Chapter 1-5 Summaries - GAMMA PHI BETA · 2020-03-11 · Chapter 1-5 Summaries Chapter 1 Encountering Film: ... the actors. Props are integral elements not only of storytelling, but

Chapter 1-5 Summaries

Chapter 1

Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition

Much goes into making a film before viewers experience it. The varied filmmaking practices areartistic and commercial, but also social and cultural. Understanding the production, distribution,promotion, and exhibition processes deepens our appreciation of the labor and art offilmmaking, and illuminates the influence of society and culture on filmmaking.

Where and when we see a movie shapes our response, enjoyment, and understanding as muchas do the form and content of the film itself. The film experience encompasses rapidlyexpanding viewing technologies (from HDTV to movies viewed on computers, smartphones,and iPads), changing social environments (from IMAX to home theaters), and multiple culturalactivities designed to promote interest in individual films (reading about films, directors, andstars, or consuming video games or special DVD editions connected to a film franchise).

Production: How Films Are Made

Film production describes the different stages—from the financing and scripting of a film to itsfinal edit and, fittingly, the addition of production credits—that contribute to the construction ofa movie. Film production is generally broken down further into three stages: preproduction,production, and postproduction. However, these stages often tend to overlap and blend into oneanother, especially in the age of digital filmmaking.

Preproduction describes the various efforts that occur before the actual filming of a moviebegins—this includes financing, screenwriting, casting, location scouting, story-boarding,designing costumes, set building, and so forth. Key preproduction personnel includeproducers, screenwriters, casting directors, agents, art directors, production designers,and costume designers.

Production typically refers to the weeks or months spent actually shooting film on sets orlocation. Key personnel for this stage include the director, cinematographer, actors, soundmixers, stunt coordinators, camera operators, grips, electricians, carpenters, make-upartists, caterers, and dozens of other on-set assistants and crew members.

Postproduction refers to processes that occur primarily after—but often also simultaneouslywith—principal photography and production, including laboratory work (film developing,color correction, etc.), editing, sound mixing, and special effects like computer-generatedimagery (CGI). Most Hollywood movies rely on hundreds, if not thousands, of individualsworking in various capacities; even smaller “independent” films rely on multiple dozens ofindividuals. As Orson Welles once said, to create art “[a] poet needs a pen, a painter a brush,and a filmmaker an army.”

Chapter 2

Exploring a Material World: Mise-en-Scène

Mise-en-scène refers to those elements of a movie scene that are put in position before filmingactually begins and that are employed in certain ways once filming does begin. These includethe scenic elements of a movie, such as actors, lighting, sets and settings, costumes, make-up,and other features of the image that exist independent of the camera and the processes of filmingand editing.

A Short History of Mise-en-Scène

The heritage of mise-en-scène lies in the evolving Western theatrical tradition beginning with theGreek theater around 500 B.C.E. and continuing through the medieval mystery plays, thesecular stage plays of the Renaissance and William Shakespeare, and the technological advances(such as lighting) introduced in the nineteenth century.

Early movies were limited by their dependency on natural light, but the introduction of artificiallighting allowed filmmakers to move a large portion of film production into studios, offeringthem a more controlled environment.

In the 1910s and 1920s, feature films became the norm and the movie industry expandedrapidly, in part due to the rise of the studio system. The introduction of sound at the end of the1920s was also facilitated by the stability of the studio system. Studios had the capital for largesoundstages that housed elaborate sets, which were often accompanied by lavish costumes,lights, and props.

A greater emphasis on realism, and therefore on-location shooting, came to prominence aroundWorld War II and was most evident in Italian neorealist films and documentary-influencedHollywood crime dramas such as The Naked City (1948).

Since the advent of computer-generated imagery (CGI), sets, costumes, and even actors can becreated digitally after actual filming has occurred, making mise-en-scène as much a part ofpostproduction as it is of production.

The Elements of Mise-en-Scène

Settings and sets contribute to a film’s mise-en-scène by establishing scenic realism andatmosphere. In addition to creating realism – an accurate and truthful depiction of a society,people, or some other aspect of life – the mise-en-scène of a film creates atmosphere andconnotations, those feelings or meanings associated with particular sets or settings. Forexample, a kitchen might connote warmth and domesticity.

Props (shorthand for “property”) are objects that function as parts of the set or tools used bythe actors. Props are integral elements not only of storytelling, but also of genre conventions—what’s a gangster movie without machine guns or a Western without horses?

