I want my character to break 4th wall but just zoom in and talking feels very routine. Anything new i can try that will stand out?
I've always thought that it would be interesting to cut the character off from everyone else with an extremely tight depth of field. He could talk to the audience when he's the only one in focus, creating the imagery that we're the only ones in his world at that time.
I saw that shot in IT Chapter 2, something like this?
reach out and grab the camera to re-frame on them only?
Oh yeah this is cool
press record and throw the camera at the wall
It could be audio led. Maybe even with a foley. You could maybe have, idk let’s say a record scratch sound and a VO. I’m just spitballing but maybe it’s “Yup. That’s me. You’re probably wondering how I got here”. But in all seriousness, I’ll give you an example from my own work. A character is reading aloud a note from someone and the camera is slowly tilting down revealing the note as he reads it. After ten seconds, his phone rings. The note continues and it says “it’s okay you can get that” written in the note itself. I think that’s an example that foots the bill you’re looking for.
Switch to 60p for those moments. Have them talk to a mirror. Change the lighting darken the set and have a ring light style front fill that turns on when they address camera. Have them grab the camera like someones hand and square the camera up to frame them to talk. Theres a million things to do.
behave differently, not just having the actor look at it. Try letting the camera drift or lose them slightly and have them adjust to it suddenly it’s a presence in the room, not a lens. Or go the other way: lock off completely and let everything else keep moving while they hold still and talk to you. Fleabag did the small flick of the eyes mid-conversation, which works because it’s private, like she’s checking if you caught that. Deadpool goes big because the whole film is already loud. Depends what the moment is doing emotionally.
Motorized or automated variable ND combined with an iris pull. Start in deep focus and then change the depth of field to isolate them against a busy foreground and background. Have them do their monologue and then reverse the camera settings at the end. Cache it with music fading out, dolly in, sound design, maybe dim the background lighting and pump the key light up, then reverse all those things. Another cool one is comp them seamlessly into the shot and have everyone else shot off speed. Great if you can do a handoff of a prop between normal motion narrator and slow motion or fast motion BG character, (grabs drink from champagne tray off a passing waiter at a party or similar)