Camera angles (was: Random thoughts about the movie, etc. -- Cuaron)

[Nik Anderson]

Ginny Powell wrote:

>I felt CC used the camera in "creative ways" to avoid showing the  
>kids standing next to the adults.  Why?  Because they were taller  
>than many of them!  Or at least of a comparable height, and since  
>often the scene depends on the adult looking down and oozing  
>authority, this is important.  It is also necessary in scenes with  
>Hagrid, since Coltrane isn't nearly as tall as Hagrid is supposed to  
>be.  CC had already established the use of weird angles to try to  
>make him look taller in PS/SS.


If Columbus was that concerned about the actors' height and making it convincing for the audience, he could have still done it without being boring. Look at Lord of the Rings - none of the actors in that are the right height for their character but the filmmakers went to the effort to come up with ways around it while still allowing for beautifully crafted cinematography. If CC avoided shooting from certain angles or heights just to avoid showing how tall the kids were, then I think that's plain laziness. But of course, I don't mean to bag him completely, there could have been other reasons for his and the DOP's choice of angles etc.

I think at times the angles and position of the camera were constructed, as the dialogue often was, in an expositional way. For example, Lucius is evil, so of course we have to show him glaring evilly in extreme close up with his face hidden in shadow, just in case you hadn't realised how nasty he was yet. They might as well have had foreboding Phantom of the Opera organ music playing in the background too. It's those sort of cliches that ruin Columbus' work, with a performance as strong as Jason Isaacs' it just isn't necessary. I'm sure there are other examples but I can't recall right now, maybe the zooming in on Malfoy Jnr every time he's about to obviously insult one of them, could also go under that heading.


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