At the end of last summer I started a regular #ShotOfTheWeek on my Twitter feed. It’s very simple: each week I post a frame grab (or sometimes a GIF if I can find one) of a great shot from a film or series I’ve been watching. Sometimes these are new productions, just out, and sometimes they’re older pieces which I’m revisiting or viewing for the first time.

For those of you who aren’t among the Twitterati, here is a round-up of last year’s Shots of the Week. On the other hand, if you are a Twitterist, why not post your own inspirational frame grabs, using the hashtag #ShotOfTheWeek?

 

Powerful Close-ups

Cinema is arguably at its most potent  when showing us the tiny nuances of emotion that only a big close-up can provide.

This example from the moving Netflix series Anne with an E makes the most of Anne’s freckled face and puts us right in her headspace… literally. Shots like this were captured with a 27mm Primo, as opposed to the vintage Panavision glass used for other coverage. For more on the cinematography of Anne with an E, check out the Varicam section in my report from Camerimage 2017.

I love the shadows in this shot by legendary DP Jack Cardiff; they almost suggest a crucifix or prison bars. Either would be appropriate for this story of a nun sent to a remote Indian palace to establish a school and hospital. The low-angle eye-light adds to the unsettling feel.

The key promotional art for The Crown is an edge-lit profile shot of the Queen, evoking the regal image on stamps and coins. Here DP Stuart Howell has paid homage to the artwork, channelling the same connotations of a figurehead carrying a country on her shoulders.

What can I say? I’m a sucker for a good profile shot. The hellish colours here are perfect given what the erstwhile Lovejoy has just done. (I won’t give you any spoilers, but let’s just say it doesn’t involve cheeky antiques dealing.)

 

Symbolism

This was the shot that inspired me to start #ShotOfTheWeek. The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a Christian fundamentalist society, so evoking classical religious paintings with the angel-wing-like headboard and the muted, brown colour scheme was a clever move.

This classic spy thriller has a lot of unusual compositions with domineering foreground objects. Here the cross and circle shapes of the light-shade suggest the crosshairs of a gun, while the bulb tastefully obscures the actual bullet wound.

This one is almost too on-the-nose to be called symbolism. Only a drama as quirky as Mr Robot could get away with this kind of (literal) signposting, but I love how bold it is. The rigid geometric lines and excessive headroom used throughout the series are also in evidence here, reflecting how we’re seeing everything from Elliot’s mentally ill point of view.

 

Negative Space

A forgettable film, but a shot with much to admire. The dark back of the bench creates negative space in the composition, reducing the already-wide Scope frame to a ratio of about 4:1, echoing the short, wide shape of the House of Commons. On the lighting front, negative fill has been employed to render both that bench and the cast very dark, almost silhouettes, imparting a lot of depth to an otherwise flat image.

Again, negative space here creates a geometrical frame within a frame. What I particularly liked was the placement of the bulb above the sheriff’s head, rather than on the right of frame, which would have produced a more balanced but much less interesting shot.

Every time Better Call Saul returned to this location I scanned the background of each angle, trying to figure out what on earth could be motivating the bold slash of light on the right of this image. It remains a mystery! The show is full of uncompromisingly dark images with crisp, pure blacks, but perhaps none so overtly noirish as this one.

 

Intersecting Lines

All credit to Otto Hunte, the production designer on this 1920s sci-fi classic, as every line in this set leads us to the figure of Maria, fittingly for a character who has captured the imaginations of the dystopian underclass. The cinematographers have helped by framing her centrally and making her the brightest part of the image.

Jardin d’hiver was sponsored by CW Sonderoptic to promote their new large-format Leica Thalia glass (see my Camerimage post for more info). I have to admit that most of the film’s imagery did nothing for me, but this shot of bold, contrasty lines softened by the milkiness of the foreground window has a graphical quality I find very appealing.

This is a shot of two halves: the upper half busy, confused and oppressive, the lower half reassuringly simple with its one-point perspective. It was only after filming wrapped on Above the Clouds that I realised just how much this shot and others like it in Little Miss Sunshine had influenced my cinematography of Leon Chambers’ comedy road movie. (Check out the second still on the Above the Clouds page and you’ll see what I mean!)

 

Iconic Reveals

“The 39 Steps” (1935) DP: Bernard Knowles

Richard Hannay and the audience both discover the cause of Annabella’s distress simultaneously, in a reveal that’s shocking and also funny! The chiaroscuro of the lighting beautifully highlights the bright knife against the deep shadows of the background.

“Terminator 2: Judgment Day” DP: Adam Greenberg

These two gifs are both parts of the same shot, which cranes up from the shockingly unexpected crushing of the skull to reveal the endoskeleton puppet in mid-shot as a perfectly timed explosion goes off in the background. As well as being a remarkable technical achievement, the arts and sciences of cinematography, practical effects and animatronics all working in harmony, it’s a great piece of visual storytelling.

 

And finally…

A Ghost Story didn’t get a very wide release, and won’t be to everyone’s taste. A lyrical meditation on the nature of time, its slow pace becomes glacial during a grief-filled, ten-minute pie-eating scene containing only one cut. There is plenty of time to consider the composition, and I loved how casually the ghost is placed within the frame, with the top of his head even cut off. (I later discovered he was composited in, to reduce the chances of anything spoiling the ultra-long, ultra-emotional take.) The lines of the cupboards lead our eyes always back to Rooney Mara, the painterly splash of light on the wall (which I believe was natural) throwing her profile into relief. When she starts to cry, it takes a while to spot the tears, but somehow that makes it all the more powerful.

It’s interesting to note that no fewer than four aspect ratios are represented by all these Shots of the Week: from the traditional Academy ratio of 4:3, through the standard 16:9, to the Netflix-favoured 2:1 and of course 2.39:1 Cinemascope. It’s an exciting time to be working in cinematography, when we have so many choices open to us to create the most fitting images for any given story. Here’s to many more inspiring #ShotOfTheWeek images in 2018. Follow me on Twitter to see them first!