Lille: Masterclass With Michael Dudok de Wit

Today's Masterclass with Michael Dudok de Wit was really interesting. I gained a lot of insight into how his film The Red Turtle was produced, and he stressed the importance of composition and the relationship between characters and the setting, and how changing the positioning of the characters can effect how we perceive them. For instance, in one scene he had made sure to have sleeping characters spaced a certain distance from each other. You could tell as they were relatively close that there was a connection between the three and that they were comfortable with one another, but had they had been any closer this suggests something much more intimate. Michael also spoke about how he created diagonals between characters and objects. Rather than keeping the composition straight, he mixed things up to keep things interesting, but made sure to have a repetition of "a curve" throughout the compositions and the setting. For instance, characters could walk in a curve through a field, or mountains and hills would be curved. This was an artistic choice he had made and in his opinion thought it brought a "natural understanding to the movie" and added a "soft beauty". This isn't something I've really thought about before, but maybe something  I should consider. I've found that I tend to follow 'the rules of thirds' a lot, and it may be interesting to think about how deviating from this rule could impact the way the movie or actions are perceived.

I found it interesting that Michael said he avoided using close-ups of character's faces to show emotion. He found that having a close-up of hands/actions was more beneficial to him as he felt it gave more of a sense of expression and emotion. The way an action is carried out will tell you how the character is feeling, without having to show their facial expression. This is something that I was made aware of during my research for my Dissertation, but not something I had really thought about contextually. I knew that emotion was going to effect the way that a character behaved, but hadn't really considered the inverse.