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An ill-fated criminal speeds up to a deserted gas station in his Ford Mustang. The attached 24-hour convenient mart blares twangy country music as its only employee behind the counter flips through a “Home & Life” magazine. Swiftly moving through the aisles, the customer finds what he came for and approaches the counter. His demeanor and mannerisms express the need to quickly pay and leave. The clerk warns him of an approaching storm––completely unenthused by his sense of urgency. Astute composition and camera movement in the short film Open 24 Hours by Henry Chaisson of Brown University reflects techniques used in some of the greatest thrillers in cinema. This short film published by OPB’s Film School Shorts shows viewers how vexing one detour can become in a matter of seconds. What makes Open 24 Hours unique is its nod to true suspense with a touch of comedic flair.

Every shot in the opening sequence alludes to a potentially dangerous man with a secret in his trunk. The intro begins with an old Mustang swinging into a vacant gas station; the only source of light outside comes from above the gas pump (0:16). Before the noisy Mustang’s arrival, cricket chirps are the only sign of life.

At (0:27), the wide shot of the car cuts to a medium shot of the subject’s trunk, which is held for five seconds before the camera pans left––focusing attention on the driver’s boots as he steps out of the car. The camera slowly tilts up with high-pitched music becoming increasingly louder to reveal the back of the driver’s head looking up at the empty convenient store. At this point, his face has not been revealed, depicting the subject as mysterious and potentially dangerous.

Secluded location: Big storm. The wide and ultra wide shots of inside the empty market reinforce the sense of isolation we gather in the intro.  As the subject grabs the only two items he came for (rope and duct tape), the camera slowly pans toward the clerk who’s unaware and uninterested in the shopper’s quick arrival to the cash register (1:41).

When the driver says, “no,” to being an “Extra Value” member of the store, the clerk insists on using her card for his purchase. This particular sequence is prolonged to raise the stakes for the man with a mystery in the trunk of his car.

A series of action/reaction shots between the clerk and the criminal create tension in the scene. After scanning the value card, an exorbitant amount of coupons slowly prints at the register as the subject looks on in awe.

Rather than compress time, editors extended the register scene to emphasize the awkward, high tension exchange between killer and clerk.

For viewers, the conflicting expressions between the two allude to an impending climax: we can sense a problematic event looming over our characters in the film. The contents of the man’s car trunk remain a mystery, yet we do know he needs to act fast. His car continues to rock back and forth and coupons continue to print (2:45).

Suspense peaks when a human hand punches through the Mustang’s taillight as we see an arm flailing outside the trunk (3:28).

Gobbling down a donut, a new customer looms over the duct tape and rope the man tries to purchase; he represents small-town law enforcement (4:33). The officer asks: “Special night?”

Realizing the man did not pay for the purchase, the officer chases after him out the door (5:29). The camera focuses on the clerk who comes face-to-face with the temptation to steal money-saving coupons. She eventually scoops up all the “Extra Value” coupons and shoves them in her purse while the bandit, the officer, and the victim chase each other back and forth directly behind our view of the clerk. Oblivious to the impending gunshots, the short ends with a boisterous maniacal laugh.

“You naughty thing, you!”

This Film School Short uses a variety of techniques to exude tension and suspense. In addition to the composition of action/reaction shots in Open 24 Hours, the casting and lighting play significant roles in the overall feel of the film. The coolness of the color palette and the strategic sound effects alluded to the idea that the main character was indeed a killer.

Onscreen, the filmmakers depict the odd exchange between characters in a way that provokes comedic relief while still maintaining its initial feel of impending doom. I find that the most entertaining thrillers have an absurd or comedic air about them as we can see in Open 24 Hours. In just seven minutes, the film evokes a variety of emotions and leaves the viewer postulating the ending. After all, we still don’t know who was shot. We only know that the clerk went home with a purse-full of stolen coupons, which producers placed emphasis on instead of the chase outside. This quirky ending seals the deal for me: indeed funny and suspenseful.

Upstate Purgatory (2016) from Lee Phillips on Vimeo.

The 19-minute documentary Upstate Purgatory uses a noticeable amount of slow motion as Lee Phillips tells the story of four inmates in the Albany County Jail in New York. According make to ShortoftheWeek, Phillips made this documentary using footage that didn’t the cut in a much larger, two-part series that first aired in Britain.

I’m choosing to write about slow motion because as a new student to documentaries, I noticed that Phillips used a lot of the effect to tell the inmate stories. I’ve mostly thought of slow motion as a way to see detail in something that moves too fast for the naked eye, such as a bullet leaving its gun or a large explosion as a hero slowly walks away in a Hollywood movie.

In Upstate Purgatory, using slow motion with a voice-over the images made me feel, in most cases, as if I was inside the mind of the inmate. My case for this argument begins at the 5:41 mark as the viewer listens to Lorenzo, a gang member who admits to killing people.

The beginning of the sequences begins with positive motion in the frame as Phillips pushes the camera toward a gated jail door with a deputy behind. The deputy unlocks the door in slow motion and opens it toward the camera. Meanwhile, the camera moves around the door and toward the deputy’s hand.

It almost feels dreamlike as you begin hear Lorenzo’s voice. The inmate describes what he feels as he smells blood and the rush he feels. Phillips cuts to an interview scene with a medium shot of Lorenzo left of the center screen.

