Picture Perfect

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly... but mostly pretty good...

Yesterday, in our live webcast (which you can see here probably by the end of today), Josemarie asked me what I meant when I said 'the shooting has to be perfect'.

Today, I am going to try and give a visual answer.

The clip above is from Sergio Leone's masterpiece spaghetti western - The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

To make matters go faster, I am just going to lift the first paragraph from the Wikipedia entry:

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Italian: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo) is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti western film directed by Sergio Leone, starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach in the title roles.^[4] The screenplay was written by Age & Scarpelli, Luciano Vincenzoni and Leone, based on a story by Vincenzoni and Leone. Director of photography Tonino Delli Colli was responsible for the film's sweeping widescreen cinematography and Ennio Morricone composed the famous film score, including its main theme. It is the third film in the Dollars Trilogy following A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965). The plot revolves around three gunslingers competing to find a fortune in buried Confederate gold amid the violent chaos of gunfights, hangings, American Civil War battles and prison camps.

OK.

That saved a lot of time, but you get the concept.

It's a pretty classic film.

Now, take a look at the clip above. (Spoiler alert: It's the concluding scene from the movie).

You can rack ahead to around 5:20 if you like.

Take a look at how Leone shot it.

If you're a regular here at nyvs.com, you'll recognize the shots right away.

Close up on the hands.

Close up on the face.

Wide shot.

Over the shoulder.

Don't move the camera.

(You see! You didn't know that Sergio Leone was a graduate of NYVS.com, did you!)

See how cleanly every shot is.

Not a move (or hardly any, and when there is, very very carefully thought out. Another day we'll talk about motivated pans. For today let's stick with Don't Move The Camera!).

When Leone goes to edit it, the 'motion' is in the edit, not in the camera.

This is what I mean by 'cleanly shot'.

If you can shoot all your raw material like this - and you can - it's only a matter of discipline - then the rest is easy.

Then your pieces can all be 'good'

(not bad or ugly.  Sorry, that was dumb, but I could not resist).
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