Film camera angles

Cafe Society
1

I’ve watched a lot of older B&W films (30s-50s),and one question has bugged me for the longest time.

Why do actors and actresses invariably get into the car from the curbside? (previous action taking place on that side)Doesn’t seem to matter if the camera’s shooting from across the street or the same side as the actors getting in.

Some scenes even have the actor opening the passenger door for the actress-then the actor getting into back seat and sliding onto drivers seat from there (this in convertibles) I’ve also seen some scenes where 2 people get into the car from the driver’s side (previous action coming from across the street from were the car’s parked) and the passenger gets in first then slides over to let the driver occupy the driver’s seat.

Why don’t/didn’t they load a car normally-that is,the driver walk around the front of the car, then open drivers door to get in?

I’ve heard it said that Ward Bond didn’t like to be shot from these kinds of angles having a larger than normal posterior for his body type (John Ford took pleasure in getting an ass-end shot of him if he could work it in),but everyone?

There must be another,more technical reason, I’d think,than to please an actor’s vanity.Is there?

2

Since this is about the movies, I’ll move this thread to Cafe Society.

3

Way before my time, so I don’t know the customs of car entry at the time; but I do know that cars used to have bench seats in front and it was easy for a person to get into the car from the curb side and slide across. Maybe people just did that back then, and the behaviour is reflected in the movies?

Or: It takes some time for an actor to go around the car and get in from the driver’s door. Maybe the directors of the time didn’t want to show several seconds of the passenger just sitting there? (A bit like “dead air” on the radio.)

I would assume the former, however.

4

I second Johnny L.A.'s theory. Maybe it was an issue of doing one less set-up or eliminating the walk-around time, but I think it was probably how people loaded into cars at the time (I’m inclined to think this stopped around the 50s or so, when car designs began to change more).

5

I don’t know why they do but if you need an example you can see this in Psycho. Yes it bugs me too.
Maybe avoiding up-the-skirt shot?

Who would want to avoid that?

7

People always got into cars the way they do today.At least in the 40s 50s.The weld makes some sense but what about when the actors enter the car from the driver’s side.Also these car entries don’t usually involve ensuing stunts,just the characters driving off to the next scene.
I thought about the couple seconds of dead time involved in the walk,but editing should take care of that.

There must be some technical reason.Any directors/film students out there?

8

Some old cars do not have lock cylinders on the driver’s side door, only the passenger’s side. My father’s 1936 Ford is a prime example. You must unlock the passenger’s door with the key, then slide over to the driver’s side of the bench seat. The driver’s door can only be locked and unlocked from inside the car. Odd, but apparently considered a safety feature, to prevent people from getting out of the car into traffic.

Given that bench seats were pretty much universal back then, and people were probably very used to sliding from side to side, my assumption would be that the actions you noticed were typical of the time, and have nothing whatsoever to do with the fact it is in a movie.

9

Very Godard-ian of you! :wink:

Consider the scene: “A man and a woman get into a car.” Typically the camera would be looking head-on, as if looking through the windscreen. Let’s say the man lets the woman into the car. The camera is rolling. He can walk around the back or front of the car to get in through the driver’s door, but this will effectively stop the scene until he comes back on-camera. But if the director, in his Vision, decides that that would add, say, tension to the scene, then that’s the way he might do it.

Or, getting back to Godard, you could simply cut out the intervening seconds. The man lets the woman in, and the audience knows that he will get in as well. Why bother showing it? Just have the woman get in, then suddenly the man is in the driver’s seat. Perfectly valid, but many audience members would be like, “Man, that was a bad edit!”

Or you could show the man letting the woman into the car, then go to, say, a wide shot so that you can see the guy walking around the car, then go back to the original shot. Or Have the frontal shot with the woman getting in, then move the camera to the right side of the car and film the guy getting in and maybe saying a line of dialog. Go through both actors’ dialog, then reverse the angle and do it again. This way you can “let editing take care of it”.

The point is, when you edit you need something to cut to. And every time you change the angle that involves another setup (and setups can be time comsuming).

I’m of the opinion that unless something is important to the film, you shouldn’t go out of your way to film it. That is, different angles may be “nice”, but are they necessary? Why not just get a minor scene in one shot? Preferably in one take?

So by having the people get into the car on the same side the shot can be done without having to wait for the actor to go around and get in through the other door.

But not on a prop car.

I still kinda think that people just got into cars that way, at least often enough so that people of the era would not comment on it.

10

Johnny L.A. beat me to the Godard summary, and did a nice job. For redundancy’s sake, just be aware that filmmakers didn’t start cutting out “extraneous” action until Godard pioneered it in the 60’s. Until then, if somebody was doing an action, it was considered “good cinema” to show the beginning, middle, and end. That’s why so many older movies seem so talky; since they have to perform their activities in their boring entirety, they must keep talking to maintain audience interest (or don’t do anything and just talk). And hence the odd way of getting into a car: It saves a setup, it keeps the action onscreen, and it’s quick.