This shot from Harakiri at 11:22 goes on a full 55 seconds. When the person facing away from the camera is talking, it looks like nothing is happening.
Desert scene [excerpt].
It's important to distinguish between stillness and stasis, I've discovered. Stillness looks formal and quiet but not static. Stasis, on the other hand, occurs when nothing's happening. It's OK if something is still. It's not OK if something's static. I've been confusing the two. I've been trying to achieve a ritualized stillness in some of the shots. But many of these shots just never looked right and didn't edit right (Ben standing at attention in front of the spinner, Ben facing away from the shrine).
I've been rewatching Harakiri again to see how Masaki Kobayashi did it. Many of Kobayashi's shots are still, but there is always something happening. A small gesture. A look or glance. And when the visuals are absolutely still, there is dialogue going on. So there is always narrative progress or visual activity, generally both intertwined. In addition, Harakiri has a distinctive look because of the formalized, methodical, ritualized gestures of the characters. Also, a lot of the cutting is not on action, but occurs before or after.
This desert scene edit contains the "still" shots that worked for me. You can see that except for the crane shot, there is no camera movement.
The first shot is a low angle tripod shot. I really like the little glints of light reflecting off the truck. That was an accident. I wouldn't even know how to do that on purpose except in post.
Next are some tripod shots of landscape. We didn't plan to shoot in a windy area, but I like the way the wind adds life to the shot.
The crane shot is the only shot in this excerpt in which the camera is moving. The camera glare on the truck really annoys me, but I don't know if it annoys me enough that I'll fix it in After Effects. I know someone who used to do this kind of work on a Liberty system--rebuild lost frames, fix negative scratches, etc. It looked tedious. I wanted to do the extreme wide shot of the truck in the distance and the crane shot in one piece. However, in the crane wide shot, the wind was blowing causing the crane to shake. I guess I could stabilize it, but I actually ended up liking the way the shot looked split in two. Erik did a great job of bringing the crane to a stop. Not easy. This is one of our later takes. By this time, we got Ben to kick up some dust when he brings the truck to a stop. We also got him to turn the truck slightly to the right to reduce the reflection and add a little more drama to the shot.
In the shot where Ben gets out of the truck you can see the white cardboard reflector reflected in the truck door. I'm not even sure the reflector was doing anything to light Ben's face since it was so far away in this shot. But I don't think most people would notice.
The next couple of shots show Ben walking through the desert. Here I used a technique I found in Bruce Block's book (see bruceblock.com). In order to smooth out the cut between the two shots, the center of interest at the end of shot one (Ben walking to the right) is in the same screen location as the center of interest at the beginning of shot two (Ben walking toward us). Also note that there are some towers and power lines I need to remove digitally. It's that monitoring problem again. I just couldn't see them on the viewfinder. Actually, the Quicktime movie I provided is about the same size as my viewfinder so you may not be able to see them either!
I like the shot of the green shrine. Here's where I usually get myself into trouble. The shrine is absolutely centered and has the potential to look static. But Ben walks into frame at a diagonal and the wide angle lens accentuates the movement in space. Plus, the wind is blowing adding life to the scene. I wasn't sure I liked the skinny trees in the midground when we shot but I'm happy with them now. They break up the composition and shake in the wind adding liveliness. By the way, this wind-blowing thing seems to be a big deal. Kobayashi often uses wind during Harakiri's fight sequences to animate the scenes.
In the shot of Ben viewed from the shrine's POV you can see the tiny crosses and religious paraphenalia dangling in the wind. I got this idea from a Betye Saar installation I have in Quicktime format of all things. In her installation there is a box spring frame from which hundreds of tiny religious artifacts are dangling. For our shrine, I was thinking that the hanging objects would make the shot look more interesting and give Dan ideas for audio. They also create some depth by providing foreground focus. I also remember the commentary on the Enter the Dragon DVD in which they talk about the banquet scene on Han's island. The high angle shot looked dead, they said, until they shot through bird cages on the ceiling. So the green shrine shot is a weird combination of: still (vs. static) shots + centered, formal composition + deep space + Betye Saar + Enter the Dragon.
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