A film’s staging refers to the actors’ performances and to blocking. Performance describes theactor’s use of language, physical expression, and gesture to bring a character to life and tocommunicate important dimensions of that character to the audience. Leading actors play thecentral characters in a film, while supporting actors play secondary characters in a film,serving as foils or companions to the central characters. Blocking is the arrangement andmovement of actors in relation to each other within the single physical space of a mise-en-scène.

An actor’s make-up and costume can play a central part in a movie – it can support scenicrealism, highlight an important part of a character’s personality, act as a narrative marker, orsignify genre. Costumes are the clothing and related accessories that define specific characters.They can range from common fashions, like a dark suit or a dress, to more fantastic costumes.Make-up refers to cosmetics applied to the actors’ faces and bodies that highlight or distortcertain features and attributes to contribute to the mise-en- scène of the film.

Lighting is one of the more subtle aspects of mise-en-scène, and also one of the mostimportant. Lighting can be natural or directional and can range from hard to soft. Three-pointlighting is a common style that uses three sources: a key light to illuminate the object,backlighting to pick out the object from the background, and fill lighting that minimizesshadows. Directional lighting may appear to emanate from a natural source and defines andshapes the object, area, or person being illuminated. Natural lighting is derived from a naturalsource in a scene or setting, such as the illumination of the daylight sun or firelight. Low-keylighting is a high-contrast style that creates hard edges, distinctive shadows, and a harsh effect,especially when filming people. High-key lighting is diffused, low-contrast lighting thatreduces or eliminates hard edges and shadows and can be more flattering when filming people.

All the various elements of mise-en-scène are brought together in the space and composition ofa scene, which is put together by the design team.

The Significance of Mise-en-Scène

Whether mise-en-scène presents authentic places or ingeniously fabricates new worlds,audiences look for and find particular meanings in sets, props, acting styles, blocking, lighting,and other elements. A film’s mise-en-scène has always been the site where viewers measurehuman, aesthetic, and social values, recognize significant cinematic traditions, and, in thoseinteractions, identify and assign meaning to the changing places of films.

Mise-en-scène as an external condition indicates surfaces, objects, and exteriors that define thematerial possibilities or limits in a place or space. Mise-en-scène as a measure of characterdramatizes how an individual or group establishes an identity through interaction with (orcontrol of) the surrounding setting and sets.

There are two prominent traditions of cinematic mise-en-scène—naturalistic and theatrical.Naturalistic mise-en-scène is a realistic style that appears to correspond to the real world and isrecognizable to viewers. Two specific traditions of naturalistic mise-en-scène are historicalmise-en-scène and everyday mise-en-scène. In contrast, theatrical mise-en-scène denaturalizeslocations and other elements so that they appear unfamiliar, exaggerated, or artificial, like thefantastical settings of Willy Wonka’s factory in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). Twotypes of theatrical mise-en-scène are expressive mise-en-scène and constructive mise-en-scène.

Movie spectaculars are films in which the magnitude and intricacy of the mise-en-scène shareequal emphasis with or even outshine the story, the actors, and other traditional focal points fora movie. If low-budget independent films usually concentrate on the complexity of character,imagistic style, and narrative, movie spectaculars attend to the stunning effects of sets, lighting,props, costumes, and casts of thousands. Marie Antoinette:

Describe how the mise-en-scène of this film informs the audiences understanding of itsmain character and the pressures and anxieties she faces as a teenaged queen of a foreignland. Please consider how costumes, props, make up, blocking and locations contributeto the film’s meaning and value.Sofia Coppola has claimed that her film “is not a history lesson.” What would you pointto in the film’s mise-en-scène that might disqualify it from being a history lesson? Whatother aspects of the film further contribute to its status as something other than history?If it is not a history lesson, what is it?There are some amazing anachronisms in the film’s mise-en-scène, notice for examplethe presence of converse all-stars among the queen’s shoe collection or the blockingshowing French aristocrats dancing to early 80s pop music by The Cure and Bow WowWow. Why are these anachronisms present in the film? What is Coppola trying toaccomplish through them?Roger Ebert claimed in his review of the film that it centers “on the loneliness of beingfemale and surrounded by a world that knows how to use you but not how to value andunderstand you.” Is this a good way to look at the theme of this film?Narrative films have mostly been directed by men. There is a tendency in most of them

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to emphasize surface rather than inner feelings as central to the medium. This filmprovides little by way of action and the story often feels secondary to the mise-en-scène.Some have called it a film about feelings rather than actions. Do you feel that Coppola’sdirection results in a film made from a uniquely feminine perspective? Why or why not?

