Alfred Hitchcock: The Rules of Visual Storytelling

[Music] hello and welcome to the whole equation today we are going to ask a simple question how do you tell a cinematic story your girlfriend stole do you tell it with dialogue are you talking about what is this maybe with editing on youtube with music it is to urge one to drive one to make one work purely in the visual and not rely upon words at all alfred hitchcock believed that cinema's power came from it being a visual medium and therefore a director should aim to tell the story with as little dialogue as possible of course that poses a big question without dialogue how do you follow the plot how do you know what a character feels [Music] what was his reaction i mean when he looked at the no hitchcock applied a few very simple rules to help tell a story visually these rules codified the visual grammar of filmmaking and influence virtually every director working today hitchcock's first rule is perhaps the easiest to spot if you watch virtually any scene from any of his films you'll notice that the shots always start long [Music] and then come closer as the scene progresses so why does he do this well hitchcock first does this to establish the space which the characters occupy before setting the camera in on the drama while the idea of establishing space may seem abstract it's often vital for telling a story in this famous sequence from north by northwest hitchcock spent several minutes setting the scene in the flat open fields then when the plane arrives and starts shooting at cary grant this amplifies the drama as we know he has nowhere to find cover another example of establishing space occurs in his early film young and innocent in the finale a young girl searches for a murderer haven't you seen anyone with a twitch hit about whom all she knows is that he has a twitchy eye at that moment right on the line of dialogue put the camera in the highest position above the hotel lounge by placing the camera high above the hotel hitchcock emphasizes how hopeless this task is amongst the packed ballroom and i dulled the camera down through the dancers up to the dance band through the band right to the drummer close up of the drama until his eyes filled the screen and then the eyes did that so while the long shot establishes space the close-up is often useful for giving us important information which brings us to another of hitchcock's most important rules ah here she is not for my toast which was the size of the image in the frame is proportional to its importance to the story at that time that is close-ups carefully framed and timed correctly are an incredibly important element of telling the story visually one application of this rule is hitchcock's frequent use of objects in close-up this can take many forms for example objects can clarify an action such as looking or the close-up can convey something of the character's personality the focus on a pair of shoes can suggest that one character is bold and brash while another is retiring and conservative primarily of course a close-up lets the audience know that an object is about to become important to the plot [Music] when this is done successfully we can tell what is happening without being told watch this scene from notorious and i'll bet that you know what's up with this cup of coffee [Music] however due to the limitations of cameras and lenses in hitchcock's time it would not be possible to always get the shot he wanted if we freeze on this frame from dial m for murder we can actually see that he used oversized props of the phone and finger to achieve the shot likewise if we go back to the shot from notorious and pause you can tell that the hand is in fact another oversized pop hitchcock understood that when you tell the audience a story visually it's important to make it as simple and clear as possible very often close-ups are framed in shallow focus that is the background is blurred from a to g to ensure that the audience only notices the object similarly the same object might be shown on multiple occasions to ensure that it is implanted in the minds of the audience this allows hitchcock to then use it as a plot point later in the film he is going to put my lighter on that island guy i wanted to help however we've all watched movies which haven't engaged us with the plot i'm gonna steal the declaration of independence oh my god movies where it feels just like one thing happening after another this is i know this is the declaration of independence yes and it's very delicate hitchcock understood that successful storytelling requires the audience to engage with the characters on an emotional level so how can the camera convey the feelings of the characters one frequent method hitchcock uses is to focus on the hands to express how a character is feeling sometimes this can be subtle and sometimes it's really not [Music] hands can contrast a character who is feeling confident with one who is nervous or they can show how a character goes from feeling helpless to feeling angry [Music] simple silent and quick being hitchcock of course hands often associated with murder you don't mind if i borrow your neck for a moment do you and strangulation is easily the most common method in hitchcock's films the focus on hands emphasizes the power of one character and the helplessness of another then afterwards the hands frequently express guilt well i consider myself a very fortunate man today i'm on hand for the grand opening of what hitchcock liked close-ups of hands because they are a very economical way to show emotion the rule which unites all his close-ups is that they express just a single idea simply convey to the audience hitchcock's work demonstrates that by carefully considering what goes into each frame it's possible to express ideas or emotions in all kinds of ways let's say you have a character who's been jailed for a crime he didn't commit by framing the corners of the jail cell the camera captures the feelings of confinement felt by the character and of course there's more than one way to express this idea here the frame matches the cell walls trapping us with the character despite his mastery of visual imagery hitchcock was for most of his career not a silent filmmaker like all directors he eventually had to return to a dialogue scene just two people talking cocktail before dinner possibly the least cinematic thing there is however that didn't mean that hitchcock would drop his visual rules in these scenes yes hello oh instead these scenes adopt the same clear and consistent visual framework which allow him to express just as much of the pictures as with the dialogue are you all right oh yes yes i'm fine no after effects dialogue scenes start with a full shot this moves into a medium i've caused you some trouble as the drama intensifies we move closer until at the moment of maximum impact the character comes into close up you mean an institution a mad house this is in stark contrast to even some very good directors who'll cut from an establishing shot straight into a close-up of lindbergh there's nothing inherently wrong with this but it fails to express anything other than what's being said with a dialogue instead by timing when the camera comes in we can express more than what is being said for example it can hint that there is more to a situation than the dialogue is telling us are you a friend of mitch's no not really it can show our character has come to a realization tell me everything you saw or perhaps it can emphasize how sinister a certain character is horrible faded fat greedy women so perhaps you've watched to this point and thought that isn't very original the sinister character coming into close-up has become something of a cliche as has the poisoned coffee moving around the room but the reasons these may seem unoriginal is because alfred hitchcock gave us this visual language while he didn't invent the establishing shot or the close-up he refined their use and the consistency of his visual style has been a film school for generations of directors so today we pay tribute to alfred hitchcock the master of storytelling

Channel: The Whole Equation

Views: 96,705

Keywords: Hitchcock, North by Northwest, Psycho, Vertigo, visual storytelling, Strangers on a Train, Young and Innocent, close-ups, close up, close ups, closeup, Alfred Hitchcock, cinema, film, video essay, video essays, The Man who knew too much, visual, storytelling, cinematic, hitch, classic cinema, film theory, film analysis essay, visual storytelling in filmmaking, rear window review, alfred hitchcock video essay, alfred hitchcock storytelling, hitchcock essay

Id: ab4MWBpz9GU

Length: 11min 9sec (669 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 22 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/quooklyn]

Loved it...great job! I watched Lifeboat last night for the first time, and it was fascinating how he told the story visually within such extreme constraints, much like he managed to without music in The Birds and without color or budget in Psycho.