Filmmaking

Recently I blogged about experiencing Mad Men for the first time – I said I would require quite an extensive amount of time to sort out my thoughts on the show. Well I’ve decided to try and put that “sorting out” process to paper – well electronic paper – and share my thoughts as I comb through this show.

This is not meant to be a synopsis of the story or how the show was put together. I don’t know how the show was put together, I wasn’t there. Although I might throw stuff in from the DVD commentary if it pleases me. This is not meant to be a thoroughly researched examination of the history either – although I’m bound to wikipedia some details of the period to create some context.

What I’m really focused on is the film-making. I’m looking at the use of visual language and the elements of story telling.

And yes, there WILL be Spoilers. Count on it.

A viewing of the show is not essential to following along, but realistically, how can you read through something like this without seeing the show? I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to share frame grabs to illustrate and aid the discussion and that’s really the extent of how far I’m going to go. To truly appreciate this Mad Men, pick up a copy at Amazon or rent it through Netflix. As far as Blu-rays go, it’s quite a bargain.

And I’ll try to be as objective as possible without sounding like a gushing fan boy.

The Opening Titles: Falling in Love with Congas

No dissection of Mad Men could be complete without looking at is probably one of the most discussed and admired opening title sequence in the past few years. And unlike the opening title of Dexter, a show I’m also in love and a sequence I found clever at first but now I find nasty, I actually watch sit through Mad Men’s Opening titles every time I sit and watch episode.

I can’t embed the title, if you haven’t seen it, here’s a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcRr-Fb5xQo

Yeah, that’s the only time I’ve giving you a link to a scene in the show… Enjoy.

What has been buzzing in my head for the past few weeks is the perfect music selection. The theme of the sequence is falling – degradation – the crushing falling feeling. Matt Weiner, the show’s creator, explains original concept as based on a visual of a businessman jumping from a window of a high rise. As he’s falling, the buildings around him represents all his troubles and fears:

Women, sex, drink, marriage, children, it’s all there: towering above this small, insignificant and faceless figure plunging down into the abyss.

A lot can be written about the art direction and how it represents the advertising style of the 60s. I’m not up on it well enough to say anything insightful, but I will mention the music…

RJD2′s “A Beautiful Mine”, the title track used here, has a continuous DOWNWARD motion. From there stair stepping violins to the harp solo – this track fits perfectly the spiral downward motion of the visuals. The congas lend a bit of 60s lounge lizard sound  while the house beat throws in a touch of modern musical sensibility.

Heads and the Green Monster

The show opens up and almost immediately we are given the iconic Mad Men imagery – the shot of the back of some one’s head. This very first hero shot will be echoed again and again, even in the very same scene:

More back of people’s heads!

Take a look at this screen grab where Don Draper talks to a bus boy that is far too old for his jacket:

What fascinates me most about this composition is that fantastic green monster that separates Don Draper and the Busboy. It’s a powerful visual element. Now it’s not always appropriate to read in motivations into artistic work and I really don’t intend to do that. I’m looking at as how this composition affects the story. The green silver thing in the middle does create a separation between Draper and the busboy. This is even further enhanced by Draper being surrounded by a gold colored wall – whereas the bus boy’s background is a smoky busy crowd. Draper is alone – the bus boy is of the people.

Keep in mind, the shot could have been set up a different way – with Draper backgrounded by a sea of people. But it is not. He is alone and this theme will continue through out the series.

What the green monster divider represents is up for interpretation. It could be the divide between the wealth that Draper represents and everybody else. It could be the racial division. Whatever it represents That divider IS present and it is compartmentalizing the image and it certainly makes for interesting visual compostion.

A Little Band of Gold to Prove You Are Mine.

Coming out of the scene in the club with the busboy is Don Cherry’s 1956 song “Band of Gold” with the lyrics “Just want a little band of gold
To prove that you are mine.” What a deliciously ironic introduction to Draper’s mistress Midge. Of course we don’t know that yet.

