Basic shooting guide for 7 kinds of movies

Genre film is the standardization of film products, which inevitably includes the standardization of image modeling, or the standardization of techniques and means to form image style.

For the producer, the genre of film represents the convention of film expression, while for the audience, the genre of film is the convention of film experience.

1. Visual convention of westerns

In the United States, the status of westerns is unshakable and has a strong symbolic significance. The image feature of western films is to show the scenery, scenery, surface and landform of the western United States through pictures.

Through dancing with wolves, unforgettable tonight, No Country for Old Men, blood and gold, infinite heaven and earth and other American westerns after the 1990s, we can see that the visual conventions of contemporary American westerns have the following characteristics:

1. Extensive use of panoramic or large-scale perspective, combined with the lateral movement of the lens, shows the natural scenery and scenery of the western United States.

2. Make full use of natural weather changes, such as cloudy days, early morning, evening, rainy days and windy days. , can render and create the atmosphere of a specific plot, but also reflect the psychological state of the characters in a specific situation.

3. The overall tone of the whole film is mostly brownish yellow.

4. In most cases, hue control will reduce the saturation to a relatively low level.

5. A large number of pictures in the whole film strengthen the image style of western movies with large light ratio and Gao Fancha light effect. The accurate use of these conventional means has formed the audience's basic visual understanding of western movies. After mastering these basic means, the western films presented are acceptable to the audience.

Two. ? Visual Convention of Music Film

Since 1930s and 1940s, musical films have been welcomed by audiences. Musical films are mainly comedies and youthful love. However, with the change of audience's viewing habits, considering the market factors, there are also films with different tastes and scary temperament, such as Barber Todd. However, whether the film temperament is comedy, love or thriller, its type determines that these stories with different temperament must have the characteristics of musical films recognized by the market and audience.

In other words, the creation of these films must cater to the interest orientation of the audience. At least in form, there should be beautiful singing, dancing movements and scenes full of visual enjoyment, pursuing beauty and magnificence in image and modeling, mobilizing the viewers' life perception experience with its unique audio-visual effect, bringing them unique psychological feelings and giving them spiritual pleasure.

Because of this, the musical film is so energetic and the viewing atmosphere is so satisfactory to the audience, thus ensuring that this type of film can be commercially operated for a long time in today's market.

Musical films in the 1990s, such as Phantom of the Opera, Barber Todd, Chicago and High School Musical, showed some of their visual conventions:

1. It has rich and colorful scenery and props, bright clothes and makeup, often with cold and warm contrast, trying to pursue splendor from the color relationship.

2. Make full use of the changes of lighting and color to express the changes of characters' psychological emotions to match the changes of story atmosphere.

3. In the dance passage, the composition is mainly geometric figures, such as triangle and radial.

4. When shooting song and dance scenes, hand-held shooting mode is often adopted, and the position of the camera is flexible. A large number of shots move horizontally, up and down or back and forth with the foreground. Through editing, combined with a large number of close-ups, the film is dynamic and rhythmic.

5. The angle and position of the camera, with rich jumps to pursue changes, use some extreme angle positions to shoot more.

6. The use of color is subjective and the visual effect is very exciting. It can be said that musical is almost a film type that combines all visual modeling methods of film, such as photography modeling, costume design, lighting modeling, stage setting, late special effects, color matching, and sound modeling languages such as language, music and sound-a film type that perfectly integrates visual and auditory modeling methods.

On the basis of these means, through the combination of actor performance, music and dance, a special form of audio-visual enjoyment is presented to the audience, which is almost the comprehensive crystallization of all film artistic means and film technical means.

Three. Visual convention of war movies

After 1990s, American war films began to take a bloody and real route from shooting techniques and visual effects, showing the grandeur of war scenes and directly expressing the cruelty of war.

Through several excellent films such as Thin Red Line, Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down and hurt locker, we can see the visual convention characteristics of American war films:

1. The overall tone of the film is mostly blue-gray or brownish yellow.

2. The colors of the scenes and costumes are relatively simple, and they are mostly integrated with the big environment.

3. The saturation control is relatively low, which makes the audience feel heavy.

4. The interior mostly adopts the tone effect of large light ratio and large contrast, and the exterior is generally overexposed.

5. A large number of hand-held, shoulder-carried, follow-up movement, lens throwing and small zoom are used to make the picture dynamic and increase the tension of the film.

6. Show some war scenes with high-speed photography.

7. Use foregrounding lenses to create a sense of voyeurism and show a tense atmosphere. Due to the continuous application of these visual conventions and the development of new equipment and technology, the picture atmosphere created by contemporary war films is becoming more and more real. The audience's feelings about these visual conventions are becoming clearer and clearer.

Four. Visual convention of gangster movies

Gangster movies have been one of the most important types of movies in Hollywood since their birth in the 1920s. Tracing back to the source, gangster films are not entertainment films made solely by imagination, but realistic films that filmmakers use artistic means to reflect people's living conditions in real society.

American gangster movies, such as American Gangster, New York Gangster, Road to Destruction, Never Walk, etc., have some similarities in color processing, color tone application, photography and other visual modeling methods:

1. Tone, the film is mainly gray blue or brown, creating an old and dull tone, and the color matching is relatively monotonous.

2. In terms of tone effect, the overall film is mostly low-key, and the characters are mostly treated in a contrasting way. At the same time, the change of tone is used to create the atmosphere of the environment and the psychological changes of the characters' emotions.

3. In shooting techniques, hand-holding, shoulder-carrying, sports photography and other techniques are often used to show a turbulent, depressed and unstable visual effect.

