Would using a star filter for cinematography be too weird?

[Josh Bass]

They won't. Won't think about it, won't care, probably furthest thing from their minds unless you have made the most unbelievably boring movie ever. Right up with there with noticing an extra's tie isn't straight. Does that help?

[Ryan Elder]

Okay thanks. Well as for not showing an establishing shot, in order to not have to fill the courtroom with other people, I guess the reason I am afraid to do that, in the past, if I try to take shortcuts in budget, like not showing establishing shots, people said they found it jarring though. On here for example, when I posted the short film with the time travel, and I didn't show more establishing shots, I was told it was jarring, so I am feeling risky on doing that therefore.

[Josh Bass]

I havent seen the whole film so I dont know what scene or timecode youre referring to but someone needs to tell you WHY/in what way it was jarring to not show am establishing shot. There are countless movies and shows that cut to new scenes without an establishing shot that no one found jarring so you need to know what specifically is wrong with that in your film

[Ryan Elder]

Oh well two sections of the film where I was told it was jarring cause I didn't have establishing shots are at 4:07 and at 8:42:

Timewine H.264 copy - YouTube

I was just told I didn't show an establshing shot of the new location at 4:07 and I didn't show an establishing shot of the reporter at 8:42, when I needed to, if that's true.

[Josh Bass]

Okay, the issue at 4:02 is probably that it's unclear at first that she's watching that other car from a distance...the viewer doesn't put the two things together as related for a few moments. There any number of approaches but it would have been better to see an over the shoulder or similar where she and the car window frame/windshield are blurry in the foreground and we see the other car through her windshield or driver's side window (geography of where the two are in relation to each other is unclear). Or the red car passing by her white car, with her clearly visible looking out through windshield/window. Again, issue is that there's no single shot that ties the two people together. It doesn't have to be an "establishing shot" in the traditional sense of a wide that shows the whole scene, but some kinda shot that shows them together for a moment is probably required.

at 8:42 it's almost the same issue...you see them looking at...something, and then cut newscast full frame. We'd expect to see an OTS shot of them looking at the screen (screen in focus, them blurry in foreground), with the newscast playing, or at the very least a CU of the computer screen with some of the office background visible around it, newscast playing. THEN cut to newscast full frame. This one's not quite as confusing as the other example but still weird as described above.

[Paul R Johnson]

I wish you'd explain better - why quote random times that are wrong!

The girl walks out of the building, then we see a car, then her in a car - is that a close up of her? No - it's somebody we cannot see driving out of a car park. Then we see her start the car, next is a shot of a car following the first car with unknown driver. We didn't see her pull out and follow, we don't know who the driver is. Just bad editing - it hinders understanding not enhances it.

At the end, we see two people in an office, she moves and watches TV, we then cut to the TV interview. What establishing shot are you talking about? The more I watch the clip, the more strange and random some shots and edits become. If we submitted this for marking, where each shot was considered with relationship to the one before and afterwards, it's going to score badly. Then we'd look at the plot, the acting, the framing, the lighting, the camera control and it's very much a student movie from the first year standard work.

Realistically - so many compromises and shots that should have been shot again, a story that has so many holes it leaks like a seive. Locations and events that make no sense. Worse though is the acting. Do real people behave like this in real life. In America, even with access to guns, do reporters/investigative people really pull guns out and point them like this?

There's no point commenting on this - you are worrying about establishing shots, when the entire thing is totally confusing and leaves the viewer in a kind of limbo.

Are we really to believe somebody invents time travel, and uses it to age wine, rather than playing the stock market to make bazillions in dollars, then you would never have to age a few bottles of wine.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay thanks. I edited it before that you see her pull out and drive after him, and then I posted it on another site for test viewers. But test viewers told me that I overmake the point and I should just show her start the car and then cut, so I did it that way, according to the test viewers online. This is good to know though, that perhaps the original edit of that was better.

Also, why do I need an OTS shot of a person looking through a windshied, or an OTS shot of a person looking at the screen. There are other movies where a person will look at a screen for example, and you see a close up of the screen. You do not see an OTS shot of them looking. So what do other movies do differently, that you do not need the OTS shot?

