Instructor: Diana Martinez ENG 110: Intro to Film and Media
ENG 110: Intro to Film and Media
Mar 15, 2023
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
CRITICAL FILM TERMINOLOGY
• The shot is the building block of all filmmaking.
• It is a single, uninterrupted piece of film; the image that is seen on screen until it is replaced by another image through some type of editing technique.
Scene vs. Shot
when a camera starts
to where it stops
continuous action taking place in continuous time and space
usually contains
multiple shots
• refers to the visual arrangement of items on screen
BUT, mise-en-scene also takes into account how those items affect the
atmosphere of the shot
Verisimilitude Mise-en-Scene is the element of stylistic form that seeks to create verisimilitude, or the appearance or semblance of reality, plausibility, or believability.
Elements of Mise-en-Scene
1. Setting & Perspective 2. Props, Costumes, Makeup 3. Light, Shadow, & Color
4. Actors and Performance
Landscape/Environment
Rosemary’s Baby (dir. Roman Polanski, 1968)
Spectacle
1. Setting 2. Props, Costumes, Makeup 3. Light, Shadow, & Color
4. Actors and Performance
Prop
• Abbreviation for Property • Part of the setting that plays active role
in action. • May reoccur as a motif.
Props-objects that the actors use a part of a set or scene
Costumes and Makeup
• Realistic, Unobtrusive or Stylized
Nicholson in Batman (1989)
• Highly Stylized, Exaggerated Costume/
Elements of Mise-en-Scene
1. Setting & Perspective 2. Props, Costumes, Makeup 3. Light, Shadow, & Color
4. Actors and Performance
characters appear
27
Lighting
• High light/Low light • Source of the light • High or low contrast
lighting The use of light can
affect your perception of the objects on screen.
High Key
Optimism
29
Low Key
31
Lighting with lots of shadowing and dark angles is called: Low-key lighting.
Low-key lighting
Color
• Note the dominant color and any use of contrasting or symbolic colors
Color
• Emotional – creates a feeling • Symbolic – represents an idea
Descriptive Color
Emotional Color
Symbolic Color
Elements of Mise-en-Scene
1. Setting & Perspective 2. Props, Costumes, Makeup 3. Light, Shadow, & Color
4. Performance
–Visual elements (body, gesture)
–Auditory elements (voice)
• Film acting vs. stage acting – largely a question of scale and spontaneity
• Acting Styles: –Realistic (aims for verisimilitude)
– Stylized (stagey, fantastical)
Character Placement
• The arrangement of characters on the screen (position, size, etc.)
Staging Position
• The characters’ reactions to the camera
Is the character looking at the viewer? Looking away? How intimate is the viewer able to get with the character?
4 Components of Film
• Mise-en-scene • Cinematography • Editing • Sound
The Establishing Shot
It lets the audience have a look at the subject in relation to its surroundings. It usually appears at the beginning of a film or scene to establish the setting or to introduce a film.
The Illusionist 2006
! ! !
Close Ups
In general the closer the camera gets to the characters, the closer the viewer feels towards the characters. This is when close ups are often used: § romantic scenes § scenes where the character is suffering or fearful § any other scene where the viewer is supposed to understand what the character is feeling.
Medium Shots
As the camera moves further away from the character(s), the viewer is provided more information about them or about their situation. The shot on the right is a medium shot, but the one on the left is a close up.
From Rosemary’s Baby 1968 From Babel 2006
Long Shots
The further the camera is from the subject, the more distant you will feel from what is happening in the scene or to the character(s) this lets the audience have a look
at the subject in relation to its surrounding. (A Long Shot shown here)
Another thing you should consider when observing
A frame is the angle or camera position. § Was the frame shot from high above
looking down? (a high angle shot) § Was it shot at eye level (straight on)? § Was it shot from a low angle (the camera is
below its subject)?
A frame shot from a high angle is often referred to as God’s eye view because it suggests that‘someone’ is observing the characters. It can suggest danger and helplessness. These are high angle shots.