CHAPTER 3 Framing What We See: Cinematography Although movie images sometimes seem like transparent windows into the world, they areactually carefully constructed and filmed. The magic of the film image comes from its power tore-create how we see the world through imagistic compositions that direct, expand, and eventransform our natural vision. The filming of images is called cinematography, which meansmotion-picture photography or, literally, “writing in movement.” A Short History of the Cinematic Image

Human beings have long had an interest in visual illusions and the reproduction of images. Thescientific study of vision led to the development of optical devices such as the phenakistiscope(1832) and the zoetrope (1834) that create the illusion of movement. The ability to mechanicallycreate the illusion of movement and the subsequent invention of photography helped pave theway for motion-picture cinematography. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, inventorssuch as W. L. K. Dickson (who was employed by Thomas Edison) and the FrenchmenAuguste and Louis Lumière developed the first motion-picture cameras and projectors.

Equally integral to the development of the cinema was Eastman Kodak’s creation of strong butflexible and transparent film stock that could move through the mechanisms of the camera andprojector with minimal breakage. Early film stock was made from highly flammable nitrate,which caused numerous fires and fatalities before the eventual development of acetate-basedsafety film. Black-and-white film emulsion was originally orthochromatic (only sensitive toblue and green portions of the light spectrum), but it was replaced in the 1920s withpanchromatic film stock, which was sensitive to the full range of the light spectrum. Althoughearly movies were filmed in black and white, they were often colored through tinting or toningprocesses before the eventual development of two-strip and three-strip Technicolor processesin the 1930s.

The development of different camera lenses allowed for different focal lengths—the distancefrom the center of the lens to the point where light rays meet in sharp focus—that alter theperspective relations of an image. Wide-angle lenses have a short focal length, telephoto lenseshave a long one, and a zoom is a variable focus lens. The technology of cinematography hascontinued to develop over the years with the introduction of more lightweight handheldcameras (such as the Arriflex camera) that were widely used during World War II, the arrivalof widescreen cinematography in the 1950s, the invention of the Steadicam in the 1970s, the

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development of digital cinematography in the 1990s, and the recent advances in 3-D cinema.

The Elements of Cinematography

The most basic unit of cinematography is the shot—a continuous exposed piece of film withoutstops or edits. Each shot orchestrates four important attributes: framing, depth of field, color,and movement. In cinematographic terms, point of view refers to the position from which aperson, an event, or an object is seen (or filmed). The aspect ratio describes the relation ofwidth to height of the film frame as it appears on a movie screen or television monitor.Onscreen space refers to the space visible within the frame of the image, whereas offscreenspace is the implied space or world that exists outside the film’s frame.

The scale of the shot—the distance between the camera and the shot subject—is described by avariety of terms, including close-ups, extreme close-ups, medium close-ups, long shots,extreme long shots, medium shots, and medium long shots. A deep-focus shot is one inwhich multiple focal planes—foreground, middle ground, and background—are all in sharpfocus.

The film camera can be moved in a variety of ways to create a moving frame that seeks toreplicate aspects of human vision in the natural world. While on a tripod, the camera can pan ortilt to provide horizontal or vertical movement. Reframing refers to the movement of the framefrom one position to another within a single continuous shot. A tracking shot changes theposition of the point of view by moving the camera forward or backward or around the subject,usually on tracks that have been constructed in advance. The camera can be mounted on a dollyto create tracking shots, on a crane for overhead shots, or on a Steadicam (essentially agyroscope harness worn by the camera operator) to create smooth moving shots. For example,the long, flowing shots of Danny riding his tricycle through the hallways of the Overlook Hotelin The Shining (1980) were created using a Steadicam. A handheld shot allows freedom ofmovement like a Steadicam, but results in a shaky image, such as often seen in documentarywar footage, for example.

Film shots are positioned according to a multitude of angles, from straight on to above orbelow. High angles present a point of view from above, directed at a downward angle onindividuals or a scene, while low angles present a point of view from below, directed at anupward angle.

