The innovation of Danish filmmaking originated in a convergence between traditional film techniques and TV production, which has broken down stiff production patterns in filmmaking. In 1992 Danish Television invited Lars von Trier to direct the TV series The Kingdom I (1994), shot on 16 mm. The less rigorous TV production methods provided the foundation for the Dogme95 style. Lars von Trier first used digital cameras in the TV series
The Kingdom II(Riget II, 1997). Danish Television continued to be of great importance for developing Danish cinema by employing young directors and cinematographers for the production of TV series, such as Rejseholdet,
TAXA,Ole Christian Madsen’s The Spider (2000), Nicolaj and Julie (2003), and most lately The Chronicle (Krøniken, 2003).
Digital movie production began with the first Dogma (Dogme95) movie, Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration, prize-winner at Cannes in 1998. Even though the technical quality was poor, as it was shot with the first generation Sony mini-DV camera, the movie created euphoria among independent directors, Judy Irola explains: digital filmmaking was now possible – there was no going back to studio-controlled 35 mm filmmaking (Power to the Pixel, Channel 4). It is, however, the new Sony HD cameras that have first made it possible to obtain an image quality comparable with 35 mm celluloid film.
Dogville
Zentropa purchased HD cameras in order to enable Lars von Trier to shoot the movie Dogville.The story concerns the beautiful Grace (Nicole Kidman),
seeking shelter in a village in the Rocky Mountains in the 1930s from a team of gangsters. In return Grace agrees to work for them. Slowly, the people of Dogville turn against her, and hand her over to the gangsters. Somebody coming from the outside trying to do good can be a provocation. Lars von Trier is the film director who most systematically has embraced the new digital technology. Digital cameras with their 40–60 minute
recording time had a profound effect on his way of handling the actors, because they could play and stay in character throughout the recording time. Furthermore, since the digital cameras are lighter, von Trier was able to shoot with the camera himself throughout the recording time, lasting up to one hour at a time.
Von Trier developed a new point-and-shoot aes- thetics based on the hand-held camera he operated himself, in which he could interact with the actors while directing and shooting; the plot and the actors became the centre of action, rather than technical requirements or aesthetic considerations. In his Dogma movie The
Idiotshe began to operate the camera himself, while directing the actors at the same time, and he carried on this camera work in Dancer in the
Dark (2000), and in
Dogville (2003), in which he shot the main part of the movie himself with an Easyrig mounted HD camera.
Fig 3.8 Director Lars von Trier with an HD camera during shooting of his film Dogville (2003) (photo: Rolf von Konow)
Von Trier has developed a specific shooting strategy that enables him to find the essence in the characters and the stories, which arises out of necessity; beauty comes from necessity, a notion inspired from Wim Wender’s Light
over Water,and Alice in den Städten. So when von Trier shoots, there are no rehearsals, he starts filming right away, thereby enabling the actors to give their input. In the second takes von Trier will suggest changes. His aim is not to be restricted by the preparation, although he knows where a scene starts and where it has to get to.
Von Trier has realized that there is a philosophical difference between framing a shot and pointing the camera at something. ‘When I point at what I want to see, I experience the feelings of the people in the frame much more strongly than whenever the camera moves to compose something superficial. When you aim, you consider the action in the middle of the image; when framing you consider how to place the image aesthetically within the frame, which takes away some of the energy in the image and the acting.’ Lars von Trier reserves framing to establishing shots, where the use of the frame emphasizes the aesthetics of the image, he explains in the DVD commentary, to Dogville. ‘I use the camera to see what I want to see. It’s not framing, but using the camera as a way to see things, the way you use your eyes’ (Dogville, DVD commentary).
With digitalization, a convergence between filmmaking and theatrical production has emerged. Von Trier explains that he tries not to frame, because ‘when you frame, you are removing yourself from the content, as opposed to embodying yourself. … It is Verfremdung’ – a notion he inher- ited from Bertolt Brecht’s theatre. ‘When you frame something, you keep something out. When framing you obtain something peacefully that you want in the image. But this peacefulness is something that is nice to look at, but always weakens the content.’ When commenting on Anthony Dod Mantle’s long shots at a 45-degree high angle, Lars von Trier stated, ‘you notice straight away that the actor becomes less important. In a composi- tion, as soon as you know that a background fits right, you put a kind of layer – in between.’ That’s why von Trier likes the old Academy format, because it is difficult to frame the shots in it. ‘The drama get stronger when you don’t balance the pictures. It is very easy to make something well balanced.’
Dogvillewas shot with Sony’s 24p HD camera, but with 25 frames per second, since all the other electronic equipment used to produce the movie was calibrated at that higher speed. The difference in speed between film and music created some problems in the post-production phase.
There are three kinds of shots in Dogville. First von Trier shot the close-up shots himself with a hand-held HD digital camera. Second, Anthony Dod Mantle shot the 45-degree crane, long shots with the same camera. Finally, Peter Hjorth shot the trick film from above with 13 DV cameras, which he moved around to a total of 156 locations, and then he combined the shots
into one single image. The trick film is a further development of the 100-camera concept von Trier used in the musical and dancing sequences in
Dancer in the Dark.Peter Hjorth also arranged the chroma-keyed shots of the dog, and of Nicole Kidman seen through the tarpaulin at the back of the truck, which has become one of the icons of the movie.
Von Trier explains that digital filmmaking provides access to many tools that were not always available in film. ‘Having achieved this amazing modern world of digital technology, digital films are still very timid in their exploration of what it is possible to do; one can create layers and multi- layers of images.’ The chroma-keyed images and the trick films clearly point to some of the little explored advantages of the convergence with television techniques, and demonstrate the superior qualities of digital montage, espe- cially compared to the double exposure ghost scenes in Lars von Trier’s TV series, The Kingdom.