Drama - Cinematography

Example of a Horror scene

Cinematography is something that Drama can take upon very lightly. This is because of the way that Drama doesn't have a specific theme to it, as most, if not all films are a drama. A horror is also a drama, but a very specific form, which takes specific codes and conventions such as quick cuts. There is also different mediums that, for example, Phycological thrillers use. They seem to use massive lenses so that the shallow focus is very obvious. Films like Shutter Island make use of this in many of the scenes, like where the german soldier are getting lined up and shot, it focuses on the soldiers and the barbed netting is blurred out behind it, which is near enough the exact distance of the barbed netting.

Shallow focus pull of Shutter Island
Example of a Phycological Thriller

Any drama film can have anything, because it doesn't have specifics on what it needs to be. Because of the lack of specifics, the film can literally use any effect of cinematography. We propose that in our final film that we'll take that advantage, from slow panning camera shots to fast paced shots. I find that the establishing shots that we are wanting to implement will be doing this. We also would like to use a range of shots, I would like the use of a over the shoulder shot when we're watching two people having a conversation. This is something that wouldn't be used in other films because it's either too fast paced or it has specifics that avoid that kind of shot. With a drama, it involves conversations and with that comes the use of a 2 person over-the-shoulder shot.

Over-the-shoulder shot
with a conversation of two people.

One more feature of a drama film, is that the cuts are long between each other. On average, they should be more than 10 seconds but less than 15 seconds. This doesn't confuse the viewer as to where to look, as a drama should be easy to watch, rather than being difficult to keep a handle of.

Overall I find that the cinematography in a drama should be not too complicated unless you intend it to be at one moment in the storyline. A drama is a lot more versatile than other genres, as you can do anything with it and not be too completely tied down with specific shots.