steven soderbergh's analysis of staging

 Okay so I found this blog post by Steven Soderbergh (director of the Ocean's Eleven movies) that discusses staging in film. Soderbergh defines staging as "how all the various elements of a given scene or piece are aligned, arranged, and coordinated." Its purpose is to really expand the storytelling as much as possible, he believes that a film should be watchable and understandable with the sound off. He demonstrates the art of staging in film by desaturating Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark, removing all of its audio, and adding the score from The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 

He did this to emphasize the film's spectacular-ness in its staging (the legality is. debatable).  What's notable is how Spielberg is able to change frames in one shot, his use of background and foreground to depict focus, and his overall use of mirrors, framing, and shadows. It's really insane. I haven't given Sodbergh's Raiders a full watch as of yet, I'm not sure I will have the time but I will do so if it is possible. A brilliant video by CinemaStix dissects Soderbergh's version of Raiders. It's amazing how different shots and what is or isn't included in their composition can tell a story on their own, no sound no dialogue necessary. For context, I had known about this article for some time, but it was brought to my attention again through a random tweet that I can across (lol) and the idea of using staging as a pivotal part of my visual component struck me. I really want to do this. 

Another film I watched that does this amazingly as well is In the Mood for Love. In the film, the faces of characters are very often obscured, either due to blocking or staging. This in itself creates a sense of disconnection between the characters and the viewer, but also between the characters themselves. A character that holds an emotional shield is not entirely in view while the character pouring his heart out takes up a majority of the shot. The film is also shot either far away, or through windows/in between objects. This really creates a sense of disconnection between the viewer and the story and the emotions at play. It's only in the tender, genuine, intimate scenes where we get to see the characters in their entirety. It's brilliant, I hope I can capture a bit of that skill in my work. Realistically, I have doubt I'll be able to even do a percentage of this haha, but I still wanna try. So I will. I'm going to focus on developing my story and characters now haha