4. Use the lifting lens to express the panorama.

5. Move the lens horizontally to show the atmosphere of the environment.

6. When dealing with some crime scenes, rain, night, smoke and fog are often used to create an atmosphere.

For domestic films, gangster films are basically set in the Republic of China. If we can accurately use the above means, I believe we can create an atmosphere of audience recognition for gangster stories.

Verb (abbreviation of verb) Visual convention of horror movies.

In the past two years, horror movies have set off a wave of box office and public opinion upsurge, which is much higher than other forms of movies, thus forming a new round of peak in horror movie production.

Through Red Mountain, Scream 3, Sunbreaker, Day of the New Dead, Alien vs. Iron Warrior and other films, we can find some rules and techniques of American horror films using pictures to create tension, which is also the visual processing practice of this type of films:

1. Make more use of panoramic view to create an unstable atmosphere.

2. Make use of the scene structure and the horizontal movement of the dark foreground to make the picture jumpy.

3. Local lighting, the large area of the picture is treated as dark tone, and the bright part will not be too bright, which is generally controlled at the exposure point. 4. Use some fast shots to make the scene change obviously and increase the impact, especially some important props.

5. Use a large panoramic lens and move slowly to simulate the subjective sight of a third party.

6. Close-ups and close-ups of people often use overhead and overhead shots, and the characters are appropriately deformed to strengthen the atmosphere.

7. Use cloudy days to shoot, increase the light ratio on sunny days, and choose to shoot at noon to make the projection of people or scenery ugly.

8. Treat some light sources as dynamics, causing turbulence of light and shadow.

9. Some scenes are arranged for abnormal weather, such as night scenes, rainy scenes or strong winds, which are used to create fear in the picture.

10. When the figure is panoramic, try to treat it as a silhouette or semi-silhouette. The background should not be too bright, just two steps higher than the figure.

1 1. Some pictures are deliberately made into negative images, coarse grains, color cast and other special effects to enhance the visual impact.

12. When the character moves, the camera can follow by hand, resulting in unstable effect. The application of these visual conventions will create a good atmosphere of terror.

In recent years, there are obvious signs of the rise of domestic horror films, because many filmmakers favor this type of film with the possibility of "small and wide". However, if the film cannot present the above visual conventions, it will be difficult to bring the audience into a specific situation.

Visual convention of intransitive verb road movies

Road movies have always been one of the most popular movie types in Hollywood. Taking cars as means of transportation, the events that the protagonist encountered and happened along the way triggered a series of contradictions and conflicts. Express the changing process of the protagonist's psychology, emotion, personality and thought with the progress of the journey.

Through several movies such as Wild My Heart, natural born killers, Don't Look Back, Life with a Glass of Wine, etc. We can see that road movies have some characteristics in the use of visual conventions:

1. Most of the natural scenery and landforms along the highway are represented by panoramic and long-range lenses, which are sparsely populated and relatively empty or desolate.

2. There will be a lot of aerial photography or high-angle aerial photography, showing the moving feeling of traveling on the road.

I will use some telephoto lenses to show the distance of the road.

4. Gao Fancha and large light ratio are often used in the location of movies to give the audience a clear effect in tone.

5. Make more use of warm colors and give the audience a warm psychological feeling through the visual tension of colors.

6. It will use the change of weather color temperature to express the atmosphere around the expressway and highlight the mood of the characters at that time.

In the concrete creation of road films, these basic visual conventions must be realized, otherwise it will be difficult to have the special temperament of road films.

Seven. Visual Convention of Youth Movies

Youth film is an American film aimed at a specific group of people. The plot of the film is mainly based on the family life or campus life of teenagers, and the story takes place in groups of students and teachers, or parents and children.

Most of the heroes and heroines in this kind of films are fresh and refined, and some films also draw lessons from other types of characteristics and perform dynamic and wonderful song and dance performances. Through these means, the healthy and upward values conveyed by movies encourage today's teenagers to pursue their dreams. These films can inspire children to imitate, make them like music or dance, be good at a sport, break small groups, try new things without being bound, and dare to show themselves. Therefore, this genre has become a social force, showing great energy, which is why youth inspirational movies are so popular in the United States.

When we watch Juno, Hairspray, Return 17 and other youth films, we can clearly find their similarities and differences in visual routine application.

1. The overall light and shadow effect of the film should be treated as high-profile as possible, giving the audience a clear, relaxed and pleasant feeling.

2. The color of the film is mainly warm (mostly red or reddish brown), which reflects the passion of young people in the film through the tension of color.

3. In color matching, it is mainly based on the matching between primary colors, such as red and blue matching, yellow and green matching, to achieve visual color balance.

4. Close-ups are used a lot, and the impact of the picture is great, which is in line with the habit of young people watching movies.

5. The camera moves frequently, which accords with the characters in the film.

In the creation of youth films, if we can consciously use these visual conventions to achieve better picture effects, it will certainly help the film to form the image characteristics of youth films that the audience is familiar with, and then make the audience like the overall style of the film, which will eventually help the film get the audience's approval.

However, when the film propaganda gives the style and type of the film, the audience has a relative concept of the whole film, that is, is the audience's impression of this type of film a horror film or a musical film, a western film or a gangster film? The audience will not be confused unless there is a problem with the direction of publicity.

After the audience has this judgment, when he enters the cinema, the film must present what he wants, or the style and means of the film he judges. This is a sense of satisfaction, and commercial films must satisfy the audience. However, it is not enough to have satisfaction, but it will also give the audience an accident, surprise them, make them addicted, and then produce psychological hints of value, thus making the film well received.

For example, the recent arrival is a good example.

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