The principles of single shot cinema, a unique technique
developed by award-winning Dutch filmmaker Leonard Retel
Helmrich, were revealed at the recent Talent Campus Durban.
Anyone who has seen Leonard
Retel Helmrich’s acclaimed
documentary Position Among
the Stars, which screened at
this year’s Durban International Film
Festival, will have marvelled at the
amazing long takes, often executed at
mind-boggling camera angles, and how
the camera seems to float smoothly in
space and time.
Helmrich showed the enthralled
participants of Talent Campus Durban
how he created devices that allow him to
manipulate the camera with such
extraordinary fluidity. In one instance,
while on location in Indonesia, Helmrich
constructed an improvised crane from
bamboo sticks which he attached to an
old steering wheel found on the
road that allowed him to guide the
camera’s direction.
He has invented his own rig, called
Steadywings, which consists of
lightweight, fold-up arms (made out of
PVC pipes) that attach to small digital
cameras and allow the operator to move
the camera all around his body.
Historical perspective
“My approach to cinematography began
with looking at how important inventions
are to cinema, like the spring mechanism
of the early 1900 cameras that replaced
the hand crank mechanism. This meant
you could lift the camera off the tripod
and move it around.
“Throughout history camera moves
were always made in anticipation of the
edit. My films show you can have
freedom of camera movement. I analysed
the essence of camera movement – in the
French New Wave cameras moved
around a lot, as they did in the camera
verite-inspired films of the 1960s and
1970s.’
In the mid-1990s Helmrich received a
subsidy for a one-day shoot to film the
theatre performance, Somebody on the
Stairs. This consisted of three people
making music with noises.
“I wanted to test how to move the
camera from one musician to another and
how to use camera movement as a form of
expression. So I suspended a camera from
a crane, like a hanging mobile. The
footage feels weightless, like being
underwater.’
Orbits
Helmrich wanted to make use of orbital
camera movements in his
cinematography, building on the camera’s
own momentum. “Obviously that’s
difficult to do with big cameras but
fortunately technology developed and
digital video cameras emerged. I got a
Sony DV camera and connected it to a bar
to see how it could be moved. It occurred
to me that it would be better to have two
bars with which to hold the camera, hence
the invention of the Steadywings.’
If the way that Helmrich moves with
the camera reminds you of the dance-like
Chinese martial art Tai Chi, it’s no
coincidence. He shot his film, Eye of the
Day, using Tai Chi-like camera
movements. The astonishing cobra in the
grass scene in the film was shot with this
method.
“I want to be part of the movement and
not a fly on the wall because flies fly
around,’ continued Helmrich. “For me
the movement of the camera is an essence
of cinema and must be used as part of the
narrative. It’s important to use every
second of the film to tell the story. I
usually shoot every scene of my film in
single shots. If you’re doing a long
crane shot you can always hand the
crane to another person at some stage of
the shot.’
Feeling the subject matter
He emphasised that camera motion
doesn’t always have to be smooth. “If you
are touched by what you are shooting and
you feel emotion then the camera
movement should express that. Forget
about the technique – just shoot. For me
it’s all about personal freedom.
“I always shoot on automatic settings
and I shoot on a wide angle. With depth
of field you can’t move the camera. When
someone looks into your camera it means
you’re not close enough. I try to shoot
from an emotional point of view – what
I’m feeling at the time – and not my
physical point of view.’
When shooting Helmrich doesn’t look
through the camera so that his subjects
look at him and not the camera. This
helps him capture real life as it unfolds.
“Shooting this way is like a jazz session.
You start with a group and then suddenly
someone goes off on a tangent. In
documentary you need the freedom to
shoot as things happen. I switched from
feature films to documentary because I
wanted to have messages in my films.’
Helmrich advises documentary
filmmakers to stay focused on
what they want to get out of a scene
and to decide – with each shot –
what the most important thing in the
frame is.
SCREENAFRICA Print Magazine – October 2011 (view here)
