was aimed at a skinny old man standing in the bathtub, the music suddenly sounded, and the thugs stopped beating like drunk and slowly withdrew from the hospital one by one. The camera followed them out of the room, into the corridor, and then left the group and shook to the right. The face of the hero hidden in the dark appeared in the camera. His face was frightened and he didn't blink. The camera is over. Its image and soundtrack are so shocking that people are speechless.

8. American film Birdman, released on 20 14. Won the 87th Academy Award for Best Film. Director Gonzalez is Mexican. The film consists of 15 long shots, which tells the story of a washed-up Hollywood star re-entering the stage. His photography and gravity are the same person.

I have never understood the necessity of using a long lens in this film, although I am very skilled. I prefer to think that this is a product of Hollywood's self-satisfaction and then give myself an award. Of course, this is because I don't understand. It won the Oscar for its own reasons. At that time, it was "youth" that competed with it. To be fair, it is not as good as Birdman.