Artist Presentation: Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa

Akira Kurosawa was a very hands-on filmmaker and was passionately devoted throughout every aspect of the filmmaking process. He would write the scripts, oversee the design, rehearse the actors, set up the shots, then do all the editing.

Composing Movement– Akira Kurosawa was a master of orchestrating movement within every shot of his films. Often times the movement within his scenes relayed more information to the viewer than dialogue could.

Axial Cut– Kurosawa’s films from the 1940’s & 1950’s often used “axial cuts”. This is when the camera suddenly moves closer to, or further away from its subject, along an invisible line drawn straight between the camera and the subject. This isn’t done via tracking shots or dissolves, instead it is created through a series of matched jump cuts.

Cutting on Motion– that is, to edit a sequence of a character or characters in motion so that an action is depicted in two or more separate shots, rather than one uninterrupted shot. The way he would cut from one scene into the next was so organic that the viewer wouldn’t even notice the shots were separate. This allowed for greater distances to be traveled along a sequence of shots, making the film’s location to feel grand.