Each volume of Master Shots contains hundreds of simple yet effective techniques to help film school students execute compelling shots and dialogue. Kenworthy illustrates how to construct essential setups with simple diagrams for directors of all levels. You can purchase his book here.
MasterShots Vol 1: 100 Advanced Camera Techniques to Get an Expensive Look on Your LowBudget Movie: 100 Advanced Camera Techniques to Get an Expensive Look on Your Low-Budget Movie - Kindle edition by Kenworthy, Christopher. Humor & Entertainment Kin
MasterShots Vol 1: 100 Advanced Camera Techniques to Get an Expensive Look on Your LowBudget Movie: 100 Advanced Camera Techniques to Get an Expensive Look on Your Low-Budget Movie - Kindle edition by Kenworthy, Christopher. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or...
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Alexa Pellegrini for FilmSchool.org sat down with Chris Kenworthy to discuss theories and best practices outlined in Master Shots, tips for student directors on a budget, and how to execute top-notch camerawork.
CK: I'm self-taught. I had been making films as a minor hobby since I was seven or eight years old with my dad's eight-millimeter film camera. From those experiences, I learned that you need a story. If I had planned to go film school, I feel I should have done it when I was younger.
Film school is great if you find the best one for you, but there's also no substitute for shooting, even if you go to one.
Do you have advice for new directors trying to fund their films?
CK: I have three answers for this.
The first one: don't wait for the money. If you've got an iPhone, you can practice shooting. Technically, I don't think you should shoot with a phone. It's one set focal length and you won't learn a lot from it. But you can get hold of an older digital SLR camera for peanuts.
Second, don't wait for the perfect script, the perfect time, or the perfect anything to seek funding. It's amazing how powerful just asking people for money is. My first film was going to be five minutes but ended up stretching into 45 minutes. The film was about airplanes, [...] so I went around to local flying schools and said, "If you give us $1,000 each, we're going to be able to make this film." In a few weeks, we had the money to get a camera, lights, and volunteers.
What are your essential tips for student directors?
CK: What I said about practicing and not waiting for the perfect time is the main one. I've met so many would-be directors -- five years ago, I knew someone who said he had wanted to be a director since high school. He went to film school and somehow, he got through without making a film. Now, several years have passed and he's still never shot anything. That’s a whole decade of talking about it without seeing if he can shoot the most basic thing.
You don't even have to shoot a whole film. If you have no script, shoot a scene or something technical. For example, filming three people coming into a room and starting a conversation sounds easy, but it's challenging. Once you go into the room, you'll think, "OK, this is our space -- but wait, that's not quite how I want it. That's where the door is, so where are we going to have them stand that looks interesting? Will they move or stay in the same spot?"
If you had actually shot the scene, you would have realized it's very hard. And if you don't master these essentials, you'll end up incredibly average and mostly shooting coverage. It's not always bad to shoot coverage. But the worst thing that can happen is that [...] your scene looks like it's from a soap opera.
You need to have a style and an idea of how you want [the scene] to look. You might go, "I'll stick the camera on a tripod here," or "maybe it'll look better at the top of the stairs looking down on the actors." If you don't try different things, you'll end up feeling disappointed in yourself very, very quickly.
This last one is my favorite: get a script for a film you've never seen and decide how you would direct it. If you don't have time for the whole script, "shoot" the first five pages. One good film to do this exercise with is Magnolia because the script is dead on the page. It's a classic, but when you read it you'll probably say, "How was this ever greenlit? It's pretty boring."
But then you watch the film, and the camera flies around, and the conversations are amazingly alive. While you watch, ask yourself, "In my imagination, where did I do better, where was I just right, and where could I have improved?"
CK: It's partly about wanting to be as good as you can. The worst situation is arriving onset [...] and being so super professional that all you prioritize is meeting the clock and getting your shots.
I'll put it this way: when I made [The Sculptor], I was also the producer, and that meant my priority was to hit the budget every day. As a director, that should not be the case. All the time I was thinking about meeting budget, hitting the deadlines, [...] and not making everybody stay an hour longer when somebody else should have been fighting that battle.
To make the most of your time, you need to want to make the most of your time. Trust the heads of departments. Here's a real-life example: someone would bring props for me to review constantly, and I got to the point where I could trust them and say, 'Just get that sorted out.' Because you'll end up answering thousands of questions [...] when many of them can be answered for you.
In those first two minutes at the beginning of the day, everybody wants to know the plan. You don't want to storyboard every last blink, but the better equipped you are [...] the more time you'll have. If you walk in and know hundreds of different shots that can work with, you won't shoot coverage. You won't feel stuck. But if you change your mind halfway through the day, you'll upset a lot of people.
When is it appropriate to ad-lib a shot?
CK: It's good to [...] imagine everything. But how you imagine it is often better than what your equipment can do. In your mind, your camera may be floating in beautifully, but it won't be like that when you shoot.
The best example of this is a key moment in my feature film. It was for one [scene] that I had storyboarded and imagined the most, but when I got there, the crew had already lit the set and put up walls where I wanted the camera to be. I couldn't argue and change it or we would be a day behind. It was one of those situations where I should have made it clear that this was an important day. But we were working in a risky environment — it was someone else's property with delicate sculptures all over the room, and we were shooting an action sequence.