Animation traditionally refers to moving images that are drawn or painted on individual celsthat are then photographed onto single frames of film. Stop-motion animation is created bymanipulating three-dimensional objects (often clay figures) and by exposing one frame of filmat a time to create movement, as seen in Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993).After the runaway success of Pixar Studios’ Toy Story (1995), contemporary animated featurefilms are more commonly created using digital technology.

Special effects cinematography includes not only computer-generated imagery (CGI) butalso manipulations like slow motion, fast motion, process shots, and matte shots.

The Significance of the Film Image

The cinematic image has two primary values: as presentation, or as a true record of the world,and as representation, an interpretation or suggested meaning of that record. Two traditions ofcompositional practice for the film image are presence, in which the audience identifiesemotionally with the image, and textuality, in which the audience identifies intellectually with theimage. The phenomenological image and the psychological image are variations on the traditionof presence. The aesthetic image and the semiotic image are variations on the tradition oftextuality.

The Big Sleep:This film features many underhanded doings and unfolds in a moral twilight. Describeways the film’s cinematography suits the film’s ethical and moral setting.From the moment the audience first sees him to the film’s last frame, Philip Marlowe isthe key figure holding the diffuse plot together. There are almost no scenes without him.How is he depicted visually through cinematography and what does his visual handlingdo to help him hold our attention and admiration?Camera movement figures prominently in the cinematography of the film. Cite examplesof reframing, pans, tilts and tracking in the film and discuss how they serve theproductions story, characters and themes.Take the first sequence of the film. It depicts a rather simple situation. Marlowe visitsthe Sternwood mansion. He meets Carmen first, then the General and finally VivianRutledge. Describe the shots used in this fairly simple story. What do you findadmirable or problematic about the shot choices in this opening section of the film?For a complex story, do you ever find yourself confused as to what is happening in anyparticular shot? If so, when and how? If not, how would you characterize the film’scinematography in terms of helping the audience feel like everything is making perfectsense?

Vertigo:

Some viewers mistake "Vertigo" for a naturalistic and realistic film. In some ways it is.What elements of the film suggest a naturalistic approach? But in many ways it is highlyartificial and theatrical. What elements of the film's photography accentuate itsexpressionism? Be sure to consider the role of extreme close ups, repetitive trackingshots, animation, trick photography, point-of-view and mattes. How might an artificialapproach serve the film’s themes centered on “Scottie’s” twin afflictions of vertigo andobsessive/compulsive disorder?The opening sequence in which "Scottie" chases the criminal is necessary to the story inthat it establishes Scottie"s fear of heights. Does it have any other function? Describehow cinematography positions the audience relative to “Scottie’s” problem.The early sequence between Midge and "Scottie" is interesting. A routine dialogue sceneis comprised of a surprisingly large number of shots. How does Hitchcock'scomposition of these shots advance our understanding of the complex relationshipbetween these two people?Scottie's obsession with Madeleine reaches creepy proportions. How does Hitchcockget his audience to identify with this unhealthy obsession?How are the so-called "vertigo" shots achieved in this film? Those moments when"Scottie" is afraid of heights are treated with rather interesting shots. Describe themtechnically.

Chapter 4

Relating Images: Editing

Chapter Summary

Editing is the process of cutting and combining multiple shots into sequences that presentevents and story information. The power and art of film editing lie in the ways in which thehundreds or thousands of discrete images that make up a film can be shaped to make sense

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within the narrative arc of the film or to have an emotional or visceral impact upon the audience.

A Short History of Film Editing

Long before film technology was invented, people used images to tell stories. These imagesranged from cave paintings to religious triptychs to comic strips. In the late nineteenth century,Eadweard Muybridge’s famous chronophotography experiments studied animal and humanmovement and anticipated the sequencing of multiple images in the cinema.

Films quickly evolved from the use of single shots to the use of multiple images to tell a story.Early filmmaker Georges Méliès used stop-motion photography, and later editing, to createdelightful visual effects. By 1906, the period now known as “early cinema” gave way tonarrative-driven cinema, a transition facilitated by more codified practices of editing. While notthe first filmmaker to use it, D. W. Griffith helped pioneer the editing technique ofcrosscutting, or parallel editing, which involves alternating among multiple strands ofsimultaneous story action.

The concept of editing as montage is closely associated with Soviet filmmaker SergeiEisenstein. While montage is simply the French word for editing, the term has come todesignate a theory of editing that emphasizes the breaks and contrasts between images joined bya cut.

