The only equipment you need is a consumer video camera, a tripod and a television for play back.. Every Movie Game results in a finished edit-in-camera movie. So you can play back your results immediately and learn faster. Serious artists can use Movie Games as a daily form of practice. The best thing about Movie Games is how they get people involved with each other. Movie Games encourage sharing the camera as a group of collaborators. Movies are made in a linear sequence shot by shot. The challenge is each player gets one shot at a time as the camera is passed from player to player while improvising the movie. So everyone gets to experience consciously directing and framing shots as well as acting in fellow player's shots. Every player has to act and every player has to shoot. There is no hierarchy. You have to work together. Skillful groups can become movie making ensembles and create spontaneous finished movies in a fraction of the time the conventional movie making process requires.
History: These movie making activities are an adaptation of ideas found in the book, "Improvisation For The Theater", by Viola Spolin, published by Northwestern University Press in 1963. Seminal work for this approach to movie making began during Neptune Theatre School's very successful Video Doc Shop for youth which I facilitated in July 1998. The Irondale Ensemble Project in Halifax, Nova Scotia was instrumental in helping me develop many of the newer movie improvisation ideas and activities in January 1999.
Learn more about Viola Spolin.
Basic Guide Lines... These activities involve sharing a video camera and editing-in-camera as your team improvises a movie in a shot-by-shot sequence. So its important for all players on your team to grasp the following basic guide lines of motion picture shooting and editing.
It is important to avoid cutting to a camera positioned
in the grey zone, but it is possible to cross the axis if you move your
camera while recording your shot. This establishes a new axis which requires
the same attention as the first one. So be very mindful of how you break
your scene into individual shot positions.
Most of the time we scan a scene with a rapid succession of small, darting looks. Try observing people's eyes when they first enter a room. This is the reason most movies are edited into short bits of visual information lasting on the average of two to five seconds. Try counting the number of cuts per minute of your favorite television show or movie. You will see for yourself how basic movie making tends to emulate the action of the human eye.
There are exceptions. Many current event and music television
programs use continuous, hand-held, wide angle, close-up forms of videography
to create a sense of immediacy.
Edit-In-Camera movies are made in a linear sequence. So
players often have to freeze in position between shots - or at least remember
precisely what they have been doing at all times. This exercise in concentration
is probably one of the most practical aspects of these activities.
The
illustration at the right represents a picture frame which has been divided
into horizontal and vertical thirds. Notice that the regions of the frame
(or screen) are named similarly to the areas of a theatre's stage. These
common reference points help players communicate with each other when they
are blocking (or framing) shots.
It is no coincidence that this division of the frame corresponds
to the ancient artist's "rule of thirds" which can also be used by each
player to frame aesthetically pleasing shots. Learn more at the Photography
Composition Articles Library.
Every shot in a movie has a point of focus that a viewer's eye will automatically follow around the screen. It is important to keep this in mind because it will help your team create smooth cuts from shot to shot. The illustration shows a sequence of three shots. The point of focus in shot one begins at position 1 (upper screen left) and moves within the frame to position 2 (screen right). Notice how shot two begins with its point of focus framed in the same position (screen right) as the last point of focus in shot one. This guide line is tricky like an irregular verb. There are often times when it is appropriate to "ping pong" the viewer's eyes back and forth from shot to shot. This is called jump cutting and is mostly used for dialogue.
Many advanced activities require players to take turns with the camera. It is helpful to a player's team mates if the framing of the point of focus is stated before passing the camera to the next player.
Action can be achieved by the camera as well as the performer. Think about how Hamlet, all alone, contemplating life and death, would be recorded. What would the player do? What would the camera do? How can a movie show the thoughts of a character? What if your story telling tools are strictly limited to a single home video camera?
Visual story telling is the predominant literature of our age. Look at movies, television, magazines, and comic books. Visit art galleries! Challenge yourself to communicate with moving images.
copyright 1999, 2000 Kimberly Smith
1. "Ping Pong" The idea is to move the audience's eye from left to right on the screen. This can be done a number of ways. dialogue is the easiest. Simply jump cut from one actor to the next and frame accordingly. Or pan from left to right. Or get the performers to move from left to right in the frame. Now the challenge is how do we smoothly accomplish this in a group where each individual gets a turn with the camera? We need common movie making language. In this case, each time a person hands off the camera, they have to tell the next person which side of the frame the visual focus was on. Thus the continuity is maintained. People learn very quickly when it is not. This game requires alertness almost the same way as something like Zip Zap Zop does. It can be timed or not. I've even had two teams compete.
2. "In The Moment" The idea is to emulate a fast paced current event news show. I did this one with the Irondale Ensemble in Halifax. We had a couple of cars so we were able to go to various locations across the city and stage "Live" interviews with group members posing as ordinary citizens. We payed attention to our framing (either left or right) and we shared the camera round robin. All edit-in-camera. Everyone had to pay close attention all the time and try to remember what had happened in the previous location as well as keep on top of the framing. The energy level was quite high. Our finished movie looked like a real live news show.
3. "First Shot, Last Shot" This game is built upon the idea that each individual shot contains an action that moves a story forward. So the first thing I do is have all the individuals in the group write down on little scraps of paper single shot ideas. For example: "angrily throwing a wad of paper in a trash can" or "biting a delicious apple or a bad one". I encourage the group to save these shot ideas on little scraps of paper that can be kept in a box or a hat. These can be used in a variety of games, but in this one, we break into two teams. Each one picks a first shot out of the hat -then a last shot. the object of the game is to create a story sequence that gets from the first shot to the last shot in twelve shots. The camera is passed from individual to individual. No one is allowed more than one shot at a time and each shot has to be no longer than thirty seconds. All members of the team must appear in front of the camera at least once. Again this is all done edit-in-camera. So everyone has to be on their toes at all times. The game can be timed or not and the sequence can have more than twelve shots or less. We've done this as an easy going, inclusive recreational activity on a Saturday afternoon and the movie was played after a pot luck supper.
4. "Beam Us Up" This game requires a tripod. The idea is to use "lock-off" camera positions to create Star Trek like transporter special effects. The dramatic point is something is wrong with the transporter - some people disappear and new ones emerge. Again the camera is shared round robin. So this is what changes up the personnel, but the real challenge is trying to remember how people were positioned in the last location so when they re emerge, they are still in the same physical relationship with each other. Its harder than people think, but kids of all ages love this game. The way it works is the camera is rock solidly framed wide on a certain empty location and you record a few seconds. Then you bring the group in and have them freeze in transporter position. Simply roll the camera again without moving it a millimetre and the group will appear out of nowhere. Some cameras have an overlap dissolve which makes the group seem to fade in. Its fun and the dramatic possibilities are wide open. This idea can be combined with other games like "In The Moment" to create wild, Wellsian stories.
5. "Who Am I?" This is a P.O.V. game.
Again it is edit-in-camera and passed round robin from individual to individual
in the group. Camera operators choose a certain P.O.V. either dynamic
or static and the actors interact with the camera in such a way that the
identity of the camera is implied, but not expressly given away.
I usually remind the players not to hog the camera and figure out how to
create connecting shots so the camera can be passed to the next player.
All the visual rules remain the same. This game is played in teams.
One group has to watch the other's sequence and correctly identify the
camera's character.
copyright 1999, 2000 Kimberly Smith
If you would like more Movie Game ideas or you have comments and suggestions, contact me here