Star Wars Shot Composition Study

Here we go!

You can watch the video from here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jg7y925fevyl0ma/Star Wars Composition Study.mp4?dl=0

There is no sound because this forces a focus on the image more exclusively.

(NOTE: It appears that in Firefox, the video streaming is limited to 1 hour for some reason - not sure why. However, in Internet Explorer and Chrome the full duration is available)

Skip to a specific film:
0:06 - A New Hope
42:27 - Empire Strikes Back
1:07:09 - Return of the Jedi
1:24:04 - The Phantom Menace
1:42:42 - Attack of the Clones
2:11:05 - Revenge of the Sith
2:25:53 - The Force Awakens​

I put this 2 hour and 45 minute video together for the purpose of showcasing each of the Star Wars director's style of setting up camera shots for scenes.
I've outlined the time mark to each film, so you don't have to watch all 2:45:00 of the video.
It's just that long so that there's a good array of scenes to look over.

A composition template is layered over the footage to highlight the shot composition.
There are pretty strong differences in many ways between different directors, and even between George Lucas' A New Hope style and the style he applied in the Prequel Trilogy.

First, a quick run through of how to not get lost in the busy mess that is the composition template.

The composition template is this:



For those not familiar, I'll break this down briefly.

It's comprised of a few things:

This is the thirds and quarters overlay.


For quarters, the pink lines are the middle and the white lines are the boundaries.
For thirds, the white lines are the middle, and the pink lines are the boundaries.
The left most and right most slit up to the first pink line from each side is considered "buffer space".

This is an overlay for seeing your left and right blockings (the squares on right and left), the acute middle of equal proportion of the whole frame (small rectangle in the middle), the central diagonals of the whole frame and the left and right blockings, as well as the proportionate central vertical space (the vertical negative space rectangle in the middle).


Left and right blockings are pretty important, this is where a lot of shots will put something to make the shot more unique. This is more popular now than it was in the past (however, some more bold films of old did explore this wide region of the frame).

This is a square that I added to make it easier to highlight the central blocking area of the frame.

This is where most framing takes place, however, modern film tends to hang to the left or right and slightly off from center of the square, and old styles (such as the silver screen era, but especially the silent film era) hangs more in the middle here.

The green line and middle white line highlight the vertical and horizontal middle of the frame.



Generally speaking:
Lucas in ANH does what I like to call "Hugging the middle", because it avoids sticking a subject or object directly in the middle, but still keeps them in the middle square area - mostly - by moving them slightly to the right or left side of the middle square, typically framing them within the left or right middle quarter regions that are contained within the central square area. Lucas also is a very geometrically angular style. He frequently uses the diagonals of the frame (e.g. the Death Star shot to Alderaan), and he likes wider shots with everyone piled into them - master shots.
Most of Lucas' style of shot arrangements are this classic arrangement.


Kershner is more square in the middle. You'll notice more shots where characters fill up almost the entire central square area of the shot and more people are smack in the middle of the frame so that they can fill up that area. You'll also notice that their faces aren't as often in the exact center, but instead just below their face will be - forcing the audience to look up at the character. This causes things to seem big to many folks.
Kershner doesn't really use the master shot set up style very much. He tends to prefer all camera shots straight in front of the subject.

Marquand is something like mixing Lucas and Kershner's styles together, and he's a bit more diverse per minute than either Lucas and Kershner - employing more styles of shots in a minute of film than the other two.

Lucas in the Prequel Trilogy is not his usual style. He set about purposefully trying to film in a nod to silver screen style of filming. This means you try to keep as much as possible in the middle square of the frame, but also nail the center of the frame itself frequently. There is still the presence of Lucas' master shot and 45 degree medium shots. One notable difference is the amount of camera movement. To emulate the style, the camera's amount of movement is reduced pretty drastically, due to forcing tracks in a sound stage for almost everything (and a few cranes). Even the fights largely are filled with static camera shots that only move in terms of pivot or pan in almost all cases.
This gives the film an older feel - which is a bit odd feeling mixed with all of the CGI, but if you ever take the Prequels and turn your color off on your TV, and turn down the brightness so that it looks like old film, you'll be amazed at how close he was able to nail that (maybe I'll make that as my next video; that would be fun).

And finally, Abrams is actually quite a bit like Marquand, but he's far more modern and he has one heck of an eye for the camera. For one thing, he doesn't hug the middle - he does what I call Flirting with the Middle, because rather than sitting just outside of the middle, he regularly moves characters toward the middle, but just stops and pulls back. And this is true of any middle point that you see him framing - not just the absolute middle.
His subjects and the camera are also always on the move; unlike any of the previous directors, Abrams is constantly moving the camera and the subjects around while still accomplishing clean geometric lines and continues flirting with the middle - doing that while doing near 180 degree pivots while running is NOT easy...not by a long, long, long shot. This causes a bob-and-weave sensation (I imagine this is what it must have looked like to be inside the eyes of Ali when he fought in the ring).
Abrams also chooses to make the camera react as if it's a person standing right there - having it shake and vibrate, for example, when forceful things are near it or passing it. It also moves as if looking around, rather than standing off and taking a picture at designated positions. He also frames objects as if they're subjects, framing them in counter positions to characters. All prior directors styles' more often framed objects independent of subject framing. More specifically, independence exists between object and subject motion, whereas Abrams directly counterpoints subject and object motion.
So it's like Episode VI on jet fuel for camera style...crudely speaking in metaphor.

Man, this is so much fun!
I've wanted to do this for a very long time!

Alright!
Here's the video link again.
There is no sound because this forces a focus on the image more exclusively.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jg7y925fevyl0ma/Star Wars Composition Study.mp4?dl=0



I think that it's fascinating to watch the differences of how the choices make the films, and by consequence, the eras, of Star Wars feel.

The OT feels more epic, the PT feels like grand paintings, and the VII (I cannot add VIII yet) feels more visceral and alive - less epic, painted, and distanced, and more exclusive and personal (feeling more like you are the camera).


Also, this template isn't something that you'll see on monitors on sets.


The template is more something useful for studying. Someone versed in film, such as the listed directors before, would have variations they favor just imprinted into their mental eye as they look at the monitor, as they kind of need to see as much of the actual image as possible for fine detail.

Cheers,
Jayson