It's a Wonderful Life: 3 Reminders of Great Screen Direction

SPOILER ALERT: (Wait, it’s 70 years old, never mind)

I've seen it a hundred times, but recently I included an It's A Wonderful Life virgin in my annual viewing of Frank Capra's holiday classic . As I thought about how he might be receiving it, one of the things that struck me about the film is how modern it feels. My friend was one of those individuals that occasionally has issues with older movies: "Oh, is this in black and white?" This led me to think about why this movie doesn’t feel like a 70 year old film.

Here are, perhaps, a few reasons:

Active Reaction Shots

Everyone knows how important reaction shots are. These are the shots that cut-away from the main action or character to reveal the reactions of another character watching. They emphasize an emotional arc of a character through the observations of another character. They help slow down a scene to make sure you get the crux of it, ensuring you didn't miss a fleeting line or a quick shot of action.There were a few examples from IAWL that wonderfully display the effectiveness of the reaction shot, yet takes them even further.

A few scenes into the film, after George is given the task of delivering poison, young Mary sits at the drugstore counter. She watches the boy, who "she will love 'till the day she dies", get reprimanded by his boss, Mr. Gower. Mr. Gower smacks young George on his bad ear. Cut to Mary jumping as she hears the slap on the side of his head. This way we get it twice. We have empathy for George of course, and with a single insertion of a cut-away shot, our empathy is expanded to two characters that we will quickly learn to love.

Another wonderful little shot is a reaction shot to Potter. Of course Capra does a great job introducing us to "the richest and meanest man in the county". But in the scene where George defends his caring attitude to the rabble of the town, and questions Potter's contempt for them, a cut- away reveals Potter covering his mouth to feign a yawn. A simple cut away to Potter listening, or eye rolling in the midst of listening to George's speech would have been effective, but I love his yawn. First, it motivates an edit because it is an action, but also communicates once again the character of Potter. He is bored with, and tired, of hearing these socialist ideals spouted continuously from the Bailey's. As we will see later, this weariness will lead him to do whatever he can to destroy the Building &Loan.

Another one of my favorites is Nick's reaction to Clarence and his status as an angel. This example may seem to go against the category of Active Reaction, but not when you consider it a set-up. George and Clarence are ordering drinks at “Nick’s” Bar after George’s life has been taken away. As Clarence tells George all about his "angelness", Nick watches from the other side of the bar with a stone cold stare, until he can't bare it anymore and throws them out. In true comedic fashion, Capra is setting up a joke here. And, in order for our hero being kicked out of a bar to be amusing and not depressing, a cut-away to the statuesque Nick, allows for the action-filled reaction of him kicking the both of them out. It's hilarious.

Slow Down Important Moments

It's all to easy to skip over important moments when shooting a scene, and then even later in the edit when you are concerned with boring the audience. The real trick is knowing when to slow down and when to move things along. When you get that down, you can start thinking about how to slow those important moments down.

Early on, we begin to feel the tension and frustration felt by George, as he is once again hindered from following his dreams of world travel. Harry is finally back home to take over the family business, but at the dinner table, George’s father asks him if he’d consider staying to continue operating the Building & Loan. In the midst of this shocking offer, Annie the maid interrupts their conversation. It’s just a pause in the scene, but it gives us a chance to catch up. “Did he just say what I think he said?” And, perhaps, it even gives us enough time to wonder how George will respond. He does respond, and let’s his feelings known to his father, setting up the crucial conflict that will carry the plot forward from that point.

Later on, when George’s frustrations come to head with an apparent way out, Potter offers him a job. At first, it seems like George will finally give in to his life-long adversary, and take hold of the opportunity to achieve his dreams of experiencing the world outside of Bedford Falls. Of course, that would mean bowing to Potter, and abandoning the town’s people who have learned to rely on him. Pleased with the offer, but requesting time to think it over he shakes Potter’s hand. And he holds it, and looks at it, and then looks inside of himself. Capra has once again given us enough time to recall all of the events of George’s past so as to calculate what must be going on in George’s head. Finally, George wakes up, and stands up to Potter by refusing his offer, ashamed of himself for even considering it.

