The Use of Cinematography and Stylistic Elements in One Hour Photo

How Cinematographers Can Be a Screenwriter's Best Friend

Mark Romanek’s One Hour Photo is a subtle yet highly skilled montage of the stylistic and artistic use of filming and photography. This article will analyze such details as camera angle, editing style, lighting choices, shot composition, set design, and color schemes as they relate to telling the plot of the movie. 

For an opening example: the story centers around still photography, and many of the shots appear brightly colored and overexposed, as is often seen in photographs. In addition to that, certain sets are prepared to look absolutely meticulous, if not “picture perfect.” These little details, which may be overlooked during casual viewings, deserve attention and study as they add to the overall complexity of the film. 

To study this film, the analysis will start at the beginning; that is, the opening credits. The credits appear as white words on a black background, static for a few seconds, and then there is the circle of flashing light in the background, much like the flash of a camera. Immediately after the flash, the words turn red, and then fade to black, similarly to a picture in a darkroom being exposed and developed. This dissolve/develop idea is repeated several times throughout the movie, such as when a scene would transition in a dramatically slow dissolve, like the development of a Polaroid picture. 

This movie makes use of several techniques familiar to photography, with the primary one being framing. Throughout the movie, the cinematographer makes insightful use of this technique. In the beginning of the movie, Sy (Robin Williams) is shot framed through the two-way window in the police station. There are many other examples of framing by windows, such as when Sy’s boss is framed through his observation window in the store’s office, and the Yorkin family is framed through their picture window while at their kitchen table.