FILM ANALYSIS MIDTERM

3 Types of Montage (Bazin)

1) PARALLEL MONTAGE: use of crosscutting to create a sense of the simultaneity of two actions taking place in two different locations 2) ACCELERATED MONTAGE: composed of shots of increasingly shorter length to create the illusion of increased speed 3) MONTAGE BY ATTRACTION: re-enforcing the meaning of one image by association with another image not necessarily part of the same episode (Kuleshov effect)

2 types of POV shots

1) Perceptual: we hear and see what the character does 2) Mental: we can hear/see one's imagination/thoughts

4 types of meaning

1) Referential 2) Explicit 3) Implicit 4) Symptomatic

4 Elements of Mise-en-scene

1) SETTING a. Location b. color schemes c. props: object has function within ongoing action 2) COSTUME/MAKEUP 3) LIGHTING a. Highlights vs. Shadows - attached shadows: attached to object's face - cast shadows: cast by an object on a wall/surface b. Hard lighting vs. Soft lighting - hard: light source is small relative to object - soft: light "wraps around" subjects; light is close c. Direction - Frontal, backlighting, side, top, under - 3 point lighting system: key, back, fill d. High key vs. Low key - high key: low contrast - low key: high contrast, chiaroscuro e. Source - Natural - Artificial f. Color 4) STAGING: movement and performance a. Acting (realistic vs. individualized/stylized) b. Typecasting: when you see a character as one "type," so they usually play these roles c. Acting in the context of other techniques (editing, camera's distance)

3 types of duration

1) Screen time: how long does the film run for? 2) Plot time: how much time passes from the beginning of the film to the end? 3) Story time: how long does the entire story/backstory take place?

4 Ways to Write About Film

1) Screening Report: taking notes 2) Movie review: imdb.com 3) Theoretical essay: realism, psychoanalysis, film history 4) Critical essay: mixture of movie review and theoretical essay - Avoid lengthy plot summary - More specific than review (details, complexity) - Scene analysis

4 phases a movie goes through

1) Scriptwriting & Funding 2) Preparation for Filming 3) Shooting 4) Assembly

4 Types of Editing Relations

1) Spatial a. Constructive editing: The Kuleshov Effect (absence of an establishing shot, but we can assume two shots/images occupy the same space) 2) Graphic a. Graphic match: shapes colors, composition, movement 3) Temporal a. Order of events (flashbacks, flash forward) b. Elliptical editing i. Punctuation shot with a dissolve, wipe or fade ii. Empty frames -- character leaves one frame and we cut to the next iii. Cutaway or insert 4) Rhythmic a. Flash frames (for action films, a few frames of pure white, violent scene, or transition to flashbacks or subjective sequences/fantasy) b. Shot duration (steady beat, gradually shortened duration)

Name the 4 types of editing relations

1) Spatial 2) Graphic 3) Temporal 4) Rhythmic

What are 2 aspects of "traditional Hollywood cinema?"

1) Two plot lines -- love and crime 2) Three-act structure

3 Types of Focal Length

1) WIDE ANGLE (short focal length) - exaggerates depth - makes figures in the foreground seem bigger - makes figures in the distance seem farther away - makes it look like there are many planes - when figures move towards the camera, figures seem to cover ground more rapidly - depth is enhanced 2) NORMAL (middle focal length) - avoids noticeable perspective distortion - subjects don't appear stretched apart (wide angle) nor squashed together (telephoto) 3) TELEPHOTO (long focal length) - makes it look like figures are compressed to one plane - stretch space along frame edges -magnify action at a distance - depth is reduced

Six Hollywood Major Distributors

1) Warner Bros 2) Paramount 3) Walt Disney 4) Universal 5) Sony/Colombia 6) 20th Century Fox

3 Consequences of DEPTH OF FIELD (depth of focus) (as opposed to montage)

1) brings spectator into a relation with the image closer to which he enjoys in reality -- mimics the way we see the world 2) a more active, mental attitude on the part of the spectator and a more positive contribution on his part to the action in progress -- montage doesn't give you a choice in interpretation or what to look at; with deep focus, meaning is created by you 3) metaphysical -- reintroducing ambiguity int the structure of the image if not of necessity... at least as a possibility (Orson Welles, Citizen Kane); ambiguity: not knowing what is real/not

Formal elements

1) mise-en-scene 2) cinematography 3) editing 4) sound

What are 4 elements of mise-en-scene?