Also, to track backwards a bit in the same scene, I love the decision to have George drop his lit cigar in his lap upon hearing Potter’s unbelievable offer. Again, we have just enough time to chuckle, but also calculate what this opportunity will mean for George and his family. These are the little things that set the pace, and keep the audience in the story, not only as fly-on-the-wall observers, but as empathetic compatriots with our friend George Bailey.

Don’t Just Say Things, Break Things.

When people are frustrated, they complain. When they are at their wits' end, they break things.

For the first half of the film, Mary’s story has been tangental. Although she reveals her intention to love George ’til the day she dies in the opening scene, her presence in the story seems nothing more than yet another source of George’s dissatisfaction. Mary makes another advance on loner George after Harry’s wedding party. To her dissatisfaction, he confirms her biggest fear: George does not want to be married. All is lost. As he storms out of the house, and her mother encourages her courtship with Sam “Hee-Haw” Wainwright, she is at her wits' end, and smashes the “Buffalo Girls” record to pieces. It is at this point that Mary becomes more than a side character. Her emotions are charged, and we empathize with her. Our frustrations can only now be erased if and when they finally get together. And, in a cathartic relief a few moments later, we are ecstatic when they finally do, but the pleasure in that moment would have surely been lessened if she has simply let that record play on.

Later, as George’s life is falling apart, as he waits for the authorities to come haul him off to jail for losing eight thousand dollars, he regrets everything his life has come to be. He regrets having so many kids, and being forced to bring them up in a broken down, drafty house. In the midst of these regrets, he finally accepts that his boyhood dreams will never come to pass. However, he does not say this, he shows us. He shatters a model bridge set up in a small corner away from the kids, presumably a hobby he has picked up to hold onto that boyhood dream in a small way. It’s over; it will never happen for him. And, at the moment, he has nothing else to be happy about. Of course, after being given his gift of perspective from Clarence, he comes to realize how wonderful his life is. Although his childhood fantasies never came to pass, the life that eventually happened to him was indeed amazing, and one that he could be thankful for.

Although I don’t think these moments can be considered ground-breaking, then or now, these simple choices in scene direction are wonderfully efficacious in adding spice to the narrative, and they help transform “Its a Wonderful Life” from a nice little Christmas movie into one of the most inspiring films ever made.

5 WAYS TO MAKE YOUR WEB VIDEOS STAND OUT

It’s pretty amazing when you think about it. A few years ago, I was invited by my mother to have a look at some of my father’s 8mm film from when he was in the navy in the sixties. It was pretty cool stuff, but it was also a huge pain. The reason why I had not seen it until then was because there was no way to view them. But, someone loaned her a small film viewer, which consisted of a ground glass screen, a lamp, a focusing lens, and two small reals that you cranked the celluloid film across. The biggest pain was feeding it through the appropriate gears, and once you did, you had to crank the handle at the right speed. Of course there was no sound, and well, forget about editing them.

Now we have iMovie.

Being a filmmaker, I do kind of wish it was a little harder to take videos. In a way, I long for the time when, if you were watching a film or video, you could be assured it was going to be worth watching since the cost and time constraints were so large. However, I have to say the stuff we can do with phones and laptops is pretty awesome.

Chances are, you have shot and edited a video. And, it probably turned out pretty good. But, there are still some things involved in this process where there are no shortcuts around experience and tedious hard work. Here are 5 ways that transform videos from something good to something great.

Color Correction

It may be that the person shooting your video was amazing and knowledgable, and the second you saw the footage on screen, you were in awe. But, chances are, the camera operator was under inalterable time and budget constraints that eventually forced her to say, “Sorry, that’s what I had to work with .” Yet, whether mistakes were made, or if you just want things to look a certain way, this is where color correction comes into play.

Colorist Alexis Van Hurkman, in “The Color Correction Handbook” lists his Six Labors of the Colorist:

1. Correcting Errors of Color and Exposure
2. Making Key Elements Look Right
3. Balancing Shots in a Scene to Match
4. Creating Style
5. Creating Depth
6. Adhering to Quality Control Standards

As you can see, some are these are technical in nature and some of the jobs of the colorist are more creative in nature. So, whether the completed edit of your video needs a few shots “fixed”, or whether you just want it to look more amazing (and, why wouldn’t you want that?), the experience and labors of a colorist having a pass on your video will certainly take it to the next level.

