More Ben Hur studies

 

Benhur thumbnail studies

The camera pans as the soliders on horses pass by a little shop of a carpenter, which is cleverly used as a motivation for the camera to frame the villager in the window. A great silhouette of the figure is frame in the middle of the shot for the audience to immediately focus. There are strong darks and cools which help enforce the silhouette of the man, by further staging his body within another window, to get the contrast of dark against light. The edit uses the Soldiers in the foreground to not only establish scale in the shot, but as a wipe, as the horse were used to motivate the pan for a wipe.

The wipe and staging help bring the audience to focus on this new character introduced into the plot. The Light setup (possibly a kicker) to highlight the actors face to establish a connection to the actor.

Cut back to a wide shot, utilizing silhouettes to establish design in the shot, by use of space and to initiate the scene between the two villagers. The soldiers are contrasted with the light from the sun, while the carpenter is in silhouette to help reinforce a sense of space and separation. The device effectively moves the audience to the point of view of the carpenter, but helps relay the story of the marching soldiers without causing confusion by just haphazardly focusing ion this new figure in the story. A third figure is established in the shot by super imposing him in-between the carpenter and the soldiers, a visual cue to draw the audiences attention to this figure. Great blocking with in this sequence for establishing character blocking, and moving from a large over view of space for the soldiers marching, to a more intimate setting within the carpenters shop. The tree cuts have effectively moved the viewer away from the marching soldiers, to the story of this carpenter working while this huge event is happening within his village. There is no time spent establishing the interior of the carpenter's shop, so as to not have the audience become to invested in the characters. The moment serves as a story telling device to help establish the era the film, by the iconic reference.

Except for the close up shot,all the shots thus far are more outdoor established light. There is a difference when comparing the light set up -vs- the natural light from out door, In terms of temperature captured, but extremely effective lighting to get the audience to look exactly where the director,cinematographer and production designer wanted the audience to look.

Ben-Hur studies

In an attempt to make this more interesting , I am now going to explain some of the observations I am making while studying the shots from Ben-Hur. I definitely encourage feedback and/or input from any one taking the time to read these entries on my blog.
I have drawn these as thumb nails as opposed to screen grabs, in order to exercise my problem solving while sketching the shot. In order to practice little techniques for drawing cinematography, lighting and staging of actors and objects in the shot. I am posting the previous thumbnails to finish talking about the shot, so I can move on to new thumbnails.


The shots are a continue to build up the vast size of the Roman Empire through a succession of shots. The use of deep space within the shots are used as a tool to help support the armies size. As the shots proceed, we as an audience are being drawn in closer to the shots by the order of the shots. These shots were all outside, so there is less control of the lighting for these shots versus a stage environment.
The last thumbnail represents a panning shot with the horse being used a wipe for the shot in a way (very clever).
These shots do not get into the meat of the story, as we as a viewer are still being acclimated into the world.

Further Ben-Hur studies

In an attempt to make this more interesting , I am now going to explain some of the observations I am making while studying the shots from Ben-Hur. I definitely encourage feedback and/or input from any one taking the time to read these entries on my blog.
I have drawn these as thumb nails as opposed to screen grabs, in order to exercise my problem solving while sketching the shot. In order to practice little techniques for drawing cinematography, lighting and staging of actors and objects in the shot.

The camera starts on a close up of the hands to pan out to reveal the entire stucco. It looks to me like a metaphor for god granting a gift to man( it becomes relevant as the story progresses and you meet the main character in the story.
The second shot opens on the farms of the natives as they realize what is approaching, the camera move (Crane shot) reveals the object of interest to the farmers. Due to the outdoor lighting, we reveal how hot it is in these lands, by the great use of color and temperature in the shot.Will be back later to finish publishing notes about the shots.

Some boards while digging in the crates

Boards done for an indie project

More Ben-Hur Thumbnails

More thumbnails of my studies of Ben-Hur. After a long intro, the title appears! The title is as important as the movie, interms of presentation. It is apart of the art direction of the film. As my previous posts, I continue to study the lighting interms of the use of key light, etc. character blocking and cinematic staging. It's intertesting to see how the color was utilized to frame the shots. The color in this movie is really worth stopping and analysing. I am fond of stage acting, which seems to be rarely used in today's cinema. It's always great to give the actors the spot light and let them create, but it's my own opinion.Up until this moment in the film, it's has been all exposition. This film really goes about bringing the viewer into the world. As a viewer I am really sweept into the environment, people and get an introduction to the strength of the Roman empire. I wish more films would spend the time going about establishing th world, more than the quickened pace of films released today. There is always a sense of atmosphere bought to a film, when you get to take in some of the minor or major details of the world created. Ben-Hur goes into great detail at the beginning , and I am firmly feel established in the world as opposed to feeling disconnected through most of the film. Ben- hur has some great replay value as a result of the time taken to create the atmosphere of the film.

More BenHur thumbnails

Continuing with the Ben-Hur thumbnails :)

Thumbnail studies of Ben -Hur

Here are a couple of thumbnail studies I have been doing of the movie Ben-Hur, For it's Film Lighting, Staging, Production design, and Screen Composition. It's a brilliant film, but long. It's going to take a while to get through this entire movie.

Story Sketch Beat board

Gambling can be bad for your health. I did these boards to explore a different graphic style.

Some storyboards done a while ago

When I did these, I wanted to keep it loose and add some tone .

More from Storybeat board pitch

Story beat board

I did these two draws as a part of a story beat board pitch for a horror script.