The apartment she shares is no doubt a wonder with it’s two story windows, but what seems to strike me is the heavy use of back lighting. You see it in both the screen grabs from this scene – that the back light is pretty intense and has a cooler tone than everything else.

Back of people’s heads again!! See, I told you this was a theme.

I love this pose and composition. What a lot of people don’t realize (and something I always tend to forget) when composition an image you are not stuck to the aspect constraints of your medium. Although the frame is 16×9, the actual area of this composition is NOT 16×9. The vertical lines created by the paintings in the background as well as Don’s back create a framing that is a lot closer to 4×3 – the introduction of the gold lamp on the left side almost squares it off and adds an interesting angle to the shot overall.

The pose is something you might see in a classical painting -the twisted hips and resting of the elbows accentuate the womanly curves and create a playful folds on Midge’s loose white blouse. Her white blouse also plays a secondary role serving as a bounce fill to light her face. Finally, the face slightly tilted downwards gives off the casual playfulness which is mirrored in the dialogue.

The morning after – a clear visual cue from the blue tint of the shot.

As far as Midge’s character – I don’t know really if I ever understood her relationship to the rest of the story. Watching over it again in the second time, she’s sassy sexy and playful – she seems to be the antithesis of Don’s wife Betty – but as the show chugs along, she seems to become less and less important. Here she’s a great tool in setting up the plot of the pilot, but in later episodes she looses her “usefulness”

Delicious Camera Moves

Yes, you could put in a wickedly cool shot for no reason from time to time. Well this shot does have a reason – to establish that we’re now at work…

These next three shots illustrate a beautifully crafted dolly and jib maneuver:

What makes this jib/dolly shot work so well?

Two things: Depth Cues and Symmetry. I’ll apologize for my lack of artistic knowledge and terminology before diving into my layman’s explaination.

Whenever you start working with a jib/dolly and you start putting in moving shots – you need to create the depth cues in order to create that illusion of camera movement. Without depth cues, a camera movement would not really be anything more exciting than a pan.

Depth cues visual clues that we the audience can distinguish a foreground object from a background object. In this case, we have the three secretary desks. The glass divider also serves as a great depth cue as well supplying lateral movement in the front of the shot.

The second part of the equation adds even more excitement to this maneuver – the office symmetry. The straight lights created by the ceiling tiles, the office pillars all strongly suggest parallel lines that create a vanishing point. This point moves across the screen (and eventually off)- adding to the sense of movement in this particular shot.

Here’s another camera movement that occurs a scene later – same floor plan. This one is just a dolly maneuver but look at the extreme use of depth cues with the secretary WAY in the foreground:

An Office with a View

Now it’s time to get introduced to Pete.

This particular framing caught my eye again – I found the blinds half lifted to be a very interesting choice, but what’s really fascinating is the position of the buildings in the background. Again we see a 16×9 frame is cropped to about 4×3 by using strong lines in the background – the frame within in the frame.

And according to Matt Weiner – that is a real skyline back there.

The Secretary is Not a Toy

The following scene where Joan (the head secretary in green) introduces Peggy (the new girl in yellow) to the realities of office life show some rather interesting use of angles. For the purposes of dissecting the different angles, it’s important to keep in mind that the pilot was shot on a practical set – by which I mean the office was a real office in New York with real walls. So some angles may have been chosen for practical and not artistic reasons.

The conversation carries with a back and forth between these two shots.

Again we see the frame inside a frame with Joan’s shot.

Compare the two angles – both women seem to be frame from low angle – that is to say a camera that below their eye line. In the case of the first shot the ceiling is the clue that we are in a low angle. In the case of the second shot, Peggy’s arm cue us that we are looking up at Joan. Now in this conversation, I think I would have played down the Joan’s low angle shot. Peggy’s shoulder dominates the frame – making  Joan out to be small in stature. I think it gives up too much “power” early on in the conversation.  But it does set up the next change in angles – which is rather dramatic:

Joan tells Peggy that secretaries are a mix of mother and waitress and that sometimes, the executives want something else. Watch what happens to Joan’s stature in the frame.