1) setting 2) staging/acting 3) costumes/makeup 4) lighting

Academy Ratio

1.37:1

Today's Aspect Ratio

1.85:1

standard film rate

24 fps

standard dimensions of film

720p x 1080 p

graphic match

when a filmmaker links shots by close graphic similarities (shapes, colors and overall composition or movement in shot A may be picked up in the composition of shot B).

reframing

when the camera moves only slightly to keep character in frame

jump cut

when you cut together two shots of the same subject and the shots differ only slightly in angle/composition --> noticeable jump on screen

cinematography

writing in movement

Screen Space

- Balances composition (framing) - Depth cues: volumes (solid, occupying a 3D area, having shape, shading and movement) AND places (layers of space occupied by persons or objects) - Aerial perspective (hazing of more distant planes) AND size diminution (objects rather far away from us are seen to be smaller)

Describe the films of the 1940s

- Describes what the director wanted to say - Focuses on the actual shot (cinematography) not just editing - Mise-en-scene - Realism

How would a neoformalist analyze film?

- Film consists of various devices - Each one has a potential for defamiliarization (to present something ordinary and make it into something that provokes thought or is interesting) - Devices perform functions in artworks, but the work must also provide some reason for including the device to begin with - The reason the work suggests the presence of any given device is its motivation - Motivation: a cue given by the work that prompts us (active spectators) to decide what could justify the inclusion of the device

Who was Andre Bazin?

- French film critic - Founded famous film journal - Shifted film criticism away from montage and towards elements of composition, such as mise-en-scene/cinematography

alternative editing

- JUMP CUT: when 2 shots of the same subject are cut together but are not sufficiently different in camera distance and angle (same medium shot, similar angle, instead of 30 degree rule) - NONDIEGETIC INSERT: metaphorical or symbolic shot - Discontinuity of order, frequency, and duration (non-linear editing, repetitive, non-matching action)

Describe the films of the 1920s

- Russian filmmaking - Connection from shot to shot - Evoked what director wanted them to say - 1927: The Jazz Singer (first sound film)

Alternative narratives

- many flashbacks - multiple narrators - experimental films (nonnarrative)

Sources of evaluating a film

- personal taste - realistic - moral - coherence - unity - intensity of effect - complexity - originality

Classical narratives

- plot development (logical, linear) - sense of closure - focus on characters - clear objective - realistic narration

What are the 4 basic types of motivation?

1) Compositional - justifies the inclusion of any device that is needed for narrative causality 2) Realistic - something we anticipate because it's "realistic" 3) Transtextual - involve any appeal to conventions of other artworks (most viewers should already know about) 4) Artistic - more abstract; note noticeable; only when 3 other types of motivation are withheld.

Corrigan's 6 Approaches to Writing About Film

1) Formalism/Neoformalism: formal elements 2) Film History: historical development, condition of production, and reception 3) Genres: film noir, musical, sci-fi, etc. 4) Auteurs: directors as authors (Hitchcock, Anderson, Nolan, etc.) 5) Ideology: socialist, capitalist, feminist, race, class, etc. 6) National Cinemas: cultural and nonfictional characters

Neoformalism looks at 2 other components other than just formal elements. What are they?

