*ooof*: Boom

A day late. And ok, you’re not gonna like this. I know this already. I am going back in time. Really far back. Because I am hankering for something new different. Actually, “new” is right. I am hankering for some new imagery. And I feel ungrateful doing so. Because we had been spoilt in the last trimester of last year. All those shoots coming out – Dunn, Hassler, Mezibov, the spoils of all the red carpets – amateur and professional, other events – Waterstone’s, BAFTA tea party, Pinter/PROUST… Hm, a lot of photographic material. But nothing is as old as yesterday’s photo paper, and I am so overfamiliar with the Mezibov, Hassler and Dunn shots, that another photographer’s fresh eye would be very welcome. And so, in my despair, I turn to some really old stuff – just because I have something photographic to say about it and because it inspired me for an *ooof*let. I apologize and simply trust that you agree with me that *any* picture will do – as long as it’s got Armitage in it. For a change, while Mr A sits on his tight little butt in a studio somewhere, recording “Hamlet” in his velvet tones (I know, recording has already finished, but well, I wanted a reference to the RAB in here…), let’s have a look at action man Armitage.

Girls, I’m falling, not waving!
Richard Armitage in a production still from Spooks, 8×8
2009

Poor Richard. The things that actors have to go through just for a role. Here we have Mr Armitage in his much loved incarnation as Lucas North in Spooks. To set the scene: Lucas has just evacuated a politician from a building that is under a bomb threat while Ros is still inside. As time ticks by, Lucas decides to run back in and help Ros. But… *boom* The good spy has been thrown on the ground by the blast, shielding himself from the rubble that has been dislodged by the explosion. Dust and/or smoke is drifting over the scenario – a cobbled path, a bit of shrubbery behind, and a bit of railing visible in the background where the path meets a riverfront. Shot from an angle well below head height (maybe about thigh-height?), the image conveys a sense of drama that is close to the action. The viewer is almost inside the action with debris flying almost in front of the lens = our eyes. The focus feels almost more on the action than on the subject.

This is a production still from season 8, episode 8. The particular angle of the action does not appear in the episode as it aired – in the show, we only observed Lucas from behind as he was thrown through the air by the blast. I assume that this was another angle that was filmed on the same occasion but never made it into the final cut. The still, however, was used for publicity and is quite effective at conveying the devastating blow of the explosion. Since this was shot for film (TV), we have slightly different compositorial aesthetics going on here. The subject is more or less in the middle of the frame – a composition that is mostly avoided by photographers as it is deemed slightly too boring and expectable. In moving images, however, the action tends to happen centre-frame – which is a good thing because the images keep changing so quickly in front of our eyes that we need all the help we can get with understanding and interpreting what we are being shown. In photographic terms, the centric composition doesn’t upset our aesthetic sensibilities too much in this case. That is both because we understand this image to be a scene from a film, as well as the amount of information contained in the frame that we need to process and put into context – the man on the ground, his contortions, the smoke, the cobbled ground, the shrubs in the background, the railings, the debris…

The scene has been shot with a mid-range to small aperture: The main focus is on Lucas on the ground, his face and torso are in focus, but we still get enough detail on the scenery in the background to make out details. The fact that Armitage is rather sharp in this image (I am talking about the focus, ladies, not his abs) leads me to believe that this scene was not filmed with Armitage jumping and literally falling on his back, but that this is acted posed lying on the ground and flailing with arms and legs like a little bug that has been turned on its back *awww*: Both his bum and his back are connecting to the ground, he has lifted his right leg and arm up, balancing on his left buttock, elbow and shoulder. There is a bit of movement blur on his right hand, and more on his left foot.

So, Guylty is saying that this could possibly be filmed from a near-static pose – then how is the sense of dynamic created that pervades the scene here? The illusion of movement (by which I do not mean the protectively flailing limbs but a larger movement of being propelled backwards onto the ground by the force of an explosion) is mainly created by the flying pieces of debris. Observe how the  pieces of brown rubble that are flying through the air look blurry. This is an effect that you may be familiar with from your own images – where blur is created by camera-shake, i.e. moving the camera while making an exposure, which makes the objects look fuzzy and out of focus. The focus here is not the problem – most constituent parts of the image foreground are in sharp focus. The blur, however, is caused by the movement of the flying debris, and is most likely intended (whereas it usually is unintended in your own photographs, I assume). Let’s go on a little excursion into action photography.

