Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1541406
2 0 I D G A M O N T H L Y 13 11 Shot to Remember: Sideways — continued from page 19 — continued on page 22 14 6 On the Miles/Maya side of the table, you have the characters with a bit more heft and in whom the audience is more invested. The two share an overwhelming interest in wine, but we also have the awful knowledge that Miles is somehow going to blow it. The scene starts by covering a four- person date, from beginning to end, but it funnels increasingly into Miles's subjectivity—Miles is getting drunk and morose and will recklessly telephone his ex-wife. So, the camera, editing, score, and sound design all have one purpose: start broad then keep funneling us into a complete cinema of subjectivity. Sure, it goes in and out of that subjectivity a bit, but it's very, very much about Miles's experience. We were also shooting an ongoing succession of beautiful bottles of pinot noir, to show off to the wine buffs in the audience that we knew what the hell we were doing. 6 14 7 The conversation bounces back and forth, but as the sequence progresses, you hear less of what they're saying—maybe just snippets—and the score and sound design take over. They're the same musical motifs introduced earlier in the picture in a bouncy, upbeat way, but now rendered more hauntingly, increasingly in a minor key. Composer Rolfe Kent and I spent a very long time getting this cue just right, especially since Editor Kevin Tent and I kept monkeying with the timing. It could have been cut a million different ways, and we spent weeks on this sequence to really nail what we thought was a good progression for the date: Miles's drunkenness, Jack's concern for him while also trying to get laid, and then really burrowing into Miles's brain to get him out of his chair to call his ex-wife. 7 14 8 Miles is the reluctant participant in this evening's proceedings, but he musters a bit of enthusiasm to converse with a woman who is interesting and whom we know he likes. That Paul Giamatti is able to sell both that interest as well as the character's inevitable self-sabotage is a testament to his talent. His technical ability while being fully in the emotion of a scene is astounding. There was a moment when he was about to cry and I said, "Keep the emotion going, now please rotate your head seven degrees to the left," so he could pick up the light. No sweat. Even in a scene like this, there are still focus marks and lights to hit. That's what film acting requires—emotion and technical awareness. Giamatti is a remarkable Actor in both respects, and his performance makes this scene. Acting is primus inter pares—first among equals—of all cinematic components. 8 CELEBRATING THE CRAFT