1) HISTORY 2) THE SPECTATOR

6 Aspects of Lighting

1) Highlights/Shadows 2) Hard/Soft 3) Direction 4) High key/Low key 5) Source: natural? artificial? 6) Color

narration

the perspective that organizes the plot according to certain emotional, physical, or intellectual POV (omniscient narration or restricted narration) moment by moment process that guides viewers in building the story out of the plot

editing

the relation of shot to shot

EISENSTEIN: "Dialectical Approach to Film Form"

Hegelian dialectics: a thesis, an antithesis, a synthesis Dialectical materialism: process of historical change arising from conflict and class struggle (negation=progress) "For art is always conflict" 1) Social mission: art is to reveal the contradictions of being 2) Nature: art consists in the conflict between natural being and creative tendentiousness 3) Methodology: shot and montage are the basic elements of film Montage: an idea that derives from the collision between 2 shots that are independent of one another - Each moving piece of montage in its own right - Artificially produced representation of movement - The case of emotional combinations not merely of the visible elements of the pieces but principally of the chains of psychological association - The emancipation of closed action from its concluding by time and space - A purely intellectual film: "synthesis of art & science"

fidelity

the sound is faithful to the source

PAUL SCHRADER: "Notes on Film Noir"

After war, new mood of cynicism/darkness Film noir --> not a genre Four Major Influences: 1) War and Postwar Disillusionment: boom in crime film after war; people eager to take a less optimistic view 2) Postwar realism: public's desire for a more honest/harsh view of America 3) The German Expatriates: Germans = masters of chiaroscuro 4) The Hard Boiled Tradition: "hard boiled" writers like Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity) Three Phases of Film Noir: 1) War time period: more talk than action (1941-46) 2) Post war realistic period: street crime, political corruption, police routine (1945-49) 3) Glory period: painfully self-aware; personal integrity, heroic conventions, loss of public honor Film noir -- remarkably creative - more interested in style than theme - works out conflicts visually rather than thematically

timbre

tone quality

PARALLEL MONTAGE

use of crosscutting to create a sense of the simultaneity of two actions taking place in two different locations

Time

Audio-visual synchronous sound Asynchronous sound - Simultaneous sound: character speaking in story time - Nonsimultaneous sound: sonic flashback vs. visual flashback (Prestige uses sonic flashbacks preceding visual flashbacks) - Sound bridge: sound belongs to an earlier scene

ramping

varying the frame rate during shooting sometimes used to emphasize action

Attraction of frontality

we gather more info from a character's face than from a character's back

ANDRE BAZIN: "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema"

Montage by attraction: Eisenstein - reinforcing the meaning of one image by association with another image not necessarily part of the same episode MONTAGE: the creation of a sense of meaning not proper to the images themselves but derived exclusively from their juxtaposition. 1940s: French realism Jean Renoir / DEEP FOCUS - replaced montage with frequent panning shots Citizen Kane / DEPTH OF FIELD Shooting in depth = you get more out of a scene 1) Depth of focus - brings the spectator into relation with the image closer to that which he enjoys with reality 2) More active mental viewing attitude 3) Montage rules out ambiguity of expression

The French utilized which type of editing style?

Continuous (Non-Montage)

Deep space vs. Deep focus

Deep space: captures depth of many planes, but not everything is in focus Deep focus: everything is in focus

According to neoformalism, what is cinema?

Each film is a piece of art Communication Spectator's perception

"form" vs. "style"

FORM: overall patterning of a film, the ways its part works together to create special FX STYLE: film's use of cinematic techniques Four Categories: 1) mise-en-scene 2) cinematography 3) editing 4) sound

PLACE & PETERSON: "Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir"

Film noir -- claustrophobia, paranoia, despair, etc. Low key lighting Intense shadows Greater depth of field -- wide angle lens Off-angle compositions -- unstable world Less establishing shots -- jarring Camera movements used sparingly Dark mirrors

What kind of filmmaking dominated in the 1930s?

