The use of the camera
In a video posted on AMC’s Mad Men blog, Alan Taylor (who directed Smoke Gets In Your Eyes as well as Ladies Room and Nixon vs. Kennedy) talks about stylistic uses of the camera that set the period every bit as much as the costumes. Interesting!
May 5th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I think this is one of my favorite aspects of Mad Men. The cinematography is as good as the stuff Robert Burks (Hitchcock’s cinematographer on everything from the 50s and early 60s) ever did. The framing and composition of the shots is so stunning that each one could stand on its own as an individual still image. The use of lighting and shadow, the saturated colors, the steady pacing and long, drawn-out shots all work to underscore what’s happening in the scene.
Unlike the movies and TV of today where there’s some kind of movement or motion all the time, the slow, deliberate way in which Mad Men is shot, gives the audience a chance to really absorb and process everything within a scene. Because you can see it, you sense its importance–even if it’s a trivial detail or prop like a cigarette lighter or canister of pencils. To me, that just adds layers to the characters and their stories. It also adds to the tension and sense of foreboding that something sinister lurks just beneath the surface. You always think something is about to happen, even if nothing ever does.
May 5th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
My ex-non-boyfriend does set dressing (and key gripping and rain making and a bunch of other stuff) for film and television. He watched one episode of MM with me (can’t remember which one… maybe Ladies Room or New Amsterdam) and said the show had a lot of ‘hero props’. An insider’s term and I’d never heard it, but sure. Whether it’s a focal point, like the typewriter in ‘Smoke’, or each cigarette case and lighter and can of coffee.
May 5th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
I just got done watching “The Best of Everything”. Fun to see the office set-up and the similar composition shots. They sure did like those grid ceilings, as Taylor mentions.
In 2004, Camille Paglia compared “Sex and the City” to “The Best of Everything”, saying they were pretty much the same thing. It’s nice to recognize how much “Mad Men” is not like them.
May 6th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Hi All -
Speaking of technical stuff in the making of the show, I have a question up at the Mad Men blog under the post regarding Alan Taylor’s storyboards:
http://blogs.amctv.com/mad-men/2008/04/alan-taylors-st.php
No one’s replied to my question yet. I’m wondering if anyone here can? Here’s the question I asked:
Can someone please tell me if it’s a common thing for directors to draw the storyboards? I have no idea how that stuff works. Thanks.
(The blog post had shown that Alan Taylor drew the storyboards for that episode, and I always presumed specialized artists did storyboards, not directors. Is he just particularly talented, or is that a common thing, is my question).
May 6th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Hi, Oaktown Girl. Welcome!
It’s not uncommon. It depends on the background of the director, of course; some may not be comfortable drawing. This might be especially true of actors-turned-directors, for example. And some directors work with an artist to create storyboards.
Some directors have a seat-of-your-pants style, and some see the storyboards perfectly in their heads without need to draw anything. But TV is a tight schedule, so careful planning is needed, and storyboards help, especially in a complicated shoot.
May 7th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Thanks for the info, Deborah.
I didn’t know so many directors could draw, perhaps because I’ve seen the words, “story board artist” so many times before, I thought it was a specialty. But sure, it makes sense that directors would draw their own story boards if they can, save time by cutting out the middle person.
May 7th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Sometimes it’s how they communicate what they want. Some of them draw badly, but do it themselves and have a storyboard artist clean it up.
May 19th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
It looks like the AMC site corrected the oversight, and added the production artist’s name to the drawings. Some directors are skilled artists (Alfred Hitchcock, can you tell he’s one of my favorites, was a skilled graphic designer), while others make stick figures to illustrate their concepts, then hand them off to an illustrator to bring them to life.