Action photography attempts to picture an object or subject while in motion. Sports photography is the classic genre of action photography, picturing athletes in movement. Photography is faced with two problems when shooting action scenes: 1. It needs to freeze the fast movement into the frame – that demands a fast shutter speed that can catch the movement clearly enough. 2. At the same time it has to convey the sense of movement – which is more or less contradictory to the notion of photography. It follows there are two options to tackle action photography: The photographer can opt to shoot at a slow shutter speed. This means the shutter is left open long(er) and captures the movement with blur. Or the photographer can use a fast shutter speed, the result of which is a suspended action, a completely frozen, unblurry image of movement. Most of the time, however, action photographers tend to shoot with a shutter speed that is slightly too long for the fast movement they are capturing. The result is a tiny bit of blur that avoids a static feel of the suspended action and adds dynamics to the image. In any event, it is advisable to shoot pre-focussed i.e. the photographer has set the focus prior to the action and locked it, preempting where the action is going to take place and focussing on that point. Multi-exposures are the way to go here – just keeping the shutter release clicking and hoping for the best.

The approach that the photographer opted for in this action shot, is a slow-ish shutter speed . Observe how some of the pieces of rubble in this shot are slightly fuzzy. With the shutter being open that little bit longer, the trajectory of the objects is recorded on the sensor. The result is an image that is in focus in the parts where we want to see detail – i.e. Lucas’ face/body – while the falling pieces of debris are blurred by their movement. Again, for me an indication to assume that Armitage was posing/acting this scene almost statically: He was lying on the ground, only moving very slightly, while a whole bag of rubble pieces was flung at him. Oh what he has to endure for the sake of his craft!!!

Mind you, when you look closely at the rubble pieces, it quickly becomes clear that you needn’t worry. No body parts were harmed in the making of this still. The debris look like styrofoam pieces, painted brown to make them look like soil. Pieces of “soil” have been carefully arranged around the protagonist in a circle. It’s almost a little bit too perfect… He has even been placed in the centre of a concentric ring of cobbles, if you look closely – everything was under control, evidently. Observe also how there are no pieces of wood flying or hitting him. They have all been carefully placed around him. Were they too dangerous, too heavy? Only the brown bits of styrofoam are seen in transit – and they would’ve only bounced off and not hit our preciousssssssssssss. I must admit I find the notion quite funny. Not the notion of Mr A getting hit by debris – but the idea that there must have been a crew member tasked with “flinging the mud” at RA. Can you imagine him, standing off-camera with a bucket load of styrofoam crap, ready to hurl at Mr A? Dream job? Bad job? I’d rather be at the ready with a soft flannel, actually, carefully wiping down the sweaty, dirty actor after the scene’s in the box.

As for RA’s acting in the scene – yeah, pretty convincing. There’s a good bit of tension in the body, the way he has to gyrate on the ground, hard cobblestones in his backside. And considering the big lumps of debris sailing directly for his soft bits, I am not surprised his face is already contorted in preemptive pain *ouch*. Hope his bum didn’t get wet!

Finally. The day had come. He had found out where they gathered for their annual Army gathering. After much searching and discrete background digging his people had found out where the legendary Armitage Army headquarters were situated. It had taken quite some effort – and a number of well-placed and well-planned hints and teases in interviews to make his “lady well-wishers” get careless and inadvertently disclose where they were based. They had had no chance, incidentally. References to making them drunk – “all of them” – and visiting the Armitage Army headquarters under an invisibility cloak had done the trick. Even the hardiest of his “soldiers” had succumbed to his cunning charms, and it had only been a matter of time before his research team had identified the secret location of the HQ. Once he had found out, he had let it be known that he wanted to inspect the troops – and they had rallied and organised to meet up with their “commander”.