Motion Graphics

With most most non-narrative videos, the primary goal is to deliver information. Actually, some narrative films need quite a bit of this too. I was impressed with last year’s “The Big Short” by how they used every way they could think of to deliver the boring concepts of economics to the viewer. Dialogue is a pretty standard way of communicating, but when you have to capture someone’s attention in a matter of seconds (in fact, 5 seconds if we are talking about Youtube ads), dialogue alone probably won’t cut it.

In fact, I’d say the inclusion of text, titles, and graphics are essential to describe what your video is about to communicate, and then to reinforce the ideas within. But, as with anything that has the potential to be lost in the noise of the overly saturated internet,  they have to look good.

Full disclosure: as an editor, I usually try to get away with doing as little as possible when creating graphics for videos. Why? Because it’s hard! It is tedious and mentally exhausting to keyframe fully customized text and images that aim to visually impress and communicate valuable information. But, in my heart of hearts, I know that this is wrong. I know that they are worth doing well, because they really do make a project stand out above the noise.

Visual Effects

Wait, wait. Don’t skip over this section. I’m not talking about CG dinosaurs. I’m talking about taking advantage of the amazing tools we have available to us to do what would have been extremely cost prohibitive only a few years ago.

With cheap computers, and cheap software it’s relatively easy to alter the realities of the images recorded in the camera, and create a reality for your video that matches what was originally envisioned. Did grey clouds roll across the blue sky once you started recording. No problem. Did the screen on the iPad in the shot display an old version of your software. Easy, peasy. Did the boom operator’s arms tire by the end of the shoot and send the microphone into the only usable take. No worries.

Ok, it’s not that easy. It’s probably even more hair whitening than motion graphics, but the point is that you don’t have to settle for what you got on the day. You don’t have to make those editing decisions that will undoubtedly lower the impact of your video and force you to settle for less.

Musical Comoposition

Oh, sure, you could purchase and download a stock piece of music, but our concern here is to make your video stand out. I couldn’t tell you how many times I've heard an ad and shouted out, “Hey, I used that music on the (insert random company here) video.” The problem is that good music is hard to come by. Then, royalty free sites sort music by popularity. Guess which ones are more popular. Right, the good ones. Complicate that by finding a song that fits the appropriate mood, and you end up downloading a song that you’ll hear again in other ads, reminding your audience of a different video instead of gaining their full attention on yours.

Furthermore, like I mentioned above, you have to find something that fits the mood of your project. Wait, no you don’t! You can compose a piece of music that exactly matches the mood of your project. I know what your thinking I don’t have the budget for John Williams and a full orchestra. You don’t need that. You’d be surprised with what you can achieve with a few, simply arranged instruments created on a laptop.

It will be completely original, and perfectly compliment the emotion you’re intending to communicate. And, as an added bonus, if you do hear it on another add, you can sue!

Sound Sweetening

It sounds easy, doesn’t it? Just stick a microphone in someone’s face and hit record. That is, until you get back to the edit bay. Why is she so quiet? Is that a lawn mower? I think the lav mic slid down. Again, computers to the rescue!

Of course, as the old computing adage goes, “garbage in, garbage out”, but there’s much improvement that can be done digitally to the human voice you recorded. There are some great programs and plugins out there. Izotope is great. I like Acon Digital’s Restoration Suite for quick and easy noise reduction. And, most NLE’s have their own tools to help improve sound quality.

However, even if your mixer did a bang up job, you still need to sweeten dialogue. I’m actually surprised by how many times I’m willing to ship a video without making color adjustments because it was shot really well. But, dialogue always needs something done to it. Nothing will make a web video stand out more than the others than good sound, but this doesn’t just happen. You have to get in there and cut out unwanted noise, fade between cuts, match different shots and takes, and add equalization and compression. There’s no automatic plugin for that, it’s just work. Yeah, it’s a lot of looping while wearing uncomfortable headphones, but it pays off.

So, with these 5 things in mind, I still have hope. There’s a lot of noise out there, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to attenuate going forward. But, hard work and paying attention to quality are always going to be what sets apart good from great.