300 2006
High Angle Shots
A frame shot from a low angle makes the subject seem larger. These are low angle shots being that the camera is below the subject.
The Postman Always Rings Twice 1946
Citizen Kane 1941
The Departed 2006-Eye Level Shot
Eye-level Shots
• . . . a one-shot reveals one character
• . . . a two-shot reveals two characters (Frida)
Camera Movement Pan: camera placed on a stationary base and pivots
horizontally. Tilt: when a camera moves vertically up and down Tracking Shot: a camera mounted often on a track or on a vehicle; the
camera moves with the action. Zoom: zoom in means to get closer, and zoom out means to get farther away from the subject
4 Components of Film
• Mise-en-scene • Cinematography • Editing • Sound
To EDIT is to select, arrange, add, and delete things.
THE SHOT VS. THE CUT
• The basic building block of film editing is the shot and its most fundamental tool is the cut.
• Each shot has two values:
1. What is within the shot.
2. How the shot relates to other shots.
Editing from scene to scene
• A scene consists of one or more shots that can be described in terms of a continuous space, time and action
• A sequence consists of any number of shots that are unified as a coherent action, such as a walk to school, or as an identifiable motif, such as the expression of anger, regardless of changes of space and time
An editor’s arrangement of a series of shots can create or
disrupt continuity
Continuity in editing makes the shot appear naturalistic, its elements connected
(continuous), the graphic, spatial, and temporal relationships maintained
from shot to shot. It IS verisimilar.
Discontinuity
in editing, in contrast, seems jumpy and disconnected (discontinuity, which
calls attention to itself). It is NOT verisimilar.
Five Conventions of Classical Hollywood- Style Continuity Editing
1. Do not call attention to the editing- make it invisible. The visual transitions and manipulations of audio is hidden from our perception. Screen direction is consistent from shot to shot.
2. Edits are there to move the story forward. 3. Cuts are psychologically motivated from the
audience’s point of view. 4. Editing gives the illusion of continuous space and
time. 5. What happens on the screen makes as much
narrative sense as possible.
Relations in Editing
There are five areas of choice and control in editing, based on five types of relationships between shots:
Graphic Relations Rhythmic Relations Temporal Relations Spatial Relations Thematic Relations
Graphic Relations Although the primary focus of the film editor is to ensure continuity of the narrative, film editors remain acutely aware that film is a visual art. Therefore, they work to achieve visual interest by creating transitions between shots that are graphically similar and graphically dissimilar, depending on the desired effect.
Rhythmic Relations
Film is not only a visual art, but also an auditory and even tactile art. Therefore, editors also remain aware of the effects achieved by manipulating the rhythms experienced by perceivers through thoughtful juxtapositions of longer and shorter shots as well as through transitional devices that affect the perceiver’s sense of beat or tempo.
Temporal Relations Editing is the process by which the difference between temporal duration and screen duration is reconciled. It sounds simple, but consider this: most feature films present in roughly two hours sufficient intersection of story and plot to provide perceivers with everything they need in order to understand days, weeks, months or even years in characters’ lives.
Temporal Relations: Chronology
• Most narrative films are presented in roughly chronological order, with notable exceptions (Memento, anyone?)
• The two most common disruptions to chronological order are flashbacks (a leap to an earlier moment) and flashforwards (a leap into the future) - the former is much more typical than the latter).
Temporal Relations: The Passage of Time
• To speed up time, editors make use of elliptical editing techniques such as
ØTransitional devices ØEmpty frames - figure walks out of the
frame in Shot A and then into the frame in Shot B
ØCutaway shots – cut from a scene to another scene that takes less time, and then back
• To slow down time, editors make use of expansion editing techniques such as
ØOverlapping – end of Shot A is identical to beginning of Shot B
ØRepetition – multiple views of a single shot
Long takes- generally feel as if they unfold in real time, allowing the director to set up the scene realistically. A long take would be longer than 5-8 seconds. Short takes- are typical in quick-cutting music videos in which a single shot can be less than 1 second. Action films will also use a lot of short takes to create suspense and drama in a fight sequence or car chases.
