
We’ve been looking at how adept and creative novelists use a combination of “camera shots” to structure their scenes, mimicking the way filmmakers piece together the segments they shoot from various angles and using different lenses to fashion scenes that lead to the desired “high moment.” Movie scenes will often feature dozens of different shots in a very short period of time, especially high-action ones.
Here’s a great sequence of shots from the opening of Apocalypse Now (1975) showing the camera moving in and out, panning, making the viewer see a series of specific things writer/director Francis Ford Coppola feels it’s important to see (the original screenplay was written by John Milius). Coppola’s aim is to get close and personal to the experience of being in this primal jungle in a hotbed of war, practically immersing the viewer in the swamp of mud. Continue Reading…