Struggling with perspective in a scene

[BM459]

Dear Roger,

I am shot-listing my first feature film at the moment and am coming up against an interesting conundrum. The film is subjectively told from the point of a teenage girl, and so in desgigning the shots I am trying to depict that subjectivity by shooting scenes roughly from her point of view, ie. favoring her in any scene, shooting intmiate singles of her, and more distant shots of the other characters so we can feel closer to her.

The struggle I’m encountering is that this idea, while achieving my intention of subjectivity, is quite limiting. I keep encountering moments where I feel like a bird’s-eye-view shot of the character, for instance, or an extreme wide, might make for a compelling shot, but I struggle to justify whose POV the shot is from, and so I resist the urge.

I love the cinematography of Ken Loach’s films and I see this sort of rigor and restraint that he and his cinematographers have, but it’s bloody hard to stick to! There’s also just the issue of repetetive cinematography, especially when there’s multiple scenes in the same location. I love playing a whole scene in a wide, but for this film, that feels wrong because the wide shot suggests a third-person POV.

I suppose my question is: do you give yourself strict limitations on every project, and do these limitations cause you to reject the idea of what otherwise might be a “good” shot? Do you think a restriction like the one I’m placing on myself is useful, or unneccisarlily stifling?

Thank you for any advice you can give.

Topic

[Roger Deakins]

I like having an overall concept but rules are always there to be broken. If it feels right it may just well be right.

[Author]

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