Thursday 18/3/21 - 1917

1917 is a film I didn't initially consider as inspiration for my work, but when looking over other films that I've seen and really enjoyed this one came to mind. Not specifically for how it creates suspense but instead because of the cinematography and the unusual use of camera work. This film uses a continuous take throughout, this means there are no cuts throughout the film and instead the camera moves around the subjects to get to where it needs to be. When it comes to continuous shot films this one isn't technically done in a single take, instead through careful editing they managed to give the impression that it was filmed this way. This was done flawlessly as it is near impossible to tell where the cuts were made. This shooting style actually helped play to building scenes of suspsense as the camera could move around in ways to mimic what the character was seeing. It helped the viewer feel the fear of the characters in particularly tense scenes.

Whilst it wasn't actually one continuous take throughout the entire film it was still a difficult feat to achieve and required precise planning and editing to be done so well. To take a more detailed look I read an article about how they filmed 1917.

Here's the article

I discovered that the cinematographer behind 1917 was also behind one of my other favourite films, Blade Runner 2049 alongside Sicario and Skyfall. He said that this style of filming doesn't work for any film. The director Sam Mendes chose to mimic a continuous take film in order to immerse the viewers a lot more than they could with regular cuts. I personally feel that this was very successful as it helped to immerse me in my viewing experience of the film.

To prepare for filming the crew made very detailed models of the sets they'd be filming in, this made planning the shots significantly easier. They could use this to show the actors path in each scene and they could also use it to show where the camera would move. An example of them using the sets was in one particular scene where the only source of light was given by flares. To plan where to shoot them to get the right lighting they used the model set. They could see the angles of the shadows created and how the flares would light up the set.

They also had to make preparations to the set so that the camera crew could easily move around to film the actors. This was done through pathways, planning the size of tunnels and even making sets that could be broken apart to let the camera move through.

A key aspect for the camera's movement was turning 360 degrees to follow the characters. They could only move the camera forwards and couldn't go back to previous locations, this being because the characters had a fixed location to go to. The use of 360 meant the camera could move around and follow the characters without any hard cuts.

Overall I feel like this method of filming would be a great way to not only push myself through technical skill but it means I would have to think more carefully about how I'd film each shot and how the camera would move to different locations. I feel it would also very much benefit the suspense I am trying to create.