Spatial Relations
Perhaps the most important, as well as the most overlooked, principle of editing is its function in providing perceivers a reliable sense of the physical space that constitutes the world of the film. Editors are responsible (with assistance from cinematographers) for relating points in space in order to achieve narrative continuity.
Thematic Relations Editors have at their disposal two very powerful techniques for manipulating the perceiver’s place in the hierarchy of knowledge, and therefore affecting our thematic understanding of the film:
• Montage sequences – visual motifs, communicate passage of time
• Crosscut editing – cutting back and forth between two lines of action happening simultaneously; greatly heightens perceiver’s position in the hierarchy of knowledge
4 Components of Film
• Mise-en-scene • Cinematography • Editing • Sound
Diegetic Sound vs. Non-Diegetic Sound
• Diegetic Sound is sound that has a source within the story world of the film. –Dialogue, Sounds made by objects seen
in the story world, and music created by instruments within the story world.
• Non-Diegetic sound is represented as coming from outside of the story world. –Omniscient Narrator or Music added to
heighten the emotional impact of the story,
Layered Sound
• Contemporary Films today use layered sound to achieve a realistic depth in the sound environment.
• Sound can actively shape how we perceive and interpret the image. Its ability to connect emotionally is often very powerful – Film sound can direct our attention to a specific event.
• A creaking floor or the slow, squeaky turn of a door knob. – Sound can cue us to form expectations.
• A siren approaching, Footsteps on a path – Sound can give new value to silence.
• Clarice in the Darkness being stalked by Hannibal Lecter
The Four Dimensions of Film Sound
• Rhythm • Fidelity • Space • Time
Rhythm in Film Sound
• Because sound occupies a duration, it has a Rhythm.
• Rhythm involves, minimally: 1. A beat, or pulse; 2. A tempo, or pace; 3. A pattern of accents, or stronger and weaker beats.
Fidelity
• Fidelity refers to the extent to which the sound is faithful to the source as we conceive it.
• Fidelity has nothing to do with what originally made the sound in production.
• Fidelity is purely a matter of expectation. • Fidelity can be applied to all three types of
sound (Speech, Music, and Sound Fx)
Sound Space
• Sound has a spatial dimension because it comes from a source.
• Sound creates the sense of space or a three-dimensional environment through the use of Diegetic and Nondiegetic sound.
Sound & Time
• Sound takes place in time and can be used to manipulate time or represent time in a variety of ways. – Simultaneous sound is sound that takes place at the same
time as the image in terms of story events (most sounds fall into this category)
– Non-simultaneous sound describes sound that we hear at the same time as the present image, but that represents a moment from the past or from the future.
Special Effects in Sound
• Using sound to tell the inner story – To reinforce the emotional struggle of the
character • Pile Driver and mechanical waterfront sounds to
support the inner struggle that Terry Malloy faces in confession of a murder.
• Distortion of Sound – Subjective POV – Sound reflect the inner psychosis of a character.
• Slow-Motion Sound – The power of a single punch in Raging Bull.
Foley
• Sound Effects developed by human activity within the film frame. –Created by a Foley Artist –Comes from the first Foley Artist: Jack
Foley
ACTING AND ACCENT
True Blood (HBO, 2008-2014)
The Exorcist (dir. William Friedkin, 1973)
SOUNDTRACK
Suspiria (1977) Composer: Goblin
House (1977) Composer: Mickie Yoshino and Asei Kobayashi
2 Types of Soundscapes
• Narra>onal- walks us through the story of a scene/sequence
• Atmospheric- creates mood but does not contain narra>onal cues
Friday the 13th: Part 2 (dir. Steven Miner, 1981)
Tuck Me In (dir. Ignacio F. Rodo, 2013)
The Horror Movie Trailer
techniques, and ask ourselves: What is the EFFECT?
