Going from good to great. The float? Giving life to the frame.

[Christopher Millham]

Hello everyone! I’m not at the place of operating full time (still dolly gripping for larger shows) but I’ve had the pleasure of getting 4 features and 1 TV show under my belt as B cam/ steadicam. I’m starting to feel more confident with my abilities as an operator to achieve the shot and the role as an operator but now I want to take my shots from good to great. 
 

There’s this sorta float I see some of you achieve that I can’t put my finger on why or how it makes it more attractive and pleasurable to watch. It’s a touch and feel I can’t explain. Talking to some directors they’ve told my stories of going with operators that make the camera have an elegance. I wanted to see if anyone could touch on this and ways they’ve trained that part of their operating. Timing? Feel? Experience? Just looking for discussion. 🙂

 

Also, any words of advice for conventional operating. I struggle with feeling like I want to give life to the frame, micro pans for eye line shifts, floating on sticks, etc. Is this normal or doing too much and if so where is the line drawn. If anyone would like to touch on that it would be great. 
 

Thank you for your time reading this. Happy flying. 

[Benoit C. Gauthier]

Good on you for working on yourself! I think all of us still lurking on this forum are always trying to get better, keep learning and find old wisdom in remote corners of the forum. Or just trying to sell old gear and buy cheap gear off of legendary operators.

My advice might be a little esoteric, but here it goes…

I always try to watch the movie that I’m shooting as I’m shooting it. That movie you are watching informs what you, the operator, should be doing. In my opinion the only way to learn this is to watch a lot of movies. And have a good think about the operating. What it is that you like in a certain film and what it is that bothers you in another. Then when you frame up a shot on a job, you ask yourself what’s this movie we’re shooting? What’s the story we’re telling? How would I like to shoot it? (The director and the DP help with that obviously) And then you forget about all the techniques, and comfort and the way things should be… and you watch the movie and your eyes move around the frame and you follow the actor’s emotions and micro adjust your frame when the movie feels like it needs it. I always feel like the best shots are the ones that feel natural, like all of the techniques disappeared and the shot naturally happened and made sense. Dave Chameides always quotes Bob Crone : ‘The irony of what we do is if we have done it well, no one will know we did anything at all.’ Because it feels natural, it feels like the story was always supposed to be told that way. And in a way to you the operator it felt simple, even if you were standing on precarious ground in low mode and you legs were shaking in the long lock off at the end of the 4 minute take.

If you think about timing, you’ll most likely be late… if you think about feel, you’re not feeling, you’re thinking about it… if you want more experience you can only get that by being on set and operating.

In a way, the technical abilities are what make you a good operator, what makes you a great operator is really who you decide to be as a storyteller.

That being said, learn all the tools, what they’re good for, how you like to set them up, use all the tools, go to the rental house and try new stuff, be healthy, sleep well, be flexible, watch a lot of movies, study what you love, take photos, shoot movies, read everything on theop.io, be on time, be humble, watch everything on the new ‘blocking’ page on theop.io again, spend time in the rig, be inspired. 

That little something you can’t put you’re finger on is that same little something that makes skateboarders cool, same little thing that made you have a massive crush on the cool Prop master on that indie film you were doing a couple years back. That same little something that makes a song hit you deeper than you thought music could hit.
That little something might be confidence or trusting yourself to have a go and say something with your work… and then you find out who you are as an operator, and then the directors start telling people how they love the elegance with which you frame or move the camera or how solid your composition is when you decide not to move the camera even if it’s on a slider. 

Also, don’t think too hard about it… it’s the best job in the world, enjoy it! 

I’m sorry there were no real technical advice in this reply, but I got inspired… 

[Kevin Kisling]

Ah, now this is why I love the Forum! 

I think it takes time and patience and getting the fundamentals down to a point where you don't need to think about them. And @Benoit C. Gauthierput it well, about watching the movie as you make it. I always try to listen to the director as much as possible when they talk to the actors and other crew so I can learn what they want the movie to be and to be as openminded as possible. It is easy to fall into routine and common practices, but try to look past that. You mentioned micro adjustments for changing eye lines, and sometimes you want to do that, and well other times you don't. And that's about feeling out the story and using the camera to help tell the story, what does it say if the camera doesn't adjust, or does?

[Tori Wills]

A few little notes here, and I won't try to be too proscriptive, since everyone is going to have their own unique perspectives here on this, but just to give you another perspective and opinion. 

I have grown to believe that less is more when it comes to operating. I believe that for my work to be the best it can be, it should completely and utterly disappear to the viewer. Larry McConkey terms it being a chauffeur for the viewer's eyeballs. Most of the time, you want the ride to be smooth. You want to point out the sights and scenes outside the windows, but you don't usually want the people in the back jostled around, unless there's a good reason for it. Usually, the more you're doing during a shot - little micro adjustments of headroom or look room - the more you're drawing attention to the camera. So I try to be decisive with when I do move the camera or change my frame. When an actor makes a significant move, or when someone looks up from something in their lap to the person across from them, or to accentuate some shift in power or tone in a scene. But the commonality between these is that I'm not doing it based on vibes, or based on trying to keep the frame "alive" or "cool". I'm doing it based upon when I want the viewers to feel something, or when the story needs it. A still frame allows the viewer to focus on what's going on in the frame, rather than feeling the movement I'm adding.

I also believe firmly that the time for me to figure out little tweaks and decisive movements is not during the shot, but before the shot. I think you should have a clear idea of every beat of the shot before you ever roll the camera, and you should be able to see the frames you want in your head. That way, when an actor starts moving, you can just bring the camera elegantly to the next place it needs to be, and deliver the next frame, without the camera having any hesitancy or feeling like it's "hunting". Once you start rolling the camera, your job is to execute the perfect shot every take, or as close as your human self can get to that, so that you are not a variable - the performance is variable, the actors hitting their marks are variable, the line reads (and whether the actors are off book) is variable, but you shouldn't be. Yes, if the actor begins changing their performance, you may have to react, and as takes go on and you get notes from directors and DPs, you may adjust, but my ideal is to set up a shot and plan it through so well that my job is just to execute.

Also, slightly controversially, I believe in not getting too caught up in "watching the movie" when I am actually shooting. When I am building the shot, I try to see the movie and imagine it on the end result screen (you shoot commercials for display on phones very differently than a theatrical film, for instance!), but when I am doing the shot, I try to actually focus on the technical aspects - watch the headroom, listen for cue lines, look at the eyes and figure out where they're looking or what tells their body gives me for when they'll be moving or changing performance. If I get too into watching the movie, I begin to resonate emotionally with the performance, and I'm no longer as sharp or precise.

Again, these are just a few ideas from a slightly different perspective. There is no right or wrong, and from job to job we all adjust and change. But hopefully as you develop more in your career as an operator, you will begin to develop your own philosophies and style, and that can hopefully become something you will be recognized for.

Best of luck!

[Christopher Millham]

Thank you all for the wonderful insight. I can’t  wait to apply this into my next show. I’m sure my operating will be so much better with the wisdom you’ve taught me. Happy flying!