Camera Terms-Angle

Camera Angle generally refers to the camera's relationship with the subject(s) in the frame. Frontal, Profile and 3/4 are types of angles and are covered separately. Placing the camera so it angles down on the subject is called a high angle. A set up with the camera very high over head but angled straight down is called an Aerial. Many times these shots are used to describe a setting as in the opening sequence of "West Side Story" (1961). In the shots below, a very high angle evokes a feeling of loss or sadness. Lightning finally realizes he has found a place and others he loves but is suddenly forced away. "Cars" (2006). Below, Lola looses her boyfriend in "Run Lola Run" (1998).

Getting back to high angle or 'down-shots'; generally these are used to show inferiority, loss, low moments.  We, the audience are looking down on the subject and all that implies. A perfect example is this shot from "Chocolat" (2000). The mayor, played by Alfred Molina, has fallen from his place of piety and succumbed to breaking in to a chocolate shop and destroying/eating the display. A difficult composition but well conceived to show the lowness of the character.

An ERL or Eye Ranking Level AKA Eye Ranking Angle positions the camera on a subject's horizon line.  This allows the viewers to associate with or 'feel' what the character is feeling. Example below, "The Green Mile" (1999).

Low Angle, or 'up-shots' give a sense of authority to the subject. Below Mowgli's 'father figure', someone Mowgli looks up to, is shown at a gentle up-shot from "The Jungle Book" (1967). 

Up-shots also describe power and the lower the camera the more powerful the character or subject becomes.  As in Scar leading the hyenas to Be Prepared in the "Lion King" (1994).

 Low angles also give power to settings.  Maleficent's castle seems impenetrable in the camera angle below. "Sleeping Beauty" (1959).

But, as cinema has showed us, there is always a way to twist the meaning of the shot. In "Citizen Kane" (1941), Kane has just lost the election and is shown suffering the set back, his friends start to abandon him yet, the scene is shot from a low angle.

In another example, a sheriff tries to round up a posy to hunt down Butch and Sundance and the film makers went out of their way to give the man visual power; up-shot, back lighting, placing the 'hanging tree' behind him, even having him stand on a stage in front of the onlookers but the things he says and the way the onlookers respond to him strips him of any power, even to be interrupted by a bicycle salesman. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969)

When setting up your shots thing about the visual weight of the subjects in the frame, using the correct camera angle with add emphasis to your choices.

Posing Break Down: Disney's Tarzan-Jane's Rant

In 1999 I went to morning showing of Disney's newly released Tarzan with my friend Jules Jammal.  As students of animation at the time we both fell in love with this film and each time I watch it, I think of Jules who passed, sadly, away in 2014 and how impressed, inspired and excited we were walking out of the theater.

The animation and attention to detail in this film is stellar and Jane Porter instantly became one my all-time favorite animated characters.  The scene where Jane arrives back in her camp after being saved by Tarzan and seeing the gorillas for the first time is one that has stuck with me since that day I sat in the theater watching it for the first time. There was something tantalizing and elusive about seeing Jane struggle to tell her father about her adventure "swinging through the vines..." and after a long wait for it to come out on DVD, I discovered it was the longest un-cut shot in the film, clocking at just under 50 seconds! Even the DVD lists this scene as "Jane's Rant" in the scene selection:

Ken Duncan and his team did an amazing job animating Jane in this moment but the animation seen in Professor Archimedes Q. Porter (supervised by Dave Burgess) -who is on screen the longest of all the characters in this shot- and Clayton (supervised by Randy Haycock) are brilliant. This shot remains the one I turn attention to and has been the element of many hours of personal study. 

It began as great scenes do, with thumbnail sketches as seen below from Ken Duncan as borrowed from The Tarzan Chronicles,

Here are many of the keys and breakdowns from this shot. Find the keys most closely associated with the thumbnails above. You can watch it here (it's the whole movie but set to this moment-it seems slowed down just a bit in the link provided but hopefully you'll get the idea).

The script for the above images as taken from here.

Porter: Are you all right? We've been everywhere looking for you.
Jane: Oh, oh my goodness. Daddy, I was out walking. I was--little baby--little baby monkey, and I drew a picture. Suddenly the monkey starts crying, and I turned around and there's a whole fleet of them! There's an army of monkeys, a huge tree full of them, screaming at me! Terrified I was, terrified. Suddenly I was swinging in a vine, up in the air, swinging, flying, I was in the air. And we were all surrounded. And Daddy, they took my boot.
Porter: They took--those were the ones I bought you.
Jane: And I was saved, I was saved by a flying wild man in a loincloth.
Porter: Loincloth? Good Lord.
Clayton: What is she talking about?
Porter: I haven't the foggiest idea. Takes after her mother, you know.
-Cut