Star Trek: Cinematography & The Beauty of a Film

Part of why I love Star Trek (2009) so much is the beauty that the film is approached with. J. J. Abrams has his own signature shots that he uses throughout this film and as it came apparent recently, in Into Darkness also. 

The most obvious one is the light shining straight into the camera. That method is used constantly, mostly in close-up shots and it gives Star Trek this distinctive look modifying the colors and spicing up a shot that otherwise would be pretty boring.

Then there is the shaky-cam. Oh, don't we love the shaky-cam. The best example for it is the scene where Kirk sits behind a table after a bar fight, face bloody with napkins out of his nose. That particular shot has stayed with me ever since I saw Star Trek for the first time in a cinema. What it does to me is that it gives a sense of intimacy and spontaneity to the scene... with a sprinkle of rawness. It is difficult to demonstrate this through a screenshot so I suggest looking out for it when watching Star Trek.

 

The color scheme is very well thought through. My favorite being the frozen planet where Kirk is 

dropped on. Starting from the pale blue of ice going to the dark blue cave contrasted by bright orange 

and finishing up with the strange green of the hallway and the earthy palette of Scotty's lab.

Everything is based on blue. Even all the posters used for promotion were blue. When I think of Star Trek  I think of blue. The other colors might as well be there only to support blue like Uhura supports Spock. But as Uhura they are no less of importance. They are rich and full creating a symbiosis with dark undertones.

Abrams has this one shot where the camera makes a 90 degree turn. With this film here, it's when Spock is before the Vulcan council. It was also used in Into Darkness. It can be used only once in the duration of the film. It's too much of an unique shot to make it a regular thing.

This scene up here particularly stands out to me. Firstly because of the color of the uniforms. Deep red contrasted with dark grey. It also creates an early contradiction between Spock and Kirk highlighting their differences. Then when it comes to the rest of the composition, I find that it is almost perfect. Kirk being a bit blurry while still dominating the shot and Spock completely focused but almost pushed out of the frame. The combination of grey and red uniforms creating some still movement. Whatever that means. Well, what it means is that even as a screen capture this scene 

is vibrant. What's ruining the clean look of it is those damn legs up in the left corner. 

The visual side of the whole film is established on movement. Shots change so quickly that your brain barely has time to register anything. I guess that's why I always find something new when I watch Star Trek. A way to solve the movement problem is using far distance tracking shots that also add some believability. I remember first seeing these kind of shots in Battlestar Galactica and I thought that that was rad. Still think so.

written by Benni