Snowpiercer: Left or Right

(spoilers for the movie)

It starts with something as simple as “left or right” and quickly escalates into who will live or die that day. It changes the entire course or a story for better or worse. It can completely turn everything that you knew to be true upside down in a matter of seconds. It is character choice. The inevitable question every protagonist faces, even in the most subtle of ways, that forces them to choose between two (or more) mortal options.

Tony Zhou returns in his series of “Every Frame a Painting” to bring us the reasoning of camera direction and screen positions. For him, the best way to tell a difficult choice is to utilize your screen directions. As seen in the movie Snowpiercer by Bong Joon-ho, left and right are delegated a sort of moral compass. Right is forward and left is back. By moving the character between both directions, we see his struggle but as he chooses to go one way we know where he stands before even he knows. The movie is practically predictable if you were skillful enough to catch the subtle shifts in character movement.

And it’s a remarkable thing. A very powerful and influential technique to use, if done properly. If a filmmaker is truly apt at composing that “scene of choices” then they know what to do. Because it’s just a simple question: left or right?

Stand-offs: How to Know A Character is Winning

It begins with a video catching my eye, the maker catching my interest, and ends with me five hours into the future having watched every other video they’ve made. Luckily, Tony Zhou’s “Every Frame a Painting” series doesn’t go much longer than eleven videos. Each tackles on aspect of filmmaking in a unique and addicting way, but the one I want to focus on specifically is his “The Silence of the Lambs - Who Wins the Scene?”

It’s safe to say that a lot of the content produced by Park students tends to toe the line of action, with a flair for the dramatics. And that isn’t bad. But when it comes down to it, it’s two opposing forces facing off in a figurative showdown, guns drawn and clock tower booming.

Unfortunately, the way this comes across is too overdone by someone who isn’t experienced or knowledgeable in the art of power-dynamics. And in this segment of Zhou’s series we look at the power-play by iconic film figure, Hannibal Lecter. To those who may not feel like sitting through the entire two minutes and fifty-eight seconds, here’s what you need to know:

• Power comes in the angle - lower is dominant, higher is weak
• Eyelines matter - two figures looking into the lens are on common ground and when the eyeline shifts then they no longer see eye-to-eye
• Blocking - a character inserting themselves into a scene (be it over-the-shoulder or otherwise) is setting up a stand-off, confronting both physically and mentally
• Positioning - When the characters remain in their same power positions on screen they are winning, if the camera forces them to the side they’ve lost