French filmmaking / CONTINUOUS EDITING (NON-MONTAGE)

KRISTIN THOMPSON: "Neoformalist Film Analysis: One Approach, Many Methods"

Goals of film analysis: 1) Aesthetic approach: set of assumptions about traits shared by different artworks, procedures spectators go through in understanding all artworks, and about the ways in which artworks relate to society 2) Method: a set of procedures used in the actual analytical process Russian formalism: distinguishes between practical everyday info (ordinary speech) and artistic aesthetics Argues we should not distinguish between "high" and "low" art. Art for a formalist: set apart from everyday world (impractical implications) Defamiliarization: taking things we know but placing them in a different context so we see it in a different light Automatization: taking things for granted; not looking into deeper meanings DEVICES - more about context - motivation: reason for any given device Four Types of Motivation: 1) Compositional - justifies the inclusion of any device that is needed for narrative causality 2) Realistic - something we anticipate because it's "realistic" 3) Transtextual - involve any appeal to conventions of other artworks (most viewers should already know about); depends on our recognition of the device from past experience 4) Artistic - more abstract; contribute to creation's overall form; more noticeable; only when 3 other types of motivation are withheld. Neoformalism --> film's functions and motivations can only be understood historically Spectator's role: an active subject - meaning of film resides in viewers - must be an active spectator - not only analyze movie, but analyze self - audience's perception of film will differ every time

EISENSTEIN: "Beyond the Shot"

Intellectual cinema: visual exposition of abstract concepts Montage: conflict/collision of two factors gives rise to an idea

Long take vs. Long shot

Long take -- no cuts are used to display action, only one single shot or "take" Long shot -- refers to apparent distance between camera and object

What kind of filmmaking dominated in the 1920s?

Russian filmmaking / MONTAGE EDITING

Abbreviations to know:

S/RS : shot/reverse shot CT : cut LT : long take CRS : crane shot TRS : tracking shot

eyeline match

SHOT A: a character is looking at something off screen SHOT B: shows us what is being looked at

The Russians utilized which type of editing style?

Montage

unrestricted vs. restricted knowledge

Unrestricted: we know more, we see and hear more, than any of the characters can (omniscient "all knowing") Restricted: restricted to what a certain character(s) knows

How does film noir deal with issues?

VISUALLY rather than thematically

cheat cut

when a director "cheats" by using two shots that appear to be continuous, but really aren't

mental subjectivity

when a filmmaker goes deeper beyond the character's senses and into his/her mind (thoughts, memories, fantasies, dreams, etc.)

anamorphic process

process of using a special lens to squeeze the image horizontally, either during filming or printing

rear projection

projecting footage of a setting onto a screen then filming actors in front of it -- whole ensemble is filmed from the front

aspect ratio

ratio of frame width to frame height

MONTAGE BY ATTRACTION

re-enforcing the meaning of one image by association with another image not necessarily part of the same episode (Kuleshov effect)

exposure

regulates how much light passes through the camera lens

Symptomatic meaning

reveals social ideologies/phenomenons (In a society in which human worth is measured by money, the home and the family may seem to be the last refuge of human values. This belief is especially strong in times of economic crisis, such as that in the US in the 1930s.)

storyboard

series of comic strip-like sketches of the shots in each scene

preproduction

When funding is more or less secure and the script is solid enough to start filming, the filmmakers can prepare for the physical production

POV shot

shot from a character's standpoint

close up (CU)

shows just head, hands, feet, or small object

extreme close up (XCU)

singles out a portion of the face or isolates/magnifies an object

filters

slices of glass or gelatin put in front of the lens of the camera or printer to reduce certain frequencies of light reaching the film.

BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN

YEAR: 1925 DIRECTOR: Sergei Eisenstein THEMES: revolution, comradery, unity, peace MOTIFS: red flag, cross, children, religious rhetoric, KEY FORMAL ELEMENTS (w shot examples): - Accelerated montage (narrative moves faster, like Odessa steps sequence) - HA/LA shots - Sound (musical score) - Music --> needed due to lack of dialogue

GRAND ILLUSION

YEAR: 1937 DIRECTOR: Jean Renoir THEMES: comradery, war, strife, sacrifice, imprisonment MOTIFS: grand illusion, "marching feet," rope KEY FORMAL ELEMENTS (w shot examples): - Music ("it's not the music that gets to you...it's the marching feet") - Panning shots (men stunned by man dressed as women - Tilt shots : showcase power - Off-screen voice/space (Rauffenstein and butler) -

WIZARD OF OZ

YEAR: 1939 DIRECTOR: Victor Fleming THEMES: no place like home, adolescence MOTIFS: ruby slippers, KEY FORMAL ELEMENTS (w shot examples): - three-act structure - parallelism - superimposition of shots during tornado

DOUBLE INDEMNITY

YEAR: 1944 DIRECTOR: Billy Wilder THEMES: love, murder, duality MOTIFS: lighting cigarette, KEY FORMAL ELEMENTS (w shot examples): - Balanced shot composition (Phyllis in between husband and Walter / Walter in between Jackson and Keyes) - Low-key lighting - Cast shadows - Denial of frontal shot - Diffused lighting (Venetian blinds) - Dissolve editing (passage of time) - Costumes - V.O. narration - Flashback - Stationary eye-line (Mr. Dietrichson's murder in car)

NORTH BY NORTHWEST

YEAR: 1959 DIRECTOR: Alfred Hitchcock THEMES: trust, mistaken identity, sacrifice, love, timing, modern technology MOTIFS: train, "baby," KEY FORMAL ELEMENTS (w shot examples): - Hollywood two plot lines: crime / love - Linear narrative - POV shots / shot-reverse shots - Combination of restricted and unrestricted knowledge

THE PRESTIGE

YEAR: 2006 DIRECTOR: Christopher Nolan THEMES: deception, sacrifice, love, betrayal, death MOTIFS: bird, time, "getting your hands dirty," red rubber ball, drowning KEY FORMAL ELEMENTS (w shot examples): - Alternative editing - Nonlinear narrative/Bookend structure (seeing last scene first) - Non-simultaneous sound - Nondiegetic sound ("Are you watching closely?") - Crosscutting (Borden in sink/Julie in tank) - Foreshadowing (Borden w bird & nephew)

Jean Renior film ideology

You must respect the continuity of dramatic space, and, of course, of its duration Opposed using excessive montage Liked long takes --> REALISM

Space

sound has a spacial dimension because it comes from a source - DIEGETIC: external (dialogue); internal (reading diary) - NONDIEGETIC: musical scores, sound FX

Special effects (composite filming)

superimposition, projection, and matte work

time

temporal order, temporal duration, and temporal frequency

plot

the arrangement of those events in a certain order or structure

closing

the climax

opening

the exposition & the set-up

narrative

a chain of events linked by cause and effect and occurring in time and space

Sound perspective

a loud sound appears closer a soft sound appears more distant

depth of field

a range of distances within which objects can be photographed in sharp focus, given a certain exposure setting

Overlapping editing

action from the end of one shot is partly repeated at the beginning of the next, prolonging action

Axis of action (180 degree system)

action that occurs along this line/vector 180 degree system ensures that relative positions in the frame remain constant

the story

all the events that are presented to us (plot) PLUS what we can infer that happened

post production

also knows as the assembly phase picture editing, special FX, sound editing, special versions, etc.

motif

any significant repeated element that contributes to the overall form

Duration of the image

average length of a shot in today's Hollywood film = 4 - 14 seconds per shot

rythym

beat, tempo, pace, a pattern of accents - COORDINATION: sound and movement and the rhythms of editing match - DISPARITIES: against natural speech rhythms of contrast between sound and picture

analytical editing

breaks an establishing shot into closer views

match on action

carrying a single movement across a cut

racking/pulling focus

change focal length while filming commonly meant to switch our attention between the foreground and the background

Patterns of Development

change in knowledge, goal-oriented plot, searches, deadlines, journeys, etc.

causality

characters, casual motivation

contrast

comparative difference between the lightest and darkest areas of the frame.