• The shot is the building block of all filmmaking.
• It is a single, uninterrupted piece of film; the image that is seen on screen until it is replaced by another image through some type of editing technique.
Scene vs. Shot
when a camera starts
to where it stops
continuous action taking place in continuous time and space
usually contains
multiple shots
• refers to the visual arrangement of items on screen
BUT, mise-en-scene also takes into account how those items affect the
atmosphere of the shot
Verisimilitude Mise-en-Scene is the element of stylistic form that seeks to create verisimilitude, or the appearance or semblance of reality, plausibility, or believability.
Elements of Mise-en-Scene
1. Setting & Perspective 2. Props, Costumes, Makeup 3. Light, Shadow, & Color
4. Actors and Performance
Landscape/Environment
Rosemary’s Baby (dir. Roman Polanski, 1968)
Spectacle
1. Setting 2. Props, Costumes, Makeup 3. Light, Shadow, & Color
4. Actors and Performance
Prop
• Abbreviation for Property • Part of the setting that plays active role
in action. • May reoccur as a motif.
Props-objects that the actors use a part of a set or scene
Costumes and Makeup
• Realistic, Unobtrusive or Stylized
Nicholson in Batman (1989)
• Highly Stylized, Exaggerated Costume/
Elements of Mise-en-Scene
1. Setting & Perspective 2. Props, Costumes, Makeup 3. Light, Shadow, & Color
4. Actors and Performance
characters appear
27
Lighting
• High light/Low light • Source of the light • High or low contrast
lighting The use of light can
affect your perception of the objects on screen.
High Key
Optimism
29
Low Key
31
Lighting with lots of shadowing and dark angles is called: Low-key lighting.
Low-key lighting
Color
• Note the dominant color and any use of contrasting or symbolic colors
Color
• Emotional – creates a feeling • Symbolic – represents an idea
Descriptive Color
Emotional Color
Symbolic Color
Elements of Mise-en-Scene
1. Setting & Perspective 2. Props, Costumes, Makeup 3. Light, Shadow, & Color
4. Performance
–Visual elements (body, gesture)
–Auditory elements (voice)
• Film acting vs. stage acting – largely a question of scale and spontaneity
• Acting Styles: –Realistic (aims for verisimilitude)
– Stylized (stagey, fantastical)
Character Placement
• The arrangement of characters on the screen (position, size, etc.)
Staging Position
• The characters’ reactions to the camera
Is the character looking at the viewer? Looking away? How intimate is the viewer able to get with the character?
4 Components of Film
• Mise-en-scene • Cinematography • Editing • Sound
The Establishing Shot
It lets the audience have a look at the subject in relation to its surroundings. It usually appears at the beginning of a film or scene to establish the setting or to introduce a film.
The Illusionist 2006
! ! !
Close Ups
In general the closer the camera gets to the characters, the closer the viewer feels towards the characters. This is when close ups are often used: § romantic scenes § scenes where the character is suffering or fearful § any other scene where the viewer is supposed to understand what the character is feeling.
Medium Shots
As the camera moves further away from the character(s), the viewer is provided more information about them or about their situation. The shot on the right is a medium shot, but the one on the left is a close up.
From Rosemary’s Baby 1968 From Babel 2006
Long Shots
The further the camera is from the subject, the more distant you will feel from what is happening in the scene or to the character(s) this lets the audience have a look
at the subject in relation to its surrounding. (A Long Shot shown here)
Another thing you should consider when observing
A frame is the angle or camera position. § Was the frame shot from high above
looking down? (a high angle shot) § Was it shot at eye level (straight on)? § Was it shot from a low angle (the camera is
below its subject)?
A frame shot from a high angle is often referred to as God’s eye view because it suggests that‘someone’ is observing the characters. It can suggest danger and helplessness. These are high angle shots.