I had to regroup and say, "OK, what did I want to achieve, and how can I do it in this smaller space?" The more you pre-visualize, the easier it is to figure it out. Having a tighter set than planned can be great because you need to be as creative as possible.
How do you avoid conflicts among crew members or actors from bleeding into the story?
CK: I love actors. I come from a theater background. It helps if you like them and understand [...] that if they're acting very aggressive, they're terrified. But the biggest problem you'll come across is that something in the script you've long forgotten is something that actors will cling to.
For example, you'll see the character's name, and then underneath that in parentheses, it might say "aggressively" for their line. You may have long ago decided that their line won't be [said] aggressively, but the actor will have had that in their mind when you direct them. It's worthwhile to go through the script and figure out their preconceptions so you can easily problem-solve.
You can also have actors struggle to deliver their lines how you want them. I once had an actor whispering a role that I wanted to be a strong character. I felt a bit like George Lucas going, "Come on, louder, louder!" but that wasn't working. In the end, I had to say, "OK, speak as though you're shouting to somebody on the other side of the building, like a clown. Do it for the other actor." That trick always works — telling them to do it for the other actor. And then he finally spoke in a normal voice.
But the worst problem is when actors use the "Oh, my character wouldn't say that" argument, which does happen. I've even had actors rewrite a scene. That's where you have to be firm and say no.
Can you explain the difference between drab camerawork vs. dynamic camerawork?
CK: The camera doesn't even need to move for the shot to be dynamic. For example, there's an episode of The Walking Dead with a sequence where a car pulls up, and three characters get out and talk. It's one of those [scenes] where you go, "Oh, that's easy." But easy can be boring — you shoot the car and the close-ups and it looks dull.
Instead, the director had everyone stand in a totally unrealistic triangle in front of the camera. Nobody stands like that, but it looks so fantastic that you don't blink. Then one of the characters walks off, and the other two assume a slightly different position. Just by shuffling the X around, you’ve only had one camera capturing them and it looks great. You don't need dollies and cranes; you just need to ask yourself, "How am I going to make this appealing?"
Also, I often say to watch everything with the sound switched off. If it's a good film, the camerawork alone will tell the story. Ridley Scott's Prometheus was a widely hated film, but I watched it the other day [...] with the sound off and it’s excellent. You can watch it without knowing a line of dialogue, and the story is still as clear as day.
Do you have tips for a new director concerned about how their first film might be received, or what to do if it performs poorly on the festival circuit?
CK: You're trying to impress people who will give you money, and you're trying to make the audience enjoy it. But if you're seeking likes, making films is torturous. Especially when you show your film to family, friends, and other students [...] and the comments are downright cruel. You might spend six months on a project for someone to say, "I saw that cup in the background move from one spot to another in that scene."
You still need to put your work out there and be open to feedback. You should be making the films because you're trying to get better at telling stories, not because you're seeking praise. Even when you're Ridley Scott making Prometheus, tens of thousands of people will say you messed it up, but he's still making films.
What basic shots should a new director focus on mastering?
CK: It comes back to dialogue. In Master Shots [Volume 2], I explain that a director can think that a wide shot where everyone stands around and talks is enough. You might also see people talking as they walk down a corridor, but that's better for TV than films.
Unless you're shooting an action movie, most of your film is probably dialogue. So, if most scenes are just over-the-shoulder shots, it starts looking more like an interview. Dialogue shots aren't the most basic, but they're the most required.
CK: It depends on how you're doing it. There are so many times where traveling with your subject is following them walking and talking — it's functional. But you can also keep the character identically framed so you stay the same distance, and no matter how much they run around a landscape, you keep them in the same position in the frame.
If a character is slap bang in the middle of the frame and you follow them, it's terrifying. You don't know where you're heading — you're going backward in an awful space, and you're experiencing their fear. You travel with them psychologically.
There are a million other ways to use this technique as well. But if you frame the actor in the same position and move at the same speed as them, we tend to empathize with them. You can even do that in a group scene or to establish an introduction
In what ways does camerawork help generate convincing dialogue?
CK: To start, it's about assessing the level of intimacy. For example, if you're shooting two people fighting, someone is very intimate with someone they don't want to be. Using a longer lens and crushing them into the frame can be frightening. On the other hand, shooting a film from way back is great to show that no one is coming to help.
You need to assess [...] the space. Are you in a massive environment or a very enclosed environment? What do you want to be here? Are [the characters] in conflict? And yes, there will always be a conflict, even if it's just one person wanting a slightly different thing than the other. Otherwise, it's not a scene.
You can also show so much by filming your characters' movements. If you place your camera down and have one person sitting very still while the other person is moving around the room, you're already telling a story without doing anything clever.
There’s a sequence from Schindler's List that comes to mind. At first, I thought it was a complex setup when in fact, the camera just moves forward on a dolly, turns a bit, moves backward, and moves forward again. Anyone can do this — you can even do it with a handheld camera. It was all about the staging of the actors and moving them closer and further from the camera. No complicated cuts, just simple moves.
