Composition and Symmetry

[domudell]

Hi Roger,

I’ve been thinking a lot about the way you compose. Specifically your wide interior shots. It seems that most of them don’t adhere the symmetry within a room. You’re not aligning to the walls and the camera is often not perfectly level either. The shot below from Sicario is something I think about probably on a weekly basis. This is something I’ve in compositions across your other films as well.

My question being, are you consciously avoiding strict symmetry when composing? What is your thought process/intent when doing so?

I know you’ve mentioned you compose a lot by feel. I was also at your Q&A in Chicago a few weeks ago and you talked about Harry Gruyaert and Alex Webb as artists you admire. (I’m also a huge fan of the Magnum Collective)

Your frames have a really great journalistic quality to them and I can feel the inspiration from still photography. It’s as if you happened to point your camera from your hip at just the right time. To me it all feels very instinctual in a way.

I’m always thinking about this in my work and you’re a constant reference for me when it comes to composition. I’ve just always been curious of the thought behind it.

Thanks,
Dom

Topic

[dmullenasc]

I don’t believe in compositional rules per se, but I try to avoid being just slightly angled on a flat wall — either I want to be flat to it, or obviously angled to it was a diagonal line effect.

[dmullenasc]

“For a diagonal line effect” I meant — still cannot edit my posts on this site!

[domudell]

Yeah I feel being flat or on a 45 degree diagonal to a room feels very “graphic novel” in my mind’s eye. Or even Kubrickian, which I love in a lot of instances. To me it’s a much “tighter” composition.

Sidenote: I recently bought DVDs of Northfork, Jackpot and Twin Falls Idaho. Jackpot is an underrated indie and Jon Gries is so great in it. Northfork is so delightfully strange and visually impressive. You designed a great look for that one.

[Roger Deakins]

I believe the camera was level in that yellow room. Maybe a mistake! I really compose instinctively. On ‘Kundun’ I was aware that Marty wanted the shots to be quite formal, and I have conversations about the overall approach with any director, but, for the most part, the composition is usually arrived at instinctively on the day.

[domudell]

Ha! I quite like it when it’s a few degrees from level (or it appears to be because of the angle to the room). I shot my second feature this summer and was playing with that and finding it just felt right for much of the story.

And formal was the word I was looking for earlier. That’d a great way to describe it. Now I think I might watch Kundun this weekend…

[Stip]

I started with documentary and that taught me to operate on instincts. I believe Roger did lots of documentary early on, his instinct for putting the audience where it needs to be is second to none in my opinion. The shot above is no exception.

[James Parsons]

I’m part way through an indie project where I’ve set a bit of a compositional rulebook for myself. I’m center punching subjects as much as humanly possible, being extra careful to be at right angles to whatever the dominant elements in the background are, finding symmetries wherever I can. Trying to put a little formal distance on the story, maybe make it a bit presentational. Then there’s a handful of shots and a couple of specific scenes where I’m breaking those strictures, and hopefully it’s gonna be seamless for the audience, but they’ll feel the shift maybe before they can name it.

I think the frame you share above is typical of Mr. Deakins, perfectly in control and precise without being the least bit regimented. The horizon is perfectly level, of course, and he’s almost but not quite centered up in the squared off room. There’s no mathematical formula to the offset angle, like shifting all the way over to be 45* to the room. Instead it’s near enough to squared off that it still conveys the strictness and formality of the interrogation. Far enough to feel the empty space and isolation of the prisoner, no help is coming, and to be overwhelmed by the queasy oppressive yellow.

If the prisoner is perfectly centered by bringing the camera left, then the interrogators are pushed too far to the edge of the frame, no longer drawing attention and demonstrating command of the room. If the camera goes right, then the interrogators end don’t have enough space to maneuver without overlapping with the prisoner, muddying the separation between the opposing forces before they’re ready to engage. I take Mr. Deakins at his word that (assuming my interpretations are reasonable) that he probably isn’t consciously debating any of those effects either to himself or aloud. The camera just feels right in one spot and wrong everywhere else.

[Roger Deakins]

I really don’t consciously think about ‘composition’ when I am composing. Not in any theoretical way, that is. Of course, you think about the lens you have on and whether the shot would be wider and closer or further away on a slightly longer lens. You lean your body to the right or left when your intuition tells you there may be something better from a slightly different angle, but its not like I am analyzing why I am doing that. I lean my body and use my eyes.

[Author]

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