[Paul R Johnson]

I have never broken down anything I shoot into categories for consideration. I stand there and then position things. Over the shoulder shots are news derived, where the real reason was to remove lips to make editing quick and simple. It's rarely a nice shot, so in movies, it just gets jiggled to become a reverse angle, and rarely over the shoulder.

If you give movies to people you don't know, and that includes us, if you ask questions. What weight do you put on the response?

Why are you even asking? If it's because you cannot decide for yourself, then your research will produce complete rubbish, because you have no idea the criteria used in making their opinion to you.

It won't help, but my version of the car follow sequence would have been very different.

Front street shot of the girls car, driver NOT visible.
Internal shot showing her in the car driver's seat.
full frame shot of subject getting into his car.
Girl seeing him get in and starting engine
Subject in a wide angle driving out of parking area onto street.
Frontal shot of girl in follow car moving out to follow

You KNOW who she is waiting for. You see him get in and drive off and you see her following.

[Josh Bass]

Perhaps OTS is not quite the right term then. I mean a shot of whatever it is someone is looking at, with that person partly visible in the foreground in soft focus to show the geographical/physical relationship between the two. So you don't have two shots of things cut together with no clear tie between them.

You asked why those things were jarring, I gave you my specific reasoning. Paul's answer is also right. I'm giving you the simplest fix I can think of rather than reshooting/recutting the whole scene the way Paul suggests. Those two sequences/edits are weird, TO ME, because there is no established geography of where the girl is in relation to the car she's looking at in the first example, and the two people and the video they're watching in the second example.

I'm not going to tear apart the whole thing, just those two, very specific examples of why people probably found them jarring.

[Brian Drysdale]

There's no point in giving references to other films, that doesn't matter, the real question you need to ask yourself does it work in my film? Is there enough information being provided to the audience for them to follow what's happening without having to think rather than emote?

When getting feedback, you need to decide if it's valid and if it's correct or partly correct or something else is misleading the person giving the feedback and needs to be changed, It's not a literal process you have to analysis the feedback You even have to do this with executive producers and sometimes you have to ignore some points or just tighten shots by a few frames, because they can .be wrong or a very slight adjustment covers it.

The shot with the other car looks like a wide shot on the street, it doesn't look like it's from a car because we don't know the girl is in a car. At leash showing part of the car in the foreground like part of the steering wheel, top of the dashboard on the foreground looking though the windscreen shows that it's a POV of the girl in the drivers seat.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay thanks. How about this Instead of showing an OTS shot, I just cut to a close up of the person looking at the screen, or looking through the windshield? For future projects, would a close up of them looking, serve just as good as an OTS shot?

[Brian Drysdale]

You can't create a rule, but you could do it as long as you locate her in a car. Shooting a CU of her through the windscreen would work. There's a number of ways to shoot a scene like this, it depends on how you wish to create the impression that she's been waiting for some time (and how long) on this guy to get into his car and drive off.

[Josh Bass]

Posted a long reply but it might confuse Ryan more than help him so never mind.

[Ryan Elder]

Oh okay thanks. The next project I have also has some surveillance type scenes, so I could apply the same rule in the shot list. I am not really feeling OTS shots for establishing shots and would rather use close ups if possible. On the Timewine short film, I didn't have the actors available for the following shots there, but I won't make that mistake with this new project. Thanks.

As for not needing an OTS shot per say, how come the close up shot of the characters watching the computer screen failed to work though, in the Timewine short film?

[Josh Bass]

My answer would be that you don't know that the full frame newscast is taking place on the computer screen as opposed to, say, somewhere else entirely, or that we've cut to a completely different scene entirely, or someone taped over the end of your movie with a newscast.

A shot of the screen itself mostly filling the frame, with office in the background, video playing, would have made it clearer, even with no actors in the frame.

It's just a weird edit.

Your guy says "Check it out." She walks around, and they look at...something. We don't KNOW they're looking at the screen. We never see them looking at the screen. We never see the back of the monitor in the foreground with them looking at it. We never see the screen with them in the foreground looking at it. We never see a wider shot with monitor on left side of frame and them on the right, looking at it. We never see him hit the keyboard or click the mouse to play the video. We never see the screen playing the video. Those are all things that you could have shown. We see a closeup of them, hear some audio, cut to the newscast full frame. It's just kind of weird.