The introduction of sound technology in the late 1920s solidified Hollywood’s commitment tocontinuity editing, an approach that emphasizes spatial and temporal clarity in order to presenta story to an audience in a logical and coherent manner. Beginning in the 1940s, cinematicrealism became established as one of the primary aesthetic principles in film editing, influencedin part by Italian neorealism and documentary filmmaking practices.

In the post-World War II period, alternative editing styles emerged and aimed to fractureclassical editing’s illusion of realism. Various strategies of disjunctive editing, such as jumpcuts, were utilized in the artistic cinema of directors like Jean-Luc Godard, who sought toprovide an alternative aesthetic to Hollywood. However, these avant-garde practices were laterassimilated into the mainstream aesthetics of fast-paced editing and frenetic camera work, likethat seen in commercials, music videos, and Hollywood action films.

One of the most significant changes to film editing was the emergence of digital editing in thelater part of the twentieth century. Computer-based digital editing systems allow immediateaccess to footage and unprecedented opportunities to manipulate and combine images in newways. Although one effect of the ease and affordability of digital editing seems to be a morerapid pace of editing, digital filmmaking can also embrace the opposite aesthetic effect. Anothersignificant benefit of digital editing is longer shot length. On film, the length of a single takewas limited by how much stock the camera could hold; on digital video, the duration of a shot isvirtually limitless.

The Elements of Editing

Editing involves decisions about which shots to include, the most effective take of each shot, thearrangement and duration of shots, and the transitions between them. Editing can producemeaning by combining shots in an infinite number of ways. One shot is selected and joined toother shots by the editor to guide viewers’ perceptions and emotions.

A cut describes the break and common border that links two different pieces of film andseparates two shots. Other types of editing transitions between shots—known as opticaleffects—include fade-outs, fade-ins, dissolves, the iris, and wipes.

In both narrative and non-narrative films, editing is a crucial strategy for ordering space andtime. As mentioned above, continuity editing is a system that uses cuts and other transitions toestablish verisimilitude and to tell stories efficiently, requiring minimal mental effort on the part

of viewers. The basic principle of continuity editing is that each shot has a continuousrelationship to the next shot. It is also called invisible editing. Spatial patterns are frequentlyconstructed by the use of an establishing shot, generally an initial long shot that establishes thesetting and orients the viewer in space to a clear view of the action. The standard practice offilming a conversation involves a close shot of both characters, and following that with a shot ofthe person speaking before cutting to the other person in the conversation.

The 180-degree rule is a conventional rule of continuity editing in which the camera must filmthe action of a scene from one side of an imaginary line called the axis of action.

The 30-degree rule specifies that a shot should only be followed by another shot taken from aposition greater than 30 degrees from that of the first.

Other common devices or techniques of continuity editing include shot/reverse shot, eyelinematch, point-of-view shot, reaction shot, and cutaway.

Editing is one of the chief ways that temporality is manipulated in the time-based medium ofcinema. Story chronology can be manipulated through flashbacks or, more rarely,flashforwards. In the classical model of Hollywood filmmaking, the temporal relations amongstory segments are usually clearly indicated. However, in certain art cinema practices storytemporality can be purposely ambiguous to suggest subjective or psychological conceptions oftime.

Duration denotes the temporal relation of shots and scenes to the amount of time that passes inthe story. In addition to temporal and spatial narrative patterns, editing may link imagesaccording to more abstract similarities and differences that make creative use of space and time.Here we distinguish among three abstract patterns in editing: graphic editing, movementediting, and rhythmic editing. Often these patterns work together to support or complicate theaction being shown.

The Significance of Film Editing

Editing styles are not simply neutral ways of telling stories; they convey different perspectiveson art and realism. Film editing can be used either to generate emotions and ideas through theconstruction of patterns of seeing or to move beyond the confines of individual perception andits temporal and spatial limitations.

