CAMERA AND STAGING: TOP TIPS FROM PIXAR
Five pro tips from Pixar’s Camera & Staging team on how to effectively and efficiently tell a story and evoke emotion with your film shots
01 UNDERSTAND SHOT FLOW
A big part of camera and staging is shot flow: to connect a sequence of shots seamlessly and to direct the audience attention from one shot to the next. A contrast in size of subject, change of lenses and camera angle between shots can help with a smoother cut. To direct the audience focus, you need to pay attention to eye fix and eye line. Eye fix is where your centres of focus between two consecutive shots are relatively in the same region of frame. Eye line is where your character is looking in one shot, which can create an implied line and direct where the audience should be looking in the next shot. Patrick Lin, Director of Photography, Pixar Animation Studios
02 FIND OPPORTUNITIES TO COMBINE SHOTS
The layout artist's goal is to cinematically interpret the 2D storyboards into the 3D shots of the film. In exploring camera and staging options, we often think outside the boards. For example, I try to find opportunities to combine shots – marrying the action of multiple storyboards, rather than cutting to different camera angles. This efficiently reduces the number of shots needed to tell the story. So, depending on the intentions of the scene, consider if a motivated camera move could help connect action from one location to the next. Or, if creative staging choices might allow a scene to be covered with fewer camera setups.
In this scene, we wanted to transition from Ian and Barley’s
conversation to a close-up of Dad’s foot accidentally stepping on the sprite. At the head of this shot, Dad is positioned back by the cooler, so we would have needed to cut to get a close-up of his foot.
But by having Dad and the sprite walk towards the camera and resolve in a tight framing of the foot, we were able to combine both ideas within the same shot. Sylvia Wong, Camera and Staging Artist, Pixar Animation Studios
03 DYNAMIC POSING IN LAYOUT
When I approach a sequence in our films, the first thing I ask is, what's going on emotionally with my subject(s) in the scene? The placement of the camera, lens choices, and character blocking (acting) are tools we use to affect how the audience reacts to these moments. When blocking a character for your scene, ask yourself, what's the character feeling? Are they tense, excited, lonely, shy, bored? Every part of the body should be engaged to bring that emotion to life. Take a look at the face, hands, shoulders, feet. Is the pose helping create a line of action in our subject? Does it help to lead our eyes throughout the frame? Every pose should be part of the storytelling. Jahkeeli Garnett, Camera and Staging Artist, Pixar Animation Studios
04 RELATE THROUGH THE LENS
When I’m figuring out where to put the camera I try to keep in mind that what I’m really doing is placing the audience in the scene. We can make use of the camera’s spatial relationship to the characters to evoke all sorts of emotions in the audience. Let’s say we’re shooting a close-up of a character who is aggressive and dangerous. Is there a way to get the camera uncomfortably close? In any composition, the audience will innately feel the distance, which is a powerful psychological factor that we can take advantage of when we are composing our shots. Matthew Silas, Camera and Staging Artist, Pixar Animation Studios
05 DON’T PAN THE CAMERA, LOOK
For the duration of the movie, scene, or shot, the audience surrenders their overall gaze to your camera – they’re trusting you to show them the information they need to know, when they need to know it. This applies equally to the way your camera moves within a shot. Should a push in be slow and subtle, perhaps increasing the tension, or fast and dramatic? Should a focus change be snappy, or should the subject gradually come into focus, like the famous rack focus in The Graduate from Mrs. Robinson to Elaine, as it dawns on her that she’s been betrayed? The way the camera moves should reflect the emotional weight and pace of the story. This concept was best summarised to me by a fellow cinematographer, who advised, “Don’t pan – look!” Adam Habib, Director of Photography, Pixar Animation Studios •
Toy Story dummies When we first meet the second and third dummies in Toy Story 4, they not only encroach upon Woody and Forky’s space, they lean right into the camera, which helps to make them feel extra creepy. (Layout by Andrea Goh)