About a week or two back we did some filming, some of that was for this class wherein I tried out the Jonathan Demme style:
Tracking Shot
Demme uses zoomed in shots of characters walking through an environment, usually one that they are familiar with, and has foreground elements pass over them. There is usually layers to these scenes as we follow the characters from a distance.
In my experiment I filmed a person walking from one side of the street to the other, the camera work was shaky and there's not enough elements passing in front of the character as he travels, this leaves it feeling less dynamic than it could have been otherwise. I notice with Demme the subject moves more towards, or perpendicular to, the camera.
The thing is that this actually turned out pretty well from a blocking perspective, everything clicks somehow and even the focus pull at the start is on point - surprisingly it only took us three takes.
Following Shot
Demme uses these in two ways - 1) to show a character is familiar with a location (we move in front of the character, looking back at them as they travel) and 2) to show a character is entering an environment they are less familiar with (we follow behind the character as they travel).
I only did the latter one and not to the same effect.
Close-Ups
Demme uses close-ups a lot, specifically Big Close-Ups (or American CU's, wherein the face takes up most of the frame), these along with their directness to the camera are a staple of his style and one of the biggest techniques I had to try out:
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