Continuity editing proceeds as if organized around continuous human perception—even if thereis no clearly identified person driving that perception, as in a series of establishing shots ofdecreasing distance. In a Hollywood film, editing a scene in the service of narrative continuityand clarity is called analytical editing. In other words, the scene is analyzed or broken downby the camera to direct viewers’ attention from the general perspective of an establishing shot toincreasingly more specific views. Continuity style refers to an even broader array of technicalchoices that support Hollywood’s principle of effacing technique to clarify the narrative and itshuman motivation.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, continuity editing has been challenged by variousalternative practices that we refer to collectively as disjunctive editing. Disjunctive editing is aterm that refers not to a single editing system with rules and manuals like Hollywood continuityediting, but rather to a variety of alternative practices that may be organized around any numberof different aspects of editing, including spatial tension, temporal experimentation, and rhythmicor graphic patterns. These practices may confront the viewer by calling attention to the editingfor aesthetic, conceptual, ideological, or psychological purposes, or working to disorient,disturb, or viscerally affect the viewer. However, in modern filmmaking it is quite possible tofind continuity and disjunctive styles in the editing of a single film. Goodfellas:

Chapter 5

Listening to the Cinema: Film Sound

The cinema is an audiovisual medium, one among many that saturate our contemporary mediaexperience. Despite our habitual references to motion pictures, we are not only film spectatorsbut film auditors as well. We pay attention to narrative cues found not only in what we see onthe screen but also in what we hear, whether it’s background music that warns us tragedy isimminent or the screeching of cars on the street that signals a high-speed chase or the indistinctvoices of guests at a gala event.

A Short History of Film Sound

The cinema’s use of music has its origins in theatrical traditions such as the Greek chorus andeighteenth-century melodrama (literally meaning “music drama”), which originally designateda theatrical genre that combined spoken text with music. The development of film sound wasalso dependent upon technological inventions such as the phonograph (“sound writing”)introduced by Thomas Edison in 1877.

Since the very beginning of filmmaking, filmmakers and inventors sought to combine visualimages with sound. Early “silent” films were often shown in music halls and vaudeville theaterswith musical accompaniment and sometimes with narration, sound effects, and even actorsreciting dialogue.

The Hollywood film industry rapidly converted to synchronized sound in the late 1920s,requiring new sound equipment to be installed in movie theaters. Two different soundtechnologies were introduced during this time. Warner Brothers’ Vitaphone used a sound-on-disk system, while Fox’s Movietone used optical sound recorded directly onto the film stock.The success of Warner Brothers’ The Jazz Singer in 1927 helped convince studios, exhibitors,and the public that synchronized sound films were here to stay.

While the transition to sound was fairly rapid and successful, it was not without difficulties. Inaddition to the expensive sound equipment required for theatrical exhibition, cumbersome soundcameras and recording equipment initially proved a challenge for film production as well. Soundfilm with spoken dialogue could not easily cross-linguistic borders, as dubbing technology wasstill being developed. One solution was to film a movie in multiple languages simultaneously onthe same sets.

Technological innovations in the 1950s (stereophonic sound), the 1970s (Dolby and surroundsound), and the 1990s (digital sound) reflected both an attempt to improve sound fidelity and areaction to other competitive entertainment media including television, home video, and videogames.

The Elements of Film Sound

In order to understand the role of sound in film, one must examine the relationship betweensounds and images. Since film is considered a predominantly visual medium, for manyfilmmakers and viewers, sound exists in movies to enhance the impact of an image. However,sounds can interact with images in infinite ways, and strategies used to combine the twofundamentally affect our understanding of film. Sound is an important aspect in guiding ourperceptions of cinematic realism.

Synchronous sound has a visible onscreen source, while asynchronous sound does not(these can also be referred to as onscreen sound and offscreen sound, respectively). We canfurther differentiate between parallelism in the use of sound, which occurs when thesoundtrack and image “say the same thing,” and counterpoint (or contrapuntal sound), whichoccurs when two different meanings are implied by these elements.

Diegetic sound, such as dialogue, has its source in the narrative world of film, whilenondiegetic sound, such as backgroundmusicor certain kinds of narration, does not belong tothe characters’ world.

During production, sound recording takes place simultaneously with the filming of a scene.Microphones for recording synchronous sound may be placed on the actor or positionedoverhead with the use of a device resembling a long pole called a boom. The snap of aclapboard is recorded at the beginning of each take to synchronize sound and image. When acut of the film is prepared, the crucial and increasingly complex phase of postproduction soundwork begins. Sound editing interacts with the image track to create rhythmic relationships,establish connections between sound and onscreen sources, and smooth or mark transitions.Sound effects may be gathered, produced by sound-effects editors on computers, retrieved froma sound library, or generated by foley artists. Postsynchronous sound is recorded after thefact and then synchronized with onscreen sources. During automated dialogue replacement(ADR), actors watch the film footage and re-record their lines to be dubbed into the soundtrack(a process also known as looping because actors watch a continuous loop of their scenes).During the sound mixing stage, the three elements of a soundtrack – voice, music, and soundeffects – are combined. Although the three sound elements (voice, music, and sound effects)can all be present and combined in relation to any given image, conventions have evolvedgoverning these relationships.

