2003.02.05 - SLIDE 1 IS246 - SPRING 2003 Lecture 05: Formalist Media Theory IS246 Multimedia Information (FILM 240, Section 4) Prof. Marc Davis UC Berkeley SIMS Monday and Wednesday 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Spring 2003 http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/academics/ courses/is246/s03/
Lecture 05: Formalist Media Theory. IS246 Multimedia Information (FILM 240, Section 4). Prof. Marc Davis UC Berkeley SIMS Monday and Wednesday 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Spring 2003 http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/academics/courses/is246/s03/. Today’s Agenda. Review of Last Time - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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frames, and cutaways can elide time in shot and scene transitions
– Montage sequences can compress time
2003.02.05 - SLIDE 30IS246 - SPRING 2003
Today’s Agenda
• Review of Last Time
– Narrative Form and Narration
– Introduction to Editing
• Formalist Media Theory
– Cinematography
– Editing
• Discussion
• Action Items for Next Time
2003.02.05 - SLIDE 31IS246 - SPRING 2003
Discussion Questions
• On Cinematography (Rachna Dhamija)– Bordwell describes the significance that mise-en-scene, framing,
shot duration, and other cinematographic effects have on narrative. What are the implications for the design of automatic video capture systems?
– Still cameras have evolved to give users more feedback on framing, lighting, etc. to improve their capture technique. What feedback could be given to end users of video capture systems to improve amateur cinematography? What could be automated (or made into a template)?
– Bordwell describes cinematic action that occurs across frame and shot boundaries. How can we represent this with metadata?
– What impact does the improvement of digital manipulation and post-capture editing techniques have on mise-en-scene and cinematography? Does it minimize their importance?
2003.02.05 - SLIDE 32IS246 - SPRING 2003
Discussion Questions
• On Cinematography (Beto Ritchie)– The uniformity among shooting, printing, and projection rates are
more important than the choice of any particular rate of shooting or projection. Why?
– How is the use of offscreen space used effectively to surprise the viewer? How can it be used differently than a theatre's offscreen space? What are the six zones of offscreen space?
– A curious industry question: If the director and cinematographer are two different persons, which is often the case, how much power and control does the cinematographer have over the outcome and look of the film? Where the director draw the line? Cinematography covers so many important aspects of a film that there must be overlapping decisions and tasks that must be worked out between the director and cinematographer. In a film like American Beauty, which had amazing cinematographic aspects from lighting to framing, I wonder how much of it was the director Sam Mendes' work and ideas, how much of it was the cinematographer Conrad Hall's input, and how much of it was due to the collaboration of both filmmakers.
2003.02.05 - SLIDE 33IS246 - SPRING 2003
Discussion Questions
• On Editing (Ka-Ping Yee)– How might a video editing system detect places
where eyeline match or match on action might occur?– How might such a system advise or warn an editor of
potentially beneficial or misleading effects of the match? Could it recommend safe places to cut?
– Can the principles of continuity editing be applied to improve comprehension of summarized footage?
• On Editing (Ana Ramirez)– Can the axis of action be recorded in the metadata
and what effect does this have for multimedia databases?
2003.02.05 - SLIDE 34IS246 - SPRING 2003
Discussion Questions
• On Cinematography (Beto Ritchie)– Panchromatic film stock replaced orthochromatic in the mid-1920s. I
wonder if we are still using panchromatic color film stock or has it been replaced by a variety of new technologies?
– In the early 1920s, before the synchronization of the sound onto film and the introduction of the motorized camera, I wonder if camera men or directors were considered more valuable if they had the ability to hold a steady rate at cranking the film strip through the camera by hand and smoothly varying its rate when necessary.
– What strong cinematographic influence did Citizen Kane make in Hollywood during the 1940s?
– In most of film history, projection has lied outside of a filmmaker's control. But in the past years, what Hollywood filmmaker has tried to gain some control over how and with what tools his film is to be projected onto the screen?
– Depth of field and focus: I wanted to know what kind of focusing technique (shallow focus, deep focus, racking) is required to keep an image in focus if the camera itself is moving on a dolly? I am almost sure it is a combination of these techniques but the most used is probably deep focus.
2003.02.05 - SLIDE 35IS246 - SPRING 2003
Today’s Agenda
• Review of Last Time
– Narrative Form and Narration
– Introduction to Editing
• Formalist Media Theory
– Cinematography
– Editing
• Discussion
• Action Items for Next Time
2003.02.05 - SLIDE 36IS246 - SPRING 2003
Readings for Next Week
• Monday 02/10– Christian Metz. Film Language: A Semiotics of the Cinema. University of
Chicago Press, Chicago, 1991; pp. 92-146.– Umberto Eco. Articulations of the Cinematic Code. in Nichols, B. ed.,
University of California Press, Berkeley, 1976; pp. 590-607.– Roland Barthes. Action Sequences. in Strelka, J. ed., Patterns of
Literary Style. State University of Pennsylvania Press, University Park, Pennsylvania, 1971; pp. 5-14.
– Noel Burch. Theory of Film Practice. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1981; pp. 3-16.
• Wednesday 02/12– Sergei Eisenstein. Film Form: Essays in Film Theory. Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, Publishers, San Diego, 1949; pp. 45-63 & 72-83.– David Bordwell. The Cinema of Eisenstein. Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1993; pp. 111-162.– Herbert Zettl. Essentials of Applied Media Aesthetics. In: Media
Computing: Computational Media Aesthetics. Eds. Chitra Doria & Svetha Venkatesh. Boston: Kluwer, 2001; pp. 11-38.