She gets bigger – more dominating. And the reverse on Peggy?

We cut her to Peggy, this time from a high angle shot. A dominating angle.

But we’re not done yet.

Joan is now the one dominating the frame. Joan delivers a speech about self evaluation – a speech that is downright sexist in today’s standards and ends with the line, “And be honest”

And Peggy’s response, “I always try to be honest.”

And bam – jump back to the low angle on Peggy. She’s the hero of the conversation – look at her now speaking up to power.

I’ll go ahead and say it now – I really disliked Peggy’s hair in the Pilot – it just reminds me too much of Moe from the Three Stooges. There, I said it.

The Mad Man Closet

After a brief meeting with Sterling (one of the partners of the ad agency Sterling & Cooper), Don meets with Salvatore, an artist in the production department.

I really like the characterization of Salvatore. His very first scene is crafted so well to give plenty of clues about Salvatore’s closeted homosexuality but not enough to ever feel like the show is trying to make a political point. As the show continues on, it’s even doubtful if Salvatore really can come to grips with his own homosexuality. Of course, he very well may be straight (the second season even gives him a wife). It’s messy – and that’s an example of good solid character development.

A lot of the characters in Mad Men start off as office stereotypes (the bad guy) but the writing keeps these people full of dimension.

Freud? What Ad Agency did he work with again?

Salvatore and Don meet with a researcher to discuss the future of tobacco advertising. The conversation turns to a concept of a “death wish” – that consumers will want to smoke even though it may result in death.

Here’s a pet peeve of mine and I’m so happy they got it right in Mad Men: Character Reactions to Jokes. As Salvatore, Don, and research talk, they crack jokes – and in Mad Men, the characters actually REACT to the jokes! There’s a lot of shows where they’ll rattle a funny line off and it doesn’t affect the other people in room. Think M*A*S*H and the Gilmore Girls. If people are being funny, the other characters should recognize this and react appropriately.

The Older and Wiser wears gray

I’m skipping down the storyline a bit and I’ll make a few notes on the relationship between Pete Campbell and Don Draper.  I find it interesting that all the mid level personnel wear “flashier and more colorful suits” – Draper and the senior executives are always dress in grays. This is an obvious distinction made by the wardrobe department to visually cue the status separation between the experienced execs and the junior execs.

It’s funny how much first impressions last – the season pilot, Pete Campbell really comes off as a jerk. He sexually harasses Peggy Olson (at least by today’s standards) and is put in his place by Don Draper (in a move that colors Draper’s character as chivalrous despite being an adulterer). For the majority of the first season, I despised Pete Campbell and I’m sure he was made out to be the bad guy. But he isn’t all bad – and like I wrote before, the great thing about Mad Men’s writing is how it doesn’t pigeonhole any one character into stereotype. Although Pete’s a jerk now, he does grow in sympathy down the road.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (and other places)

After Don meets Rachael Menkin (the daughter of the Jewish store which will play prominently in the season), we get treated to this rather nice scene where Peggy goes to a OB/GYN for a prescription for birth control pills. The doctor walks in and lights a cigarette – which is a laughable image by today’s standard. He puts the cigarette down and… although its hard to see – look at the placement of the smoke in relation to the rest of the image. Too bad this shot lasts just a few seconds.

On a historic note, the birth control pill was first approved by the FDA in 1960 so that would make it pretty new technology when this show was suppose to take place.

The Powerful Woman

In this scene, Rachael Menkin is discussing advertising strategies for her department stores with Draper and Sterling. Draper presents their strategy of a 10% coupon which Menkin rejects. They’re pitching mass appeal economy price strategy whereas Menkin is looking to set up a premium business. After all, they share a common wall with Tiffany’s, she mentions.

I do love this scene because there are several things going on. First, I love the talk of marketing strategy, but more importantly, I love the character of Rachael Menkin. I can’t quite put my finger on what makes her so powerful a character. The wardrobe, a royal purple Chanel Suit (as Weiner states in the commentary) gives off a sense of money and power. She’s wearing pearls on both her neck and wrists – another cue of wealth.

