Anatomy of a Scene: JUSTIFIED: CITY PRIMEVAL
This 60-second Justified: City Primeval scene simply but elegantly ellipses time as characters enter, dance around each other, and exit.
Let’s look at the shot choices, how they carry us through the scene, and what they say about the characters and their relationship to each other.
1. 0:00 Sweety says he gotta call someone.
2. 0:03 cut to him blowing smoke rings; time has passed.
3. 0:06 Carolyn Wilder enters. The door opens where we're looking - IE directly behind smoke rings - throwing a little gold into the blue-lit bar as focus literally and figuratively pulls to her.
4. 0:09-0:19 camera pans L-R as Wilder walks into foreground; establishes her FrameLeft as she establishes her relationship to Sweety (client) and Det. Robinson (old friendly foes).
5. 0:20 the scene cuts between the above-established 2-shot of Det Robinson and Raylan Givens (with Wilder dirty) and a shot of Sweeny with a mirror-halo and Wilder; she's in both shots, but who she's "siding with" is evident.
6. 0:30 Raylan gets up and walks . . .
7. 0:32 cut to a new angle (they lit a whole half the bar for just this shot! that's what budget can do, give you time for this sort of thing) for Wilder and Raylan to have their own 'private' exchange, everyone else framed out.
This moment is different in more ways than one - up until now the righthand third of screen has held either a comedic beat (Det. Robinson theatrically brushing onion ring crumbs from his hands as Wilder enters) or an aesthetic yawning blackness. In Wilder/Raylans' 'private' moment shot it’s changed up as the lefthand side is washed in murky teal bar light.
8. 0:53 using Raylan's hat-tip as a cut-point (heart eyes emoji!) cut back to the three-shot, where Wilder watches Robinson and Raylan exit the way she came in.
Simple, elegant, and telling.
IMDB
Justified: City Primeval “The Oklahoma Wildman”