Alright let’s take a break from lighting in The Wingfeather Saga (I can hear the sighs of relief already) and go to another cinematic effect: framing. Specifically I wanna talk about the scenes with Peet and Podo in episode 4. For a definition, framing is how the characters are set within a scene, their physical positions in relation to other characters and important items.
So right off the bat we have this:
This is gonna be a theme here. Throughout this scene Peet is often framed as very small in comparison to Podo. Why? To show that Podo has power over Peet because usually the smaller you are the less power you have. Think about children- kids are very easily intimidated by adults because adults (even short ones like me) are a LOT taller than them. Height usually equals power. Obviously there are a lot of subversions and exceptions to this (Toph from Avatar comes to mind) but it is how our brains automatically interpret it. Size = power, and in this case Peet is framed a LOT smaller than Podo.
It actually gets worse because when the scene pans out to include the kids and Podo starts yelling at Peet, Peet crouches down and because of distance looks even smaller than the kids. He has so little agency in this situation that even people who are typically less powerful or helpless (children) have more control than he does:
He’s so small it looks like Podo could just crush him in his hands.
And honestly this is really interesting if you haven’t read the book before watching the show because we’ve already seen Peet fearlessly face horned hounds twice. We know that this man is more than he seems, that he is a capable fighter. He shouldn’t look this helpless in the face of this one man, which means there’s something we don’t know about. (and I just realized we don’t even see Podo FIGHT until the end of this episode so it’s even more baffling why Peet’s so scared of him. Like, yeah, Podo looks like a battering ram of a man but we’ve never actually seen him fight or do anything violent yet?)
But what really drives all this home is this shot:
WHOLY TOOTHY COWS. So, you can see from this shot EXACTLY what Podo intends to do and all of a suddenly you KNOW why Peet’s so scared of him. Why do you know that?
Because of the FRAMING. Back to that size and power thing, the way this shot is framed Peet’s whole head is smaller than Podo’s fist. They’re standing across from each other in a showdown stance but it’s very clear who has the power here. You know as well as Peet does here that Podo is planning to punch him, and even Leeli can’t stop it. Everything about this screams that Podo has power and control here and Peet has none.
Anyway, this broke my heart and I hope it was interesting or informative.
