Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/835200
DGA QUARTERLY 31 We mostly used wider elements on the show. However, in this episode, I wanted to do a series of long-lens compres- sion shots, referencing classic Western imagery. Inspired by the very familiar shot of the gang on horseback appearing on the horizon (as seen in Ford's The Searchers, Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, etc.), we created a dramatic entrance for the motorcade in the back of the Department of Commerce. In another shot (as seen in Leone's A Fistful of Dollars, Eastwood's Pale Rider and Kasdan's Wyatt Earp), we borrowed an equally familiar image-panning up from de- termined feet to the faces of our heroes on the way to the gunfight. Instead of dust, boots and cowboys, we had shiny floors, Florsheims and politicians. The final shots of this episode might be my favorite of the whole series. The setup is that, ever since President Bartlet was a child, whenever he had decided to do something, he would stick his hands in his pockets, look away and smile. So we needed a shot of that very action which culminates with his hands at the podium. I wanted it to be choreographed in one 180-degree, slow Steadicam move. Compared to some of the other shots we had accomplished, this was not incredibly difficult. But what makes it so special to me is the very last frame (#15). I had asked the grips to build a flagpole in the courtyard so that an American flag would be visible from the second- story window. We had rain towers hitting it and a Ritter fan blowing it. My hope was that we might catch a glimpse of it in the background. But miraculously, on the take when the Steadicam move was just perfect, the flag flut- tered exactly at the last moment of the shot—fill- ing the whole background frame. I have always felt it symbolized our enormous good fortune to work on this show. As Thomas Jefferson said, "I am a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it." 12 13 14 15 12 13 14 15