The lighting creates a deep shadow on the camera side of his face, and I believe there may be a light pointed toward the wall behind him. Phillips uses a narrow depth of field to blur the background. It’s the only shot played with a normal speed.

Phillips then cuts to a tight shot of Lorenzo’s face, though you can tell it’s a different background because he’s shirtless.

In slow motion, he appears to be spinning slowly with a blank gaze into nothing, occasionally staring directly into the camera. You can tell he’s spinning by the occasional moving shadow on the wall behind him.

The slow motion made me almost believe that’s the face he made while killing the other human being. It’s chilling every time I watch.

The viewer hears him describe a conversation he had with a dying man. Phillips cuts back to the interview shot where you see Lorenzo, who says he remembers telling his victim to “Just let it go. I’ve over man. Just let it go. ”

He cuts back to a super tight shot of Lorenzo’s eyes, a tattooed tear drop under his left eye while he describes the body turning into a shell. Great detail.

He cuts back and says he can tell when he takes away a soul. “And then that’s it.”

Another cut to a tight shot of Lorenzo’s fingers intertwined on his lap for a few seconds before cutting back to the interview shot. The killer attempts to justify to the viewer that he never hurt anyone that wasn’t trying to hurt him or who wasn’t in the “lifestyle.”

His films are so visually stunning; I’m a big fan of director Alejandro Iñárritu. I wanted to share this narrated clip from one of his most recent productions, The Revenant, because this scene is so artfully and skillfully done, and it inspires me. When we talk about “the gap,” his films are up on the ceiling of my gap, where my tastes are, but for now I’m on the ground floor looking up aspirationally.

Take a look at this:

This clip is already narrated and broken down by Iñárritu, and it’s really exciting to listen to him put the scene into context and then watch the whole movie with an insightful mind and eye. This article featuring cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki gives me goosebumps thinking about how integral the use of natural light was in visualizing the “constant transformation of nature” throughout the film, and how his choice in camera allowed for scenes at dawn and dusk to be captured cleanly or without grain. In this particular clip we can definitely see light similar to what we experience here in Portland, soft light, as a result of the cloudy atmosphere.

I can’t do a better job than these two professionals pointing out the intricate dialogue of the visual language going on here, but to further illustrate the vocabulary I’m learning I want to point out one of my favorite techniques used in the first take: We can see negative motion within the frame between 1:29 and 1:37, meaning that the subject, Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) moves further away from the camera, becoming smaller and smaller in the shot as the river carries him away. The aerial shot is magnificent, but equally amazing is the way the sound of the river was captured and synched with the visual of the river “transporting” the hero away to safety. Continue reading Anatomy of A Scene: The Revenant

In order to tell a compelling story, filmmakers are charged with the task of compressing time to make an unrealistic chronology seem natural. Using visual match-cuts and crossfades, filmmakers and film editors use a visual code to guide the viewer from one moment in space and time to another, disjointed moment. But there are times when films need to feel as true-to-life and as real as possible; times when the audience must see the action exactly as it is happening. In spite of its occasional heavy-handedness, directors and editors opt for the long take or “slow cutting” to show things happening in real time.

Most film fans are familiar with long takes. They can be seen in hallway shots in the TV show “The West Wing”, in John Woo films, and in Alfred Hitchcock’s film “Rope”. Long takes are often used for action sequences (which is precisely why directors like Woo and Quentin Tarantino love them), or to give the viewer a much more in-depth sense of the space and geography of the film’s setting. They provide very little relief from the tedium of an action, the fear of a situation, or the emotion of a character. The 1992 documentary “My Brother’s Keeper”, which follows three reclusive brothers while one of them is on trial for the murder of a fourth brother, uses a long take to illustrate all three of these moments.
While interviewing Lyman Ward (one of the brothers in the film), the filmmakers ask why he seems nervous (near the 7:30 mark of the documentary). Ward responds that he is always nervous and has been that way since he was young. He starts to edge away from the film crew while continuing to answer questions. He gets increasingly anxious and begins walking toward the dilapidated home he shares with his brothers. The filmmakers do not cut the film.

All told, this scene lasts for around two minutes and seven seconds. It shows the lengths to which Ward will go to escape his nervousness. Because so much of this scene is spent following Ward wordlessly, his desperation to be alone is clear. The shot also gives the viewer a strong scene of setting. The tractors, old cars, weeds, and broken door—all grouped together in a single take—give the audience an unbroken taste of the squalor in which the Ward brothers were living.

Even though long takes are used for very different reasons in different kinds of films, they always insist that the viewer must be acutely aware of the action of the scene. Most long takes are tracking shots that give the viewer some clue about the character’s actions and his or her place in the larger setting. Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film “A Clockwork Orange” has a famous long take scene wherein Alex is walking through the music store. There are two long takes in this scene, the first is a tracking shot that lasts for one minute and the second is a static shot that lasts for one minute and nine seconds in which Alex is framed by two women

Quentin Tarantino also uses a long take in his 2003 film “Kill Bill: Volume 1” to show the interplay between all of the characters in a huge space.

Long shots are very easy to overuse. But they work wonderfully if there is a specific goal that they achieve. They force the viewer to stay in a moment and experience its lingering emotion. And when the director finally says, “cut”, the relief is palpable.