#mixtape closeup

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The Mixtape Close Ups

These may be the closest shots in recent memory for SPN: 

Now, I mentioned before that the closer a shot is, the more importance is generally given to it. (this isn’t always true but it’s a solid film language expectation in western dialogue scenes and SPN follows it pretty consistently. It’s how dialogue is often given dynamics, especially when there isn’t much blocking).

This is right after Dean gives the mixtape back to Cas. But he’s framed this way through the entire mixtape section of the scene except when he gives the mixtape back which invokes it’s own symbolism and closeup insert. That means anytime he’s cropped like this, be it speaking or reacting, it is meant to be dramatic and important. 

Comedy is a wide shot, drama is a closeup. They (according to western film language) intend a ton of drama and weight from this part of the scene. Looking back at previous scenes, even between Cas and Dean, how many of them have been this close? Dean is very affected by what is happening and this really drove home to me what the mixtape meant to him.(not that it really needs much more, really. But if you wanted more, here it is.)

An interesting thing about this is how these extreme closeups are (generally) made. There is a decent chance they didn’t actually have a camera that close to him, and either had it a reasonable but still close distance out and zoomed in, or the scaling was done in post. It’s probably a mix of both.

Editing programs allow the editor to take a piece of footage and scale it up or down so it looks zoomed in or out, file size allowing. That’s probably how they achieved this shot without having the camera take up a bunch of space: A zoom with the camera, and an edit.

Either way, someone wanted it, and by someone I mean probably the director, but certainly the editor and producer(show runners) for I dunno, some reason.

You don’t just get those shots, the camera had to have been moved into position in a painstakingly obnoxious process called a “turnaround” where they move all the equipment for a new setup and film everything that’s meant to be filmed from that angle. Setups are figured out way in advanced usually. Especially in TV where deadlines are pretty obsessive. It’s possible they used this setup as well: 

Zoomed in, and flipped the footage. But that’s still an intended process. That may mean something even more and was probably done in the producer’s cut. If this is true, nice blur masking guys, lol. 

It’s more likely they used the one below and just zoomed in. The actors probably ran the scene from each coverage, that’s pretty normal. Then inserts were given their own setup, or they used a wider setup and zoomed in.

There is a decent chance the closeup had its own setup and we just don’t see the rest of it, because it wouldn’t have made sense to overuse it.

They probably did a good part of the scene from each angle, and then the editor, director, showrunners and studio people chose what to use when. This is a safe way to film, it takes a bit and results in plenty of sleepy people but it gives the most leeway when editing and timing. Timing is really important to tv execs.

Any additional zoom adjustments could easily be done in editing. They’re filming on massive file output most likely, so they probably allowed some leeway in the zoom so the editor could crop it where it was most desirable.

I don’t know if they differ from the average or exactly how they operate, but this is pretty general stuff. 

All pics from [x]