But I think what’s most appealing about her is how she’s the first woman in the show that won’t be spoken down to. She fiery and independent – this does disturb Don Draper considerably and results in him storming out of the room.

Another note from this scene:

The painting behind Roger Sterling matches the rest of the frame perfectly and the Blood Marys on the table create fascinating towers of red in the shot. Not to mention that Roger Sterling’s face is absolutely classic.

Remember the composition and feel of this scene – the saturation of colors and the airy feel of this scene… It’ll come into play later.

Madisen Avenue Squares

After Draper storms out of the Menkin meeting, Peter tracks him down and we’re treated to yet another delicious example of composition. I’m have a feeling that I’m going to talk about frames inside frames a lot when talking about this show. We have the frame created by the back lit office window, the frames created by the secretaries and their desks… this is just a fascinating frame.

Does it mean anything more than just being cool – sometimes a cigar is just a cigar… and a cool shot is just a cool shot.

More Smoke in your Eyes

Now we’ve come to the culmination of this episode – the moment of truth for dear Don Draper. The Lucky Strike Cigarette company is there to hear Don’s new idea about how to advertise cigarettes now that the government and Reader’s Digest have linked cigarettes to cancer.

First thing to notice is how drastically different this scene is in tone from the Menkin meeting. Gone are the Bloody Marys, everybody is wearing a gray dark suit and the smoke in the room is muting the colors of the painting. Smoke in the air mutes any hint of color.

Of course the director of photography would go this route for a panel of cigarette executives. Although I’m not in any way of supporting cigarette companies, this particular path does seem a bit heavy handed but if I were given the control of the art direction, I’m not sure I’d go any other way.

And here’s another great composition. Don Draper is searching for an answer – deep in thought and underlit. Notice how he dominates, with about half the frame real estate. His problem is big – it’s so big that it looms over the half the frame and spills over the top. Roger Sterling is in the middle, waiting for Draper’s answer. Pete Campbell in the back waiting to pounce in Draper doesn’t come through.

Draper does have his “aha” moment (practically a Gregory House moment) and goes into a speech about advertising being about “happiness”. Advertising, according to Draper, is all about telling you that whatever you’re doing, it’s good and keep on doing it. Now, I’ll accept that answer in the course of the narrative but that’s not really what advertising is really based on. Hey that marketing degree I have has  got to be worth something!

Advertising is about finding/creating needs and offering solutions to fulfill them. You want something – this is how you get it. Maybe you don’t know that you want something, let me tell you what you want, and then show you what to buy. What you want could be as practical as a better vacuum cleaner or as abstract as acceptance and status.  Happiness is one of the fulfillment goals for advertising, but it’s not what all advertising is based on.

The conclusion of Draper’s speech, that advertising cigarettes is ultimately a telling the public what they want to hear is a flawed strategy although Draper’s solution: “Lucky Strike Cigarettes: It’s Toasted” is actually a sound solution. In fact, it was so sound, that the real Lucky Strike brand had been using that slogan since 1917. What the “It’s Toasted” slogan does is create a want in the buyer’s mind – Lucky Strike cigarettes are toasted, that sounds like a good thing, I want that. Never mind that all cigarettes have toasted tobacco – it’s the first one that can spin the story the first that grabs the attention.

And as a political side note to all those rainbow loving folks that seem to think advertising is inherently evil…  This is the way reality works – people want things. No political system, religion, or system of beliefs has changed human nature so that we no longer desire to acquire things and status. Nobody, no matter how saintly or how demonic avoids engaging in these advertising tactics. Even the most staunch anti-capitalist spends his time advertising his views. Advertising is not evil – it’s part of human nature and the more comfortable we are with it and understand it, the better decisions we will make as a whole.

As some one once told me: “You can change the rules of the game, but you game never ends”. Learn the game and we can avoid making stupid rules.

