Director signature shots/cliches?
 

So I was commenting on the Faceoff thread about John Woo's usage of doves and flames and got to thinking about other director's and their signature shots. Off the top of my head, I could only think of Brian De Palma and his thing for large staircases. Can any of you avid movie watchers think of other directors and their shots? List them here!

I can think of one pretty obvious one off the top of my head: Quentin Tarantino always enjoys a good shot from the inside of a trunk as its opened up.

As a big fan of the Matrix movies, and also having seen their other movie (Bound) I was trying to think of a signiture wachowski brothers, or siblings, move. What comes to mind the most for me is ground level shots of feet, such as stepping on the tomato in reloaded or waking through the rain/water in revolutions. But I'm having a hard time remembering if they did that in the first one or in Bound as well. Other than that i know they just have a certain 'style' of shots that during Bound I kept thinking "damn, this definately looks and acts like a wachowski film, even if its a completely different kind of movie."

For De Palma, his trademarks of using split screens and having long takes (where the camera doesn't cut to another shot for a really long extended period of time as it moves through the set at least once in almost every movie) stand out the most to me. Guess I never noticed the large staircase thing.

If you go to IMDB.com and look up a director and click on the "Show More" link next to "Mini Biography" and scroll down, there's often a Trademark section that lists trademark shots along with other things that the director uses often in movies (i.e. music, certain actors often appearing, etc.)

Speilberg has a shooting star appear in every movie.

Hitchcock made a cameo appearence in every film he made, usually just in the background somewhere. There was a real creative cameo in his movie "Lifeboat", in which he's the before and after picture in a "Lose Weight" ad (He had just lost alot of weight at the time).

Sam Rami putting Bruce Campbell in almost all his movies, as well as that old car of his. That's the first I can think of off the top of my head

Hitchcock's move in/zoom out shot of a screaming face

Scorcese's steadycam through the back of the restaraunt in Goodfellas

This is a great thread. A few directors come to mind.

Speilberg does a signature shot where he zooms right up on the face of a character. He's done it in several movies, most notably Jaws and Raiders.

Kubrick always did some sort of moving hallway shots. Eyes Wide Shut's 'Party' scenes, The Shining, even Frank Poole jogging in 2001.

Mike Nichols has started several of his movies with a long approach shot leading to a location. Watch the beginning of The Birdcage or Working Girl and you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Lucas' screen wipes.

Does the Wilhelm scream count? Or has that become a cliche of a cliche? Or would this be attributed to the sound guys?

Takes like the "Long Shot" or the "Zoom-in Push" and things such as that are pretty standard and used by almost every director. For that reason, calling them Signature Shots is a bit of a stretch.

The only shot in this thread that really qualifies is the "Tarintino Trunk Shot." It's very individual and easily attributed to QT.

Now including things like director cameos and specific items in your movies (IE: the Sam Rami car) are individual cliches that would count. Then again, the director cameo isn't really all that unique (Hitchcock, Shamalan, and many others all do (or did) that).