From the course: Learning Cinematography: 1 Narrative Fundamentals

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Who's driving the scene?

Who's driving the scene?

From the course: Learning Cinematography: 1 Narrative Fundamentals

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Who's driving the scene?

- [Instructor] The cinematographer also plays a role in understanding the relationships of the actors in a given scene. You can shoot a scene far more expressively, if you know whose story you're telling. One of the most important questions a cinematographer has for the director is, whose story is this? The fancy way to ask that is, what's the narrative point of view of the movie? Don't assume you know the answer to this question after reading the script. It's likely that 10 directors shooting the exact same movie, would all have dramatically different answers to this question. This is one of the basic parts of the vision that the director brings to the movie. Be cognizant of the fact that there's no clearly defined answer to this question. The most controversial answer, is that the movie is everybody's story. I think that's relinquishing a fundamental directorial responsibility, from my prospective, if it's everybody's story, it's nobody's story. Without question, the movie may show…

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