@Roberto

Thanks for posting!!!

Thanks for showing your appreciation. Now, Breaking Bad generates plenty of the usual fan stuff online, but I'd also like much more insight into how Slovis & crew get that look, (85% hand-held, sky gradated filters!). See behind-the-scenes photos at http://blogs.amctv.com/breaking-bad/2012/02/photos-behind-the-scenes-season-4.php

[Please let's tolerate their horsing-around photos and keep this thread to the techniques involved].

Myself hailing from Albuquerque, where it's filmed, this is great. I actually got the chance to talk to the editor for a bit but he wouldn't disclose any if the post process!

After watching Series II and replaying CU scenes, I've found that the hand held (or rather, shoulder-mounted shots comprising 85% of Slovis's work) waver only in the lateral sense, (like a tiny slider would), rather than pan or tilt.

The camera operator's move sideways and from the hip always seems to reveal something behind the subject, due to the parallax effect. The 3-D feel that brings, along with the wide lens and the closeness of the camera to the subject helps me as a viewer to feel involved in the scene and sustain that pervasive feeling that "something is going to happen."

A pity it's so hard to mount a DSLR on your shoulder. Some rigs have the film plane so far forward that even a pan at close range becomes a sweep through a radius of at least 12 inches. A viewfinder, mounted forward and at the side of the lens, would be do-able and I'm keen to hear of solutions.

lol its shot on film

I never expected that a soap would have budget for film.. or the will to add to the production lenght

Maybe the lateral parallax views add closeness and subjectivity (POV) of the camera -

The young Polanski did camera POV parallax it in Knife in the Water when the character looks at the mast of the boat with one eye, then the other and the viewer then sees the mast pass from the left of the knife to the right,, and back again.

But in Breaking Bad, we're not told in who's time the movements happen. Have we become one of the family?

Honestly, I think there were accidental camera movement patterns set in place in Series 1 which just stayed as part of the aesthetic they'd created. Nobody, even Slovis, has dared do anything to break the spell.

But then, sometimes I think the cinematography is so good that they almost deliberately prove they can get away with stuff nobody else would dare try. I mean, a Pizza POV shot from within the microwave oven?

It'd be awesome to start a few threads just like this one with links to techniques used on a given show for example cinematography, editing, filters used etc. Deadwood, The Wire, Mad Men, Sopranos to name a few.

I mean, a Pizza POV shot from within the microwave oven?

They do a lot of shots like that. Shots with from the POV of bathtubs, toilets, etc. Great photography.

Life isn't colored evenly. Take a living room in the afternoon, for example. Streaks of sunlight may squeeze through the opened blinds of a window, illuminating specs of dust and part of someone's face, leaving the other part in shadow. As day turns to evening, those streaks will fade, and then it might be a lamp or the glow of a television that splashes the room with color.

...the camera moved in closer on the two men's faces but we never saw either of them wholly; the sunlight coming in through the windows not only colored the room unevenly, but it also illuminated only half of each man's face, leaving the other halves in complete shadow. The darkness of the scene matched the narrative, and the shadow upon those faces doubled as a symbolic touch, both of these men leading double lives. ...

Slovis came to Albuquerque and added his own stamp on the show's look. "I think I made it darker -- I added a little more shadow to it to help the story along, and I wanted more things to play in silhouette when appropriate. At the same time, I think the show is a show of contrasts, and so there are little hot spots in there when something could be completely dark or completely backlit or completely silhouette; there might be a little highlight, you know, that draws your eye to fill the frame. That's another thing I wanted to do to give it that painterly feel."

From Los Angeles Times May 16, 2010 ...Full story and pictures - Breaking Bad - Michael Slovis, a visual storyteller

Sunday.... ding ding ding.... ding ding... boom!

Can't fucking wait!