One series that I ended up taking quite a bit of inspiration from for this project is the Netflix series 'House of Cards'. 'House of Cards' is an American political drama web television series by Beau Willimon and David Fincher. It's an adaption of a mini-series which was shown on BBC in 1990 with the same name and based on Michael Dobb's novel also named 'House of Cards'. The series first season premiered on Netflix February 1 2013 and has a fifth season being released in late may this year.The series is set in present-day Washington D.C. and tells the story of Francis Underwood, a democrat from South Carolina's 5th congressional district and House Majority Whip, and his ruthless and corrupt climb of the hierarchical ladder to power. Together with his equally manipulative wife, Claire, they take Washington by storm. Frank, to exact revenge on the people who betrayed him, and Claire to get a place to dominate in her husband's spotlight. The series deals mostly with themes of manipulation, power and ruthless pragmatism.
House of Cards Trailer from Trigger Street Productions on Vimeo.
'House of Cards' has received a lot of positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, the first season holds an average rating of 8.3/10, second season 8.5/10, third season 7.2/10 and fourth season 7.8/10. It has received more than 30 Primetime Emmy Award nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actor - and Actress for Spacey and Wright for each of the four seasons. The series is also the first original online-only web TV series to receive major Emmy nominations.
The series is well known for their cinematography. Although David Fincher was mainly an executive producer and directed only the first two episodes, the style and tone which he set have been followed for the rest of the series. One of the things you notice in the series is Fincher's love for dept of field.
Fincher made it clear from the very beginning, before the filming even began, that there would be no handheld filming, zooming, or steady cam shots. Just like the main character Francis, the look of the film needed to be cold, still and calculating.
The first person hired as the cinematographer for the show was Egil Bryld. He filmed eleven episodes of the first season.
"So I went to L.A to discuss the show and the visuals, and the first thing David said was 'We're going to shoot this on RED with minimal equipment and really fast,' because everyone was concerned with the sheer amount of material we had to cover in a very short schedule - just ten days for each episode."
Even though they, in the end, were given more time for the first two episodes, Bryld says that they had to develop a style that they could execute quickly and which involved shooting on two RED EPICs simultaneously.
Fincher decided to keep the lighting very naturalistic, but at the same time make it a narration of the story itself. One scene can be Francis sitting in a well-lit office on a sunny day with soft light shining towards him through the windows as he speaks to a politician across him as a friend, while the next scene can take place in an office where the curtains are closed, the character almost a silhouette and we as an audience sees him from a lower-eyed view as his true intentions starts coming out to the people around him.
One thing I found fascinating with the series is how they are having the main character continuously talking straight into the camera to the audience, and that way repeatedly breaking the fourth wall. I really like the effect it gives and thought it could work well in some parts of my film.
Another thing they use quite a bit in 'House of Cards' is focus pull, which allows less cutting between the scenes. I was planning in the very beginning of this unit to use focus pull and have long takes, but decided when doing my storyboard I'd i'd rather do a lot of short clips and speed it up a bit to make the scenes more tense. Although I had to change this when I got on set since I was told we had less time to film than planned. I therefore decided to go back to my original idea of using focus pull to make it less takes and that way save time so we would be able to get enough shots to be able to cover the whole scene before we'd have to leave.
Under is some clips from the series where the main character are breaking the fourt wall
Point of View | If life were only like this from EXPOSED on Vimeo.
//Images and source material\\
No comments:
Post a Comment