This is a continuation of last week's post about composition. Every time I look at films like this one I notice new things. Here are some more of my observations. Feel free to discuss in the comments section...
A combination of flat and deep space; the doorframe providing the flat space as well as framing what's inside. The door is angled perfectly to shoot your eye right at the mouse habiat in the background.
Also a combination of flat and deep space; the foreground elements of the table, computer, phones, lamp, coffee maker and the punching bag are all pretty much flat, and again are framing the deep space. The coffee maker and lamp are framing Chas. Although he is very small in the frame, those elements focus the eye on him (Chas' posture is a diagonal, one of the strongest ones in the shot).
Great shot; you can see 11 individual faces here, but two are important (Royal and Margot). Royal is the largest whole figure in the shot; Margot is the smallest figure; two extremes that draw the eye to them. Margot is smack dab in the middle of the shot, framed by the other characters, and if that's not enough, she's looking right into the camera lens. A diagonal of perspecting heads takes the eye from Royal to Margot. No confusion on where to look here!
All flat elements in this shot...not one diagonal here; great arrangement of shapes.
3 comments:
excellent analysis again. great examples and overview of the concept, these guys have such an eye for composition and a strong style too.
All those shots are beautiful, I especially love the Library, Glove and Paltrow shots. great use of flat colours and shapes to divide up the frames - contrasted with pattern/texture (eg. Paltrow shot with plants in the background) and well placed diagonals.
great stuff.the trick ofcourse is to develop a process that gets you to these results.
Thanks Rafi -- Andersen is really great. He gets so much out of compsitions that are essentially flat. Whenever I try to draw flat compositions, they look like I said in the post below...flat.
I hope to put up more examples of Wes' stuff soon.
faI just found your blog after hearing the interview with you and Mark Andrews on the animation podcast. I love your analysis of film (instead of constantly talking animation) and really happy that you pick my favourite director to discuss. Wes Anderson is incredible, I'd like to know what you think about The Life Aquatic... generally and specifically in terms of composition as you've discussed here. I've thought that Anderson got better with every film and, in fact, The Life Aquatic is a permanent fixture in my top 5 films but recently (after watching them about 30 times) I'm starting to think that The Royal Tenenbaums is probably better (or stronger) as a story. The Life Aquatic is just so beautiful-looking that I think that's what makes it my favourite, trying to be objective about would probably mean conceding that TRT is a stronger film. I don't know.
You say you've tried boarding with flat compositions but I think two things are important there. The first is that I bet if you copied these stills (traced over them), it would look flat just by the nature of drawing. He constructs flat sets and horizontal compositions but light and other atmospheric interference will inevitably add some depth. Another half-assed theory is that you've picked Anderson's flattest compositions as examples but in the film not every shot is composed like that, the flat shots feel flat usually because surrounding shots have a little bit more diagonals and parallax from camera movement. That's just what I think.
I really look forward to reading more of your thoughts on staging and story-telling.
thanks
-Ciaran
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