Film and Culture: Chapter 3

Narrative

A cinematic structure in which content is selected and arranged in a cause-and-effect sequence of events occurring over time.

Theme

A shared, public idea, such as a metaphor, an adage, a myth, or a familiar conflict or personality type.

Experimental Movies

Also known as avant-garde film, a term implying a position in the vanguard, out in front of traditional films. Experimental films are usually about unfamiliar, unorthodox, or obscure subject matter and are ordinarily made by independent (even underground) film-makers, not studios, often with innovative techniques that call attention to, question, and even challenge their own artifice.

Presentation

Certain elements of cinematic language that communicate tone and atmosphere.

Stars

Even the actors who star in genre movies factor into how the genre is classified, analyzed, and received by audiences.

Character Types

Individuated characters, genre films populated by specific character 'types'.

Film Noir

French for 'Black Film'. Distinguished by its visual style. 'Black Film' not only references the genre's attitude, but its look as well. Lighting schemes emphasize contrast and create deep shadows that can obscure as much information as the illumination reveals.Reinforces feeling of disorientation. Plot twists, goal shifts, and expectations are reversed. Allies revealed to be enemies, moral reference points are skewed.

Musical

Musical tells its story using characters that express themselves with song and/or dance.

Western

Predates the invention of motion pictures.

Genre

The categorization of narrative films by form, content, oor both. Examples of genres are musical, comedy, biography, Western, and so on.

Gangster

The gangster genre is deeply rooted in the concept of the American dream, which states that anyone, regardless of how humble his origins, can succeed.

Story Formulas

The way a movie's story is structured-its plot-also helps viewers determine what genre it belongs to.

Documentary Movies

a nonfiction film that presents the filmmakers' perspective on actuality. Documentary films take many forms, including factual, instructional, persuasive, and propaganda. Regardless of approach, every documentary is shaped by the filmmaker's intent and subjective interpretation of ideas and actual events.

Horror

born out of cultural need to confront and vicariously conquer something frightening that we do not fully comprehend.

Science Fiction

focus is on humanity's relationship with science and the technology it generates.

Stop-motion animation

records the movement of objects with a motion-picture camera; the animator moves the objects slightly for each recorded frame.

Hand-drawn animation

to create hand-drawn animation, animators draw or paint images that are then photographed one frame at a time in a film camera. Since 24 frames equal 1 second of film time, animators must draw 24 separate pictures to achieve 1 second of animation.

Digital animation/CGI

uses the virtual world of computer-modeling software to generate animation.