The Joy of Cutaways

Yesterday, we explored the world of documentary and commercial filmmaking by seeking an exercise in the use of cutaways.

Regarding the storytelling elements we learned and exercised so far, we never consciously used or strived for the shy cutaway, which, as I quickly learned, is a grave mistake to make. For the cutaway serves many purposes:

Depending on its use, a cutaway (like a close up of an action or an object within a film) can literally invite the audience into the cinematic world, since it is able to fashion a more detailed and closer image of important actions and objects and can give the impression of surrounding the viewer and enclosing him not only within this world but also in the story itself.

As a storytelling tool it can also serve to foreshadow an action, a character or an object to come and thus create strong anticipation and expectation of the plot. It may also serve to mislead or distract the viewer in his expectations of what is to come, or simply create a fuller picture of what is actually happening.

So in order to consciously practice including the cutaway in our shots, we started a project in which we would film the development of a set construction for an episode of the upcoming Doctor Who-season.

After the necessary organisation and paperwork was done, we ventured into taking wide shots and cutaways of the place where the initial designing took place. Since we were on a short time schedule and only had limited crew capacity, we opted for taking out a monopod on the first day to be quicker and more flexible in our pursuit.

And while this might have been an amiable thought, it did not take long to demonstrate that we failed miserably.

For it was not only extremely difficult to capture steady images on a monopod, it also turned out to be more time consuming since we needed a lot of more retakes in the hope that we would capture better footage. And in the end, rewatching the footage on the display of our Panasonic camera, we were pretty happy with the result, even though it felt impractical.

Until we rewatched the footage later on a bigger screen and realised how unfocused and unsteady everything was. Frustrated, I decided to take out a tripod for the next day. And to never trust LCD-displays again.

So today, we set out to the sound stage to redeem what we have done and took out a tripod. Together and taking turns each, Adam M., Craig, Chloe G., Katie, Lynley, and I took footage of the actual set construction.

We started off filming a wide shot to capture the entire location and establish where each of the craftsmen were working at. Deploying camera movements, we gradually moved closer, adding pans and tilts not only to exercise them but to give the footage a more cinematic feel.

Finally, we moved close enough to capture close ups and cutaways of set elements and props, before we backed out again, trying to capture short interviews and comments by the set designers to transition from the purely commercial style into a minor construction documentary. This posed to be a difficult endeavour since people around us were constantly working in a sound stage that was not yet soundproof, thus creating a lot of background noise that we could not really block out due to echoes.

However, we tried our best to get the mic as close to the interviewees as possible and when we finished the interviews, we again went around the set, seeking for unusual but thankful impressions and perspectives and including even more cutaways of details to try and find or create something like a subnarrative with the multipurpose tool that is the cutaway.