Who Are You, Where Is My Money, and Why Are We Shaking Hands?

I am a salesman by trade. I’ve experienced many of the ins and outs of selling, from tension-wrought pitches to conversational presentations. These experiences have given me an appreciation for the intricacies of communication, and I’ve begun to notice little things that define these types of interactions. Watching this clip from Mad Men for the first time, the dialogue is what immediately stood out. The first person who speaks is giving a solid presentation, but he is soon met with objections. The executive for the other company is straightforward in his concerns, “I only see one lipstick in your drawing. Women want colors, lots and lots of colors… Oh, you like this? Well maybe we should cut down to five shades, or one (sarcastically).” This is a perfect set up for Don Draper’s dialogue soon thereafter. But we’re learning about camera angles and frame construction in this class, so I’m going to fight the urge to delve into how and why the dialogue unfolded the way it did.

The more I watch this scene, the more I notice the details of how the producers set up the “Don Draper Mystique.” They start off using a low camera angle to give him an air of authority. Then, when the camera comes in for a close-up during the climactic part of his pitch, the angled is changed to an almost straight-on shot, but Draper’s eyes angle exaggeratedly upward to maintain the feel of the low angle from the previous shot. One may notice, too, that in the shots of the other executive’s responses, his eyes appear to be angled in a way that shows us more white under the pupil than if he were actually looking straight across the table at Don. Although his reactions are captured in a straight-on shot, the extreme angle of the eyes upward give him the appearance of being dwarfed by Don’s figure.

My two favorite shots in this scene are one after the other from 1:27 to 1:29. They are responses to when the executive says, to Don “I don’t think your three months or however many thousands of dollars entitles you to refocus the core of our business,” and Don responds with, “Listen, I’m not here to tell you about Jesus. You already know about Jesus, either he lives in your heart or he doesn’t.” The first man is unsure if what he’s heard is a stroke of madness or genius, and the second guy appears convinced of the latter. Great work for this scene, and if the dialogue is always on this level, this show may have a new fan.