ACCELERATED MONTAGE

composed of shots of increasingly shorter length to create the illusion of increased speed

Referential meaning

concrete meaning plot summary (During the Depression, a tornado takes a girl from her family's Kansas farm to the mythical land of Oz. After a series of adventures, she returns home.)

Kuleshov editing is also known as __________ editing.

constructive

nondiegetic insert

cut from scene to a metaphorical/symbolic shot that doesn't belong to the time and space of the narrative

shot/reverse shot

cutting back and forth from one endpoint of the 180 degree line to the other

establishing shot

delineating the overall space of the scene

sound perspective

directly hearing what a character hears in that moment (Roger crawling up to Van Damn's window)

focal length

distance from the center of the lens to the point where light rays converge to a point of focus in the film

Continuity editing

easy to follow, goal is to make sure that audience doesn't get distracted - graphic qualities (shape, color, lighting, composition, movement) - spatial continuity: 180 degree system (axis of action) a. relative positions remain constant b. eye-line match c. consistent screen direction (movement) d. match on action - temporal continuity: order, frequency, and duration a. linear b. no repetition c. screen time is seldom made greater than the story time

flashforward

editing moves from the present to a future event and then returns to the present

dialogue coach

feeds performers their lines and speaks the lines of off-screen characters

long shot (LS)

figures are seen, but background still dominates

dialogue overlap

filmmaker continues a line of dialogue across a cut, smoothing over the change of shot

second unit director

films stunts, location footage, action scenes, etc.

medium close up (MCU)

frames body from the chest up

canted angle

framing is tipped to one side or other, not parallel to horizon

framing

how you position the shot

medium long shot (MLS)

human figure is framed from about the knees up

extreme long shot (XLS)

human figure is tiny or even lost (landscapes, bird's-eye view of cities, etc.)

superimposition

images are laid over one another, creating multiple perspectives within the frame

script supervisor

in charge of all details of continuity from shot to shot

second AD

liaison among the first AD, camera crew, and electrician's crew

matte work

matte (portion of the setting photographed on a strip of film) is joined with another strip of film containing the actors

third AD

messenger for director and staff

Implicit meaning

more abstract, not directly stated, interpretations but often universal (An adolescent who must soon face the adult world yearns for a return to the simplicity of childhood, but she eventually accepts the demands of growing up.)

iris

moving/circular mask that opens to reveal or closes to conceal a scene

narrative vs. narration

narrative: a chain of events linked by cause and effect occurring in time and space narration: the plot's way of distributing story information in order to achieve special effects

When a film has "unity" it has...

no gaps in its overall form

montage sequence

not to be confused with Eisenstein's montage brief portions of a process, informative titles, stereotyped images, newsreel footage, newspaper headlines, etc. are joined by dissolves/music to create a quick, regular rhythm and to compress a lengthy series of actions into a few moments

film "form"

overall set of relationships among a film's parts

mobile framing

parameters such as camera height, camera angle, camera level and distance may all change during the course of a shot.

pitch

perceived highness or lowness of the sound

cinematography

photographic properties of a shot

third man

places other mics, lays sound cables, controls ambient sound

first AD

plans each day's shooting schedule; sets up each shot for director's approval; keeps track of actors

cross-cutting

plot alternates shots of story events in one place with shots of another event elsewhere

plot vs. story

plot: explicit actions story: includes actions inferred from the plot but not actually fully represented in the film

Elliptical editing

presents an action in such a way that it consumes less time on screen than it does in the story.

Explicit meaning

pretty concrete what you are trying to get across (A girl dreams of leaving home to escape her troubles. Only after she leaves does she realize how much she loves her family and friends. Nothing she finds elsewhere can replace them.)