How can directors effectively film car scenes, especially if they're on a budget?
CK: First, you should consider if shooting in a car is even necessary. Driving limits how well you can see everyone's faces. I also think that shooting your actors from either side as they're driving is a mistake. You should never make the audience nervous. Whenever a driver isn't looking where they're going, I stop listening to them. Don't do that!
In my feature film, we had a sequence of the characters driving out to the countryside. There was only one scene where they needed to talk in the car because [...] somebody strange was approaching, so they had a conversation. The simplest thing for us was keeping the car stationary as they spoke. That's much better than having cameras hanging off the back of a truck and following them as they're talking and driving. Money vanishes when you do that.
How can a director make the environment in their film feel realistic?
CK: It's difficult. Most directors shoot wide, go in close, but then you've kind of lost the [...] location. So, it's helpful to ask, "What does the location mean to the characters? What are they feeling here?"
One good example of this is Lost in Translation. There's a scene where [Bill Murray] is in a nightclub, and he wants to leave. It's his acting that sells the space. We experience his discomfort because he's sitting in a really uncomfortable way. If we just had lots of wide shots of a horrible nightclub, that's not as interesting as watching Bill suffer in it.
Let's go back to old TV, too — Dawson's Creek. Many of the scenes were shot in Dawson's bedroom, which was a friendly and happy place. They made the viewer comfortable in it episode after episode -- until there was an argument. You can set up expectations and break them by changing the atmosphere of the space, especially in television. It's a bit different for a film.
How does lighting help the director guide the viewer's attention?
CK: One of the best ways to learn about lighting is to shoot something in black and white -- if it's unlit, you won't see it. It depends on your camera, but if it's easy to switch it to black and white, have a look and see if the picture vanishes. Look at the level of depth and what's popping out and what isn't.
But in terms of the lighting itself, it's not the director's job. But it is the director's job to get that out of their cinematographer. To shoot three-dimensionally, you need a foreground, mid-ground, and background. The lighting should be modeling the shapes and guiding the viewer's attention. You want the metaphorical spotlight on the main character, and sometimes you can do that by just throwing the background slightly out of focus.
What are some camerawork mistakes that student directors often make?
CK: The most basic mistake is knowing nothing about your lens. The second mistake is thinking that the lens can substitute movement. For example, the worst thing you can do as a director is go, "All right, I'm not moving the actors over there — I'll use a long lens to get closer." Determine your distance, know what you want in the frame, and then choose the lens that works for that.
Close-ups aren’t always going to use long lenses. They can use wide lenses because that makes everything look a bit strange — it just depends on the effect you want. Likewise, landscapes aren't always shot with a wide lens; a narrow, long lens can work to show just a slice of the environment.
You know, I say to people, "If you do nothing else, [...] at least shoot two people in a room where one walks up to the other with all the lenses you've got." When it's a wide lens, you'll see people move differently. When it's a long lens, people don't appear to move at all. So, if you're shooting them running, it would look like nothing was happening, but that might be what you want.
The third one is always shooting at head height. What about shooting from the ceiling? If you shot three people in the triangle formation six feet up that we talked about earlier from The Walking Dead, it's going to look more engaging. Instead of looking over their shoulders, the characters look up at the sky. We can see all their faces.
The fourth one is don't be stylish just for the sake of it. Always use a lens and a shot that help tell your story.
CK: In the film industry, we tend to use the Hitchcock definition, which is that the audience knows something that the main character doesn't. That creates suspense. But it can also be the other way around, where the character knows something that we don't know.
Then there are jump scares, which is a break of tension. But people are so prepared for them now that it's difficult to do. The classic technique was waiting for the moment where the character relaxes, and everything is normal, and then someone would burst out. The slightly better way is to distract the viewer in the moment of tension. Rather than lower the tension, you have the main character talk to someone off-screen — and at that moment, someone or something jumps out at the audience.
Breaking the tension in that way is possibly even harder because the audience is suspicious and saying, "I don't know if the scares are over, or are you going to surprise me again?" The best thing to do afterward is entering a fairly wide shot that shows everyone is safe.
Why is good camerawork essential to delivering memorable introductions in movies?
CK: Most actors want their first shot to be a big entrance. Going back to what I said before, the important thing is committing to how their introduction should look is 90% of the work. If you decide they need to appear in a way that creates a certain feeling in the audience, your next question is going to be, "What is that feeling?" Are we afraid of the character, or do we admire him, or are we not sure?
You also have to consider how the other characters react to their entrance, which goes back to selling the space.
If you could go back to the start of your career as a filmmaker, what do you wish you had known?
CK: The first thing is to shoot more often, and the second thing is how important it is to join a theater. Until you know what it's like to stand on stage in front of a camera, I don't think you can direct as well. Now, many people would argue with that and many great directors who've never acted. But doing theatre for even a year will help you learn so much about what actors need.
Because actors have to fill in the gaps — a less experienced director might say, "Make it more exciting!" and they can't just do that. They have to interpret based on their training. But a good director will know all the different acting styles. Work with your actors, and they'll bend over backwards for you.
For more information about Chris, visit his website or his IMDB page.
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