Human voice is often central to narrative film’s intelligibility, primarily in the form of dialogue.Speech is used to expose a character’s motivation and goals and convey plot information, and itis therefore typically mixed to be the most audible sound heard by the audience. Used famouslyby filmmaker Robert Altman, overlapping dialogue is a technique that makes individual linesless distinct and is often used to approximate the everyday experience of hearing multiplecompeting speakers and sounds at the same time. A voice-off is a voice that originates from aspeaker who can be inferred to be present in the scene but who is not currently visible onscreen,while a voiceover describes a voice whose source is not visible in the frame yet acts as theorganizing principle behind the film’s images, such as the narration in a documentary film.

Music is a crucial element in the film experience, providing rhythm and deepening emotionalresponses. Soundtrack music can work to guide an audience’s attention, provide characterinformation, and cue emotional responses. Background music, or underscoring, literallyunderscores what is happening dramatically. Narrative cueing is how music tells us what ishappening in the plot. The most noticeable examples are called stingers, sounds that force us tonotice the significance of something onscreen.

Popular songs have long had a place in the movies, promoting audience participation and

identification by appealing to tastes shared by age or ethnic groups. Sheet music and recordingswere profitable tie-ins even before sound cinema. Since the 1980s, pop songs began todominate many film soundtracks, and now rock and pop soundtrack tie-ins have becomeincreasingly prevalent.

Much of the impression of reality in cinema comes from the use of sound effects, although,like other aspects of the soundtrack, they may not be consciously noticed by viewers. Whenreproduced in the three-dimensional space of the theater, sound effects are also one of the mosteffective techniques used to add depth to the two-dimensional image of a film.

The Significance of Film Sound

The sounds of the film experience build on viewers’ everyday social and leisure activities tocontribute to the movies’ immediacy and sensory richness and to convey what seem likeessential truths and meanings. Paradoxically, movie soundscapes often eschew realism andplausibility in order to heighten authenticity and emotion, like foregrounding actors’ whisperedconversation in a crowded room so we feel intimately connected to them.

The variety of sounds in film gives the viewer an impression of being authentically present inspace, and this impression is supported by the preferences established in the standardtechniques of sound recording, mixing, and reproduction. Sound also encourages the viewer toexperience emotion and to see the world in terms of particular emotions.

Sound continuity describes the range of scoring, sound recording, mixing, and playbackprocesses that strive to unify meaning and experience by subordinating sound to the aims of thenarrative. On the other hand, sound montage reminds us that just as a film is built up of bits andpieces of celluloid, a soundtrack is not a continuous gush of sound from the real world; rather, itis composed of separate elements that can be creatively manipulated and reflected upon toachieve certain effects.

Students Writing on Film

Review of Citizen KaneCitizen Kane is one those movies that everyone talks about but few of us have every seen. Itfirst appeared in 1941, and was surrounded by enormous hype about the debut of the "boygenius" Orson Welles and his ballyhooed transition from the New York stage to the Hollywoodscreen. Before the film even appeared, rumors also connected Citizen Kane to the life of WilliamRandolph Hearst, the American newspaper mogul, and this too made the movie something of afascinating scandal. In the six decades since then, Citizen Kane has appeared at the top of almostevery list of "the greatest movies ever made" and it appears in practically every film course inthe world.

Be prepared for a bit of a disappointment. The story is simple enough: played wonderfully byWelles himself, Charles Foster Kane grows, with the help of windfall fortune, from a boy tornfrom his childhood home in Colorado into a lonely man obsessed with power and possessions.For me, the story is melodramatic and overblown, and Kane never becomes a very likeablecharacter. What redeems Citizen Kane, however, is the construction of the story: different partsof Kane’s story are told through the eyes of his friends and acquaintances, and these shiftingperspectives create a kind of visual puzzle that the movie never really solves, enlivening anotherwise dull tale.

