I thought I'd test the ideas of shallow and deep filmic space, which I'm only theoretically familiar with so far. Shallow space is a favorite of Von Sternberg {maybe I've written about him before? Can't recall.... ;) } and I know it can be achieved with a telephoto zoom lens with the camera set pretty far back from the action and zoomed way in. That's how I got the above pic. Notice the way all the puppets look the same size, with no foreshortening of perspective. If they weren't overlapped, it would look like they're all standing side by side for a police lineup. In fact there were about 16 inches between the frontmost and rearmost puppet! I couldn't quite get focus on all of them at once. This technique is used to create a sense that the image is flat like a painting.... it emphasizes the flatness of the screen and doesn't let the viewer feel they could walk into this space.... it distances them from the characters and creates a sense of disconnect between image and viewer.... a favorite among the avant gard because it makes viewers think about the nature of art. The back wall of the set seems to be squeezed right up behind them, and the entire space is squashed flat, with no room to breathe.
Heh... I also played around with some different settings in Framethief, and tried widescreen. But as you can see, all it did was stretch the image out sideways. Also, I apologise for the puppets always being in the same poses.... I don't want to bend them around too much before I pick up my megaphone and shout action.
Here's the deep space we're all more familiar (and comfortable) with. I definitely prefer this look. It complements the stopmo aesthetic nicely..... what's the point of building 3 dimensional puppets/sets and then flattening them out photographically? Some people could make good use of shallow filmic space I'm sure, but for now I'm sticking with good old depth! Look how much smaller Cosmo (the bartender) is here than Hoppy (pop-eyed guy up front). His entire head is about as big as Hoppy's eye... now THAT'S some foreshortened perspective! It's funny, I actually moved Hoppy back about 5 inches because it was even harder to get good depth of field (focal depth) this way. This one was shot with a 6mm lens and the camera right up in Hoppy's face.
Setting up for these shots is really showing me the problems I'm gonna have with that mirror. It's hard to find an angle where the camera doesn't show and the light doesn't reflect directly into it and make sunspots. A flag cut from a piece of MDF helps a lot with that, but I can see it's gonna really drive me nuts. If you're gonna have a big mirror in your set, it becomes the most important factor and affects all your other choices. Plus the matte spray I misted it with to make it look dirty can really flare up bright when the light hits it a certain way. Ugly! But I should be able to minimize these problems when I've made some shelves and loaded them with bottles. Then the mirror will only show through here and there. And if it still gives me headaches... out it goes!
One thing I dislike about it is this.... good lighting is more than just how you aim your lights and shape the beams etc.... about half of it consists of what the light falls on.... form, texture, color etc. A flat mirror doesn't give it much to work with!
