Talking about composition and shot construction. You could have a formula and shoot every film the same, but what are you doing it for? I'm doing it because I really enjoy it. I'm playing with images and I love seeing the effect that an image has within a story. In "1917", we wanted a camera to feel like a solid, relentless move for these characters. Sam and I talked about this and we said, if you're going to keep this one camera move, this one shot then it has to encompass everything you want the audience to see. If we feel we need to cut to a reaction, the whole thing doesn't work. "- I thought this was going to be something easy." - So if somebody is speaking and you want to see them, you have to restage it. If it doesn't work with a cam. It actually applied to that first bunker scene where the guys are getting their orders. We had drawn it out in a way that didn't feel kind of right. And he came in one day and said, no, no, we can't because I need to see that reaction, but I don't need to see that one. So I've got to do it in a different way. And I thought it was really clever when Sam came in that day and said, okay, we'll have two tables. And the map won't be on the wall, it'd be on the table. And immediately it made sense. So you've already seen the line from the general you needed. "- You have a brother. - Lieutenant  in 2nd division? - Yes, sir. - Joseph Blake, is he? - Alive. As far as I know. Sanders tells me you're good with maps, is that true? - Good enough, sir. - So..." - You gone down to the map. You come up to him, he's turned around. Two guys walk around the table. And now you see their reaction for what their mission is and then using their move over to the side to get their guns and their supplies. That gives you the chance to walk around and come back. And as the exit, you have to have the General's last line at that point, which is the bit of poetry. "- Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne, He travels the fastest who travels alone." - And then as they exit, we did the pan to go out with them up into the world over their backs, which was definitely the way to go, because you wanted to see them once again, emerging into the trench.

"- Let's talk about this for a minute. - What?" - You don't need a lot of complex set design and stuff. It was a very simple formal scene. At certain point, you start getting a feel of each scene. Whether you are going to play at wide or observational or whose point of view you're going to play it from? And what does that mean compositionally? You know, obviously, there's certain exterior shots you shoot where you're very aware of the kind of composition you want to go for. You know, little figure walking across that harsh landscape, or you're going for a huge sky, or you're going for a lot of ground and them being top of frame. You kind of have those sort of things in your mind. Do you choose a location where a lot of verticals, like a forest with vertical trees, so you can do a sidetrack. I think I can usually see it in my head. And then it's just a matter of finding that, tweaking it with the right lens and the right camera movement, the right positioning, you know. It might be just a few inches left or right. And it make a lot of difference or change a lens. And that's the other thing, its composition, it's related to the lens you use. Because obviously, the lens you use defines whether the viewer is close to the subject, unaware of the background around them, always further from the subject, and less aware of the background and the surrounding. So, you know, the lens has a crucial role in a composition. I remember working with a Coen and we have done "Hudsucker Proxy" and we shot the whole film on quite wide lenses. Not distorted, but kind of a pushed... kind of environment pushed reality. So then the next film we did together was "Fargo" and they wanted that to feel like a docu-drama really. It kind of like, this is a real story and they wanted it to feel real. So we talked about shooting on longer lenses.

I think the first decision is to kind of feel of the film. I mean, are you going to do... are you going to shoot it all handheld? But then you got film like "Jarhead" and you basically put the camera on your shoulder and you talk about how you're going to cover the particular scene and then you just do it. And then maybe you discuss it afterwards and work on it for the next take. "- Swofford, if you don't pick it up I'm gonna shoot you in your f*cking foot! Move it!" - In terms of sort of the overall compositional thing, like your first feeling of what a film's going to look like I think of "Kundun" where Marty Scorsese wanted something fairly proscenium. He wanted the Dalai Lama to be in the central frame. He wanted a symmetry because it reflected the spirituality of that religion of Buddhism. So here we creating something which most more kind of a picture book in that way. And then there was a certain lens length we went with on that film as well. So it'll have a certain formality to it. I mean, I've always referenced still photography, thinking about composition and content and position. You can't really divorce one from the other. And that's why, to an extent, you can't really divorce, lighting or camera movement from composition. It's like, if you're taking a still photograph, you have to take the angle of the light, the nature, and the quality of the light in mind when you position yourself and take a shott. And I think it's definitely the same things are combined in film. Do you shoot at somebody silhouetted against the window? Or do you shoot them against the window and then after flat light them as if they were lit from inside because you don't want a silhouette. It's as simple as that, isn't it? "- These ain't the same things that I've seen and it certainly made an impression on me." - It's the image that you have in your head. That's more important than the technique if that makes sense. What's the script? What's.

The story? What's the scene? What's the individual shot you're shooting? And what do you want the audience to feel?.