300 2006
High Angle Shots
A frame shot from a low angle makes the subject seem larger. These are low angle shots being that the camera is below the subject.
The Postman Always Rings Twice 1946
Citizen Kane 1941
The Departed 2006-Eye Level Shot
Eye-level Shots
• . . . a one-shot reveals one character
• . . . a two-shot reveals two characters (Frida)
Camera Movement Pan: camera placed on a stationary base and pivots
horizontally. Tilt: when a camera moves vertically up and down Tracking Shot: a camera mounted often on a track or on a vehicle; the
camera moves with the action. Zoom: zoom in means to get closer, and zoom out means to get farther away from the subject
4 Components of Film
• Mise-en-scene • Cinematography • Editing • Sound
To EDIT is to select, arrange, add, and delete things.
THE SHOT VS. THE CUT
• The basic building block of film editing is the shot and its most fundamental tool is the cut.
• Each shot has two values:
1. What is within the shot.
2. How the shot relates to other shots.
Editing from scene to scene
• A scene consists of one or more shots that can be described in terms of a continuous space, time and action
• A sequence consists of any number of shots that are unified as a coherent action, such as a walk to school, or as an identifiable motif, such as the expression of anger, regardless of changes of space and time
An editor’s arrangement of a series of shots can create or
disrupt continuity
Continuity in editing makes the shot appear naturalistic, its elements connected
(continuous), the graphic, spatial, and temporal relationships maintained
from shot to shot. It IS verisimilar.
Discontinuity
in editing, in contrast, seems jumpy and disconnected (discontinuity, which
calls attention to itself). It is NOT verisimilar.
Five Conventions of Classical Hollywood- Style Continuity Editing
1. Do not call attention to the editing- make it invisible. The visual transitions and manipulations of audio is hidden from our perception. Screen direction is consistent from shot to shot.
2. Edits are there to move the story forward. 3. Cuts are psychologically motivated from the
audience’s point of view. 4. Editing gives the illusion of continuous space and
time. 5. What happens on the screen makes as much
narrative sense as possible.
Relations in Editing
There are five areas of choice and control in editing, based on five types of relationships between shots:
Graphic Relations Rhythmic Relations Temporal Relations Spatial Relations Thematic Relations
Graphic Relations Although the primary focus of the film editor is to ensure continuity of the narrative, film editors remain acutely aware that film is a visual art. Therefore, they work to achieve visual interest by creating transitions between shots that are graphically similar and graphically dissimilar, depending on the desired effect.
Rhythmic Relations
Film is not only a visual art, but also an auditory and even tactile art. Therefore, editors also remain aware of the effects achieved by manipulating the rhythms experienced by perceivers through thoughtful juxtapositions of longer and shorter shots as well as through transitional devices that affect the perceiver’s sense of beat or tempo.
Temporal Relations Editing is the process by which the difference between temporal duration and screen duration is reconciled. It sounds simple, but consider this: most feature films present in roughly two hours sufficient intersection of story and plot to provide perceivers with everything they need in order to understand days, weeks, months or even years in characters’ lives.
Temporal Relations: Chronology
• Most narrative films are presented in roughly chronological order, with notable exceptions (Memento, anyone?)
• The two most common disruptions to chronological order are flashbacks (a leap to an earlier moment) and flashforwards (a leap into the future) - the former is much more typical than the latter).
Temporal Relations: The Passage of Time
• To speed up time, editors make use of elliptical editing techniques such as
ØTransitional devices ØEmpty frames - figure walks out of the
frame in Shot A and then into the frame in Shot B
ØCutaway shots – cut from a scene to another scene that takes less time, and then back
• To slow down time, editors make use of expansion editing techniques such as
ØOverlapping – end of Shot A is identical to beginning of Shot B
ØRepetition – multiple views of a single shot
Long takes- generally feel as if they unfold in real time, allowing the director to set up the scene realistically. A long take would be longer than 5-8 seconds. Short takes- are typical in quick-cutting music videos in which a single shot can be less than 1 second. Action films will also use a lot of short takes to create suspense and drama in a fight sequence or car chases.