Right now they were in their office. About 25 of them had been delegated to meet with their master… oops, commander. It had been a fierce competition which eventually had to be settled by a raffle, and delegates had been sent from all over the world, representing the territorial Armies from Australia, Indonesia, Russia, Poland, North America, Italy, France, Spain, Poland, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland – hell, even Monaco had sent a delegate. The British Home Army had thankfully taken on the catering, and a massive brownie cake with plenty of chocolate filling had been organised and was now placed in commanding position by the window of the HQ. The Army delegates were gathered around it, ruffled by last minute preparations for the appearance of their esteemed leader. “Is he really going to come?”, the Italian delegate asked for the umpteenth time, “are you sure?” “Yes,” the British Army major assured the speaker, “he’ll be here for tea. His people said so! Keep calm.” One of the American delegates snorted. “Need I remind you? Armitage Army cannot keep calm!” The gathered delegates giggled nervously – and loudly.

A surprisingly upmarket area of London, actually, he pondered as he was on his way to the event. He had dressed carefully – not too casually, in a dark blue suit that brought out his blue eyes, and a tight black shirt. No tie, though – he didn’t want to appear too formal, either. His hair freshly darkened and the shoes polished into blinding lustre, he felt devastatingly handsome. Nearly there, he was crossing through a little park that separated the river front from a block of flats across the street. Faint voices attracted his attention as he was walking along the footpath. On a quiet Sunday afternoon this otherwise busy central London street was quiet and empty. But dulcet tones of happy, sweet laughter flittered from somewhere above him. He raised his head and his gaze immediately found a focus… A group of women. By an open window. He swallowed nervously and felt with his hand under the stiff collar of his black shirt. That must be *them* … He had spotted them.

And so did they spot *him*. “Girls – he’s here!” “Shhh, shhh, Ladies, I think he’s coming. I can see a tall, dark, handsome man across the street…” All heads turned towards the window. “What, where? What do you see?” “He’s making his way through the park…” Among the ooohing and aaahing there was a soft *pop*.

He could see the group at the window suddenly moving their heads in unison. Excited giggles floated from the first floor window. Still, after all those red carpets and fan events it made him smile to see such a reaction to himself. He blushed, realising that he felt moved, and raised his head to look up. But what were those strange popping sounds? As he was coming closer, the faint *pop pop pop POP* had become louder, a noticeable, irregular rhythm, not unlike the sound from an old VW Beetle engine.

“OMG OMG OMG.” *pop* “He’s really here!” *pop* “He’s all alone.” *pop pop* “My God, his legs are so long!” *pop POP* “Thighs of thunder!!!” *POP pop* “Look at his shirt, so tight!” *pop pop POP*  “OMG, I can see his nape curls!!!” *POP POP POP* 

He raised his head, but the frown reflecting his confusion over the strange popping sound was immediately replaced by a brilliant smile directed at the ladies at the window who were following his progress across the path with unabashed curiosity and dreamy looks. Ahhh, they were evidently happy to see him. His heart contracted with a sudden flash of delighted happiness, and his smile widened into a bright grin. He raised his hand in a little wave, not unlike the cheeky Guy-of-Gisborne-wave at the Sheriff, and he winked conspiratorily.

*pop pop POP poppoppoppoppoppoppopop* *BOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

A bright flash of light blinded him as he was suddenly thrown through the air. Split-second, elliptic thoughts raced through his mind, instead of his life flashing before him: An assassination attempt? Why? Where? Who? What about his Army? Were they alright? He barely registered the sound of breaking glass and concrete as the force of an explosion flung him backwards. Instinctively bracing himself for the impact of his body on the cobbled path, he caught a fleeting look at the Army Headquarters where the sound of the explosion had originated. Thank goodness, they were safe and standing, unhurt, horrified looks on their faces. How come they were still standing??? As his body connected with the hard ground, his arms and legs flailing, he noticed the ladies simultaneously clutching their abdomens. Suddenly it dawned on him as he braced himself for the fall-out of debris from the explosion with the remains of a chocolate brownie cake scattering himself in a cloud of brown, soft pieces. Spontaneous ovary combustion. He’d assassinated himself.

~ by Guylty on February 26, 2014.