This black-and white movie is a continuous series of stunning (and famous) shots, like theopening sequence of dark shots that take you past a "No Trespassing" sign to Kane’s deathbed.In this age of computer technologies and new-wave television commercials, these images willprobably seem less surprising and innovative than they did when the movie first appeared. YetCitizen Kane remains a movie to see—if only to judge for yourself if it is the greatest movieever made.

Critical Essay on Citizen Kane The same writer who wrote a review of Citizen Kane chooses to write a critical essay on for hiscourse on film history. In this case, he identifies his readers as the other students in the class,readers who are familiar with the film, have discussed it, and have even read other materialabout Citizen Kane.

In the many critical essays on Citizen Kane, three different perspectives on its meaning havedominated analytical writing about that film: work that concentrates on the mythic characters ofKane; essays that analyze the kaleidoscopic narrative structure that shapes its story; and writingthat offers detailed interpretations of the stylistic compositions in the film, such as its use ofdeep focus and dramatic editing techniques. With the first two types of analysis as abackground, here I will examine a single, early scene in Citizen Kane to demonstrate thelegendary visual power of the film. In this scene, Citizen Kane crystallizes a family drama ofloss and division inseparable from a life lived in dense and complex spaces and perceived frommany points of view.

In this tale of Charles Foster Kane’s rise to a position as one of the richest and most powerfulmen in America, the episode in question sets the stage for the entire film. It succinctly describesthe sudden wealth of Kane’s mother, an unexpected windfall from a deed to a silver mine(mistakenly presumed useless), and her subsequent arranging to send Charles to boardingschool on the East coast. The setting is the rustic Colorado cabin of the family, with glimpses ofthe snowy yard outside where the child, Charlie Kane, plays.

In this scene, the shot in fact begins by showing Charles making snowballs in the field, thenmoves back to show his mother in the foreground watching and, now though an open window,the boy building a snowman in the background. Here the window frame within the film framecalls attention to how a point of view controls perspective in certain ways, specifically the pointof view on the child Kane. As the shots pulls back further, the frame then expands to includethe central conversation about the boy and the money, while the original subject of the shot,Charlie, now becomes a much smaller, background figure in the action and the frame.

As the shot pulls back even farther, following the mother’s movement away from the window,the frame creates visible tensions and conflicts between the individuals. The stern face andupper body of the mother Mrs. Kane dominates the center of the image, flanked by the bankerThatcher, while Charlie’s father drifts along the edges of the frame, complaining, "You seem toforget I’m the boy’s father." Moments later, Thatcher and Mrs. Kane sit at a table in theforeground of the image and prepare to sign papers authorizing the child’s departure, while thefather protests in vain in the middle ground and Charlie remains barely visible in the farbackground playing outside in the snow. The rectangular height and width of the frame crowdsthese individuals within a tight visual space, even including the ceiling on the top of the frame asa way of further drawing in the space. Positioned between the adult individuals but in the farbackground is the diminutive shape of Charlie, the subject of their quarreling and plan toremove him from the home. Visually, it is fairly clear how power and control are beingdistributed through this frame: the mother and Thatcher visually overwhelm the father, and thetiny figure of Charles is the impotent object of exchange.

In Citizen Kane Charles Foster Kane grows up to become obsessed with the power of images—paintings, newspaper pictures, images of himself. This obsession perhaps acts out hissemiconscious struggle to replace the image of his lost childhood and family torn apart in thisearly scene in the film. Throughout the remainder of his life he struggles to create, own, and

control the people and things around him by imposing his perspective on them—the way theperspective of others controlled him early in his life. The film is also a narrative constructedaround the multiple points of view of Kane’s friends, wife, and associates, all of whomdramatize how points of view can attempt to frame a man’s life as a way of understanding orinterpreting that life. The irony and tragedy of Charlie Kane’s life is that no one, not even hehimself, is able to reconstruct the complete picture and harmony lost in that early childhoodscene. Taking Notes on FilmEach person will develop his or her own short hand for taking notes, but the trick is to not onlyjot down important information about the story or characters that seems significant but also torecord visual, audial, or other formal details. Some common abbreviations for visualcompositions are:

ES: establishing shotCU: close upLS: long shotMLS: medium long shotHA: high angleLA: low angleDS: diegetic soundNDS: Nondiegetic soundCT: cutTRS: tracking shotPS: pan shotVO: voice overMore specific camera movements and directions can often be recreated with arrows and linesthat graph those actions those actions.