Spatial Relations
Perhaps the most important, as well as the most overlooked, principle of editing is its function in providing perceivers a reliable sense of the physical space that constitutes the world of the film. Editors are responsible (with assistance from cinematographers) for relating points in space in order to achieve narrative continuity.
Thematic Relations Editors have at their disposal two very powerful techniques for manipulating the perceiver’s place in the hierarchy of knowledge, and therefore affecting our thematic understanding of the film:
• Montage sequences – visual motifs, communicate passage of time
• Crosscut editing – cutting back and forth between two lines of action happening simultaneously; greatly heightens perceiver’s position in the hierarchy of knowledge
4 Components of Film
• Mise-en-scene • Cinematography • Editing • Sound
Diegetic Sound vs. Non-Diegetic Sound
• Diegetic Sound is sound that has a source within the story world of the film. –Dialogue, Sounds made by objects seen
in the story world, and music created by instruments within the story world.
• Non-Diegetic sound is represented as coming from outside of the story world. –Omniscient Narrator or Music added to
heighten the emotional impact of the story,
Layered Sound
• Contemporary Films today use layered sound to achieve a realistic depth in the sound environment.
• Sound can actively shape how we perceive and interpret the image. Its ability to connect emotionally is often very powerful – Film sound can direct our attention to a specific event.
• A creaking floor or the slow, squeaky turn of a door knob. – Sound can cue us to form expectations.
• A siren approaching, Footsteps on a path – Sound can give new value to silence.
• Clarice in the Darkness being stalked by Hannibal Lecter
The Four Dimensions of Film Sound
• Rhythm • Fidelity • Space • Time
Rhythm in Film Sound
• Because sound occupies a duration, it has a Rhythm.
• Rhythm involves, minimally: 1. A beat, or pulse; 2. A tempo, or pace; 3. A pattern of accents, or stronger and weaker beats.
Fidelity
• Fidelity refers to the extent to which the sound is faithful to the source as we conceive it.
• Fidelity has nothing to do with what originally made the sound in production.
• Fidelity is purely a matter of expectation. • Fidelity can be applied to all three types of
sound (Speech, Music, and Sound Fx)
Sound Space
• Sound has a spatial dimension because it comes from a source.
• Sound creates the sense of space or a three-dimensional environment through the use of Diegetic and Nondiegetic sound.
Sound & Time
• Sound takes place in time and can be used to manipulate time or represent time in a variety of ways. – Simultaneous sound is sound that takes place at the same
time as the image in terms of story events (most sounds fall into this category)
– Non-simultaneous sound describes sound that we hear at the same time as the present image, but that represents a moment from the past or from the future.
Special Effects in Sound
• Using sound to tell the inner story – To reinforce the emotional struggle of the
character • Pile Driver and mechanical waterfront sounds to
support the inner struggle that Terry Malloy faces in confession of a murder.
• Distortion of Sound – Subjective POV – Sound reflect the inner psychosis of a character.
• Slow-Motion Sound – The power of a single punch in Raging Bull.
Foley
• Sound Effects developed by human activity within the film frame. –Created by a Foley Artist –Comes from the first Foley Artist: Jack
Foley
ACTING AND ACCENT
True Blood (HBO, 2008-2014)
The Exorcist (dir. William Friedkin, 1973)
SOUNDTRACK
Suspiria (1977) Composer: Goblin
House (1977) Composer: Mickie Yoshino and Asei Kobayashi
2 Types of Soundscapes
• Narra>onal- walks us through the story of a scene/sequence
• Atmospheric- creates mood but does not contain narra>onal cues
Friday the 13th: Part 2 (dir. Steven Miner, 1981)
Tuck Me In (dir. Ignacio F. Rodo, 2013)
The Horror Movie Trailer
techniques, and ask ourselves: What is the EFFECT?
Related Documents