Off the soap box now…

Congratulations are in Hand

Don Draper has kept the client with a brilliant idea so it’s time to celebrate. This scene is very interesting in the way it wraps up essentially three story lines and establishes three of the company relationships. The first is the relationship between Roger Sterling and Don Draper. Next we get a conclusion to the storyline between Don and Pete Campbell. Finally we get to see Peggy Olson act out on the advice she’s been getting and see how Don reacts.

Strip Clubs and breaking the 180° rule

The men are off to celebrate Pete’s bachelor party. I wasn’t going to say much about this scene other than to point out the obvious use of red in the art direction:

But oh wait… there’s something really interesting coming up!

Let’s take a look at this sequence here. Pete is aggressively hitting on this blond he met at the club.  The conversation takes place in mediums with some close ups on his “wandering hand”

Notice that at this point in the scene – we have established the axis of the scene – it’s essentially the booth they’re sitting on.

She’s had enough of Pete’s aggressive behavior and BAM!

We just crossed the axis.

This was done so well that it took 3 viewings of the scene before I even noticed that they broke popped over to the other side of the axis.

If you’re reading this and wondering what the 180 degree rule – it’s rather straightforward. When you shoot a conversation between two people, you want to draw an imaginary line between the two characters – now when you decide where to put your camera angles, you want to keep all your angles on one side of that imaginary line. The purpose of this rule is to keep from disorienting the audience – the character will always be facing the same direction no matter what angle you use (so long as you stay on one side of the line).

But here they cross it. Look at the frames again. In the first two, Pete is looking to the right – when they crossed the line, Pete’s now looking to the right.

As they say, rules are meant to be broken… and man, what a brilliant way of breaking this rule. The cut that breaks the 180 degree rule happens exactly when the blond looses her patience with Pete. This disorienting cut underlines the change of tone in the conversation, highlighting the change in tone.

Verbal Showdown

Draper is having drinks with Menkin in an attempt to salvage the relationship between her store and Sterling in Cooper.  The conversation steers toward why she is not married to which Rachael responds, “Because I’ve never fallen in love.” Don responds to her by saying that it’s ad men like him that have invented love. There is no such thing, there is no tomorrow and that’s why he lives every day like it’s his last. Rachael doesn’t buy it and calls him out on it but it’s clear she’s interested in getting to know him and agrees to work with him again.

I watched this scene about three times, trying to find a reason to like it. Creator Matt Weiner in the DVD commentary calls it the climax scene of the show – and in some ways he’s right. It’s the point where we do finally get to peel back one layer of Don Draper’s persona. But something about this scene feels too contrived for me. It’s a fine scene, and probably enjoyable on a first viewing if you didn’t know where the verbal sparing was going to lead, but it just seems like there’s too much exposition going on here.

You can see her how they continue draping Don in shadows to maintain an air of mystery about him.

Booty Call

Pete, drunk, arrives at Peggy’s apartment for one last fling before getting married. As he spins his come-ons, he speaks to the top of Peggy’s head. This blocking speaks so much more than any line of dialogue. The lack of eye contact in such an intimate moment between two people that met that very day and the submissiveness of Peggy’s gaze speak of the power relationship between the two.

These are two people playing out their roles. He is the powerful one, and Peggy decides to use her sexual power to grab for something she wants. Peggy is not the weak midwestern girl – she has ambition.

Draper, the Family Man

As Matt Weiner said on his DVD commentary – this has become one of the iconic images of Mad Men – down the staircase with a man who’s face you can’t see. As we’ve seen throughout the show, Draper is always kept in a sort of shadow or photographed from oblong angles.

And now, we finally get to see his wife, Betty Draper. She’s loving, fun and supportive, how could this man be cheating on her?

The penultimate shot is the dolly out with Don, Betty and the two children in bed in bed in a dolly out maneuver.

The final image of Don with his children. The dolly maneuver has cut off Better behind the wall leaving Don and the children by themselves. Is this what really matters to Don? His children? The wife obscures away into the background…
And that brings it to a close – the season premiere of Mad Men.

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