Showing Rather Than Telling

It is easy enough for a novelist to write down a description of a scene and allow his or her reader to imagine what things look like, and how the characters are feeling. It is often difficult to get all these details into that scene when it is filmed. Filmmakers must think very carefully about how they can make the scene visually convincing and how best to get across the characters' feelings.

Look at the scene from Oliver Twist of Oliver's experiences on his first night in Mr Sowerberry the undertaker's shop, before he escapes to London. Read the sequence as it appears in the novel and then consider all the things that would have to be taken into consideration to make this scene convincing on the screen. Also, how would a filmmaker create the tension arising from Oliver's fears, having been left in the dark in a room filled with coffins?

TASK:

Underline things in the passage from Chapter Five which you can download from the left hand menu that would require work by the following:
The set designer
The props department
The actor playing Oliver Twist

Which parts of the passage describe Oliver's feelings and state of mind? How might a film director get Oliver's thoughts and fears across to us apart from having Oliver actually stating (crudely) how he is feeling? Consider the use of music as a way of creating a mood.

Code the passage with CU (close up); MS (Medium Shot); LS (Long Shot); HA (High Angle); and LA (Low Angle) to show how the cinematographer might set up his camera to catch elements of this description. Or would you perhaps film some or all of it from Oliver's point-of-view (p-o-v)?

Can you think of any places in the sequence when the director might ask for a special camera movement of some sort, a movement perhaps that adds to our sense of Oliver's smallness and isolation or his fear?