TFM-160 Quiz 3: Study Guide

Vocal Sounds

Vocal sounds tend to dominate most films because they carry much of the narrative weight. 1.) Dialogue 2.) Narration

What is the role of the sound crew?

Like every other component of film form, film sound is the product of specific decisions by the filmmakers. The group responsible for the sound in movies, the *sound crew*, generates and controls the sound physically, manipulating it's prosperities to produce the effects that the director desires.

Bit Players

*Bit players* hold small speaking parts.

What was the Motion Picture Production Code?

A set of rules that prohibited movies from depicting full nudity, illegal drug trafficking, disrespectful uses of the flag, white slavery, or ridicule any religious faith.

Internal

An internal sound occurs whenever we hear what we assume are the thoughts of a character within a scene. The character might be expressing random thoughts or a sustained monologue.

Diegetic Sound

Diegetic sounds come from a source within a film's world; they are the sounds heard by both the movie's audience and characters. Most diegetic sound gives us an awareness of both the spatial and the temporal dimensions of the shot from which the sound emanates. 1.) Diegetic sound can be either internal or external, on-screen or offscreen, and recorded during production or constructed during postproduction 2.) The most familiar kind of movie sound is diegetic, on-screen sound that occurs simultaneously with the image 3.) All of the sounds that accompany everyday actions and speech depicted on screen - footsteps on pavement, a known on a door, ordinary dialogue - are diegetic

Environmental Sounds

Environmental sounds usually provide information about a film's setting and action. 1.) Ambient Sound 2.) Sound Effects 3.) Foley Sounds

The Editor

Film editors determine what you see, how long you see it, and the order in which you see it. In act, although directors and cinematographers design shots with editing in mind, very few movies predetermine the order and duration of every shot. Filmmakers recognize the expressive power of creative editing, and the form of most movies is meant to evolve throughout post-production. 1.) Directors count on editors to use concepts and techniques unique to their craft to mold moments, establish pace, shape, performances, and structure - sometimes even reimagine - scenes and stories 2.) Like other primary members of the collaborative filmmaking team, the editor on a movie works closely with the director. → During the preproduction phase, they may discuss storyboards into an animatic (a video produced by sequencing storyboard images and adding sound), which is used to help envision how planned shots will work in the edit → During production, an editor may cut together rough versions of completed scenes to assist the director in determining if additional footage is needed → Of course, most of the editor's contributions happen after shooting is completed. During postproduction, the director-editor relationship can take many forms. Some work together and at the other end of the spectrum, some directors rely on editors to craft their raw footage into a completed film with little to no oversight. Of course, the typical director-editor relationship falls somewhere in between those two extremes 3.) Before the edit begins, the director and editor discuss each scene's story, tone, and narrative function. After reviewing the footage provided, the editor communicates observations regarding performance, emphasis, important dramatic moments, event structure and order, and other potential expressive opportunities → The editor shares each draft version of every scene with the director so they can discuss what works and what doesn't. The editor takes notes and continues working on progressive versions, getting and applying feedback until the project is completed 4.) Although the director has the final say on all decisions, editors are known to feel very strongly about particular cuts → Editor's have the power to create moments and ideas not present in the original script. They often eliminate material that was planned and performed but reveals itself to be unnecessary → When captured footage proves inadequate (and reshoots are not an option), editors must innovate ways to convert necessary information using added sound, offscreen dialogue, and sometimes even by repurposed footage from other scenes 5.) In addition to the director, the editor works closely with a number of other collaborators during postproduction: → Assistant editors function as media manages (importing, labeling, organizing, and archiving terabytes of digital video and sound files), coeditors (help draft scenes and sequences), postproduction supervisor (shepherd the project through picture editing and the concurrent and subsequent steps before the final digital export; scoring, sound design, sound mixing, visual effects, and color grading and correction) → The many stages the edit goes through on its way to completion are collectively termed workflow 6.) Once the footage is prepared by the assistant editors, the editor begins work on a first-draft edit known as the rough cut. As part of this process, she may create multiple versions of the same scene or sequence for purposes of comparisons → Over the course of postproduction, the edit moves through successive versions working toward the fine cut. Throughout this process, the editor edits the footage (or picture), as well as the dialogue, which is typically the only sound recorded on set during production → She makes notes regarding potential sounds or score to be added later and may even insert temporary "scratch" sound to help inform editing devisions that rely on or influence the use of sound → The rest of the sound is handled but the sound editor and the sound designer, who will coordinate with the editor and director as the cut progresses to determine, design, and record sounds and music for each scene 7.) Ultimately, the editor submits the picture lock version, the final edit of the film footage. The picture and dialogue must be finalized before the rest of the creative team can add sounds, music, and visual effects, then color grade the images, and finally mix together the many separate tracks of accumulated sound

Narration

Narration, the commentary spoken by either offscreen or on-screen voices, is frequently used in narrative films, where it may emanate from a third-person narrator (thus not one of the characters) or from a character in the movie.

Nondiegetic Sound

Nondiegetic sounds, which come from a source outside that world, are heard only by the audience. Most nondiegetic sound has no relevant spatial or temporal dimensions. 1.) Nondiegetic sound is offscreen and recorded during postproduction, and it