Framing And Shot Length: Star Trek Voyager S02E5

Context

Previously in the episode, Ensign Harry Kim (Garret Wang) had woken up in a strange room in San Francisco next to his former girlfriend Libby (Jennifer Gatti), who claims they are married, and whom Harry has not seen since the Voyager became marooned hundreds of light years from Earth at the start of the series. When the scene begins Harry is still unsure and confused about the entire situation, particularly whether or not this entity that looks like Libby, really is Libby.

Why it's cool

Let's watch the scene first without any commentary.

What to look for

There are two interesting things about this scene: (1) the duration of the shot and (2) the slow push that causes the frame to tighten around the two characters.

Why is it cool

We'll talk first about the shot duration. This is a single, unbroken, 161 second (2'41") shot with dialog. The average shot duration (also known as Average Shot Length, or ASL) in modern Hollywood movies is roughly 5 seconds. approximately 1/32^nd the length of this shot. It was (and still is) unusual for a network television show to feature a shot of such length. This shot is remarkable not only because it's unusual, but because of the technical difficulties imposed by longer shots. If a roughly 2.5 minute conversation between two characters is broken up into 10 or 12 cuts or shots, the best portions from multiple takes of the scene can be edited together smoothly to construct an artificial "perfect" take (and if only one camera is being used, as often the case with movies but less common in television, an intercut conversation will definitely consist of more than one take). In addition, the more cuts a scene is made up of, the more possible reset points there are if something goes wrong. For example, if one of the actors flubs a line at 2'20" in 2'30" conversation, multiple, short shots would allow the scene to be restarted perhaps at the 2'10" or 2'15" second mark, only having to redo about 5 or 10 seconds of work. If the conversation is filmed in a single shot, if an actor messes up the last line of the conversation, the entire scene must be restarted. It's likely there were several unused takes of the scene above, but we know from the unbroken shot that every line in the conversation we see is from a single, "perfect," take.

Watch the scene from the beginning again. Notice how as the conversation goes on, the camera pushes in on Harry and Libby, slowly tightening the frame around them. The framing of a shot is a common way to indicate a character's emotional state. A wide, open shot with the character as only a small element might indicate that character feels free, or that they feel alone and isolated. Conversely, a tight shot can emphasize a character feeling trapped, or in the case of a two-shot (two people in the same frame) it might emphasize intimacy or closeness. In the beginning of this scene, Harry does not know what to make of suddenly seeing his former girlfriend again, let alone being married to her. Harry is unsure of everything, including whether or not she is really Libby. He is not entirely trusting of her, and, accordingly, the shot starts wide, with lots of space around the two of them. As they converse, Harry begins to feel closer to her, more trusting, and the camera pushes in to envelop them in the frame, leaving little else in the image but the two of them. Other than in the first few seconds of the scene when she enters the frame and sits on the bed, the characters don't actually physically get much closer for most of the scene, but the continually tightening frame emphasizes the growing bond also expressed in the acting and dialog.