First, what draws our attention when we are talking about cinema is the visual language, that is, the moving image. But while the visual field of the shot has edges, the visual world does not have it (SANTAELLA, 2001, p.185). Thus, the first challenge impose on filmmakers is to adapt to the rectangular space of the camera itself, that is, they had to choose what to frame and what to select in the world. Like the painter and the photographer, the filmmaker had to learn where to focus his attention, since, in reality, everything is visibly continuous, that is, the world extends behind our heads and in front of our eyes (SANTAELLA, 2001, p.186). Therefore, the camera view is a rectangular cutout of the world determined by the rectangular space of the frame (or a series of frames), so it is a fragment of the external object. The direct relation between camera and world is made by this fragmented form, then reduced, to look at. Thus, what the camera captures is only a delimited face of reality.
In this way, this filmmaker's eyes (see MERCADO, 2011, p.1-5) that is improved through the camera, is the result of a mediation between this space of the shot / composition and the world that appears ahead. And it is exactly to overcome this fact - the limited look - that the filmmaker learns to capture reality through the delimitations of the shot, thus, "framing" an object requires a refinement of a fragmented, limited space, delimited look, that this "glance", amidst the immensity of possible images that the reality presents during all the time, is distinct, is particular. This is to such an extent that we distinguish one filmmaker from another by the way he/she articulates these frames in a story. So it does not come from chance, the classic image of the director with his/her arms outstretched, the tips of his thumbs together and the indicators in parallel, as this is precisely like the trimming of the camera.
In fact, knowing how to compose a shot, in such a way as to be able to represent the action, requires a poetic look that, through a fragment of angle and time, shapes, in a moving image, the whole of the argument, of the concept, that is , of the general idea involved. Therefore, such a poetic gaze has in itself a synthesis character, mediated by the filmmaker and the cinematographer and his/her team, for the fluxes, movements, rhythms, and progressions of objects before the camera require the filmmaker to perceive the interactions, interrelationships and layers, in the spaces and times of each - and each - element in play, that is, on scene.
In his primeval state - in search of an idealized aesthetic style - this look is exactly the same as a pure hypothesis looking for a certain type of filmmaker's look defended by Gustavo Mercado (2011). They are not shots proper, but a process of stoning and enhancement of the look. In fact, they are sketches of shots not yet defined, not updated, not embodied. Therefore, they are images that enjoy the freedom to be free and spontaneous, which shapes in the mind in a set of possible shots for a scene, for a movie. In this way, they are mental imagery that test the different variations of angles when filming an idea, a script, a situation, an argument.
It can be defined as Aristotle (2005, 63) emphasized in saying that the poet must proceed as if the scene were unfolding before his/her eyes, for, seeing things fully enlightened, as if present, he/she can find what is fitting , leaving no details to it contrary to the effect it intends to produce. Or it can still be forged even at the moment when the filmmaker observes the staging of its actors in the scene and in the location of filming. In fact, it is at this instant of formulation that the filmmaker composes his/her signature, that is, it is through this open set of possibilities that he/she discovers the qualities of the surroundings of the shot and, consequently, the way these qualities integrate his/her vision of the world.
References:
ARISTOTLE. Poetics. São Paulo: Martin Claret Editora, 2005.
MERCADO, Gustavo. The Filmmaker's Eye. Oxford: Elsevier, 2011.
SANTAELLA, Lucia. Matrixes of language and thought - sonorous, visual, verbal. São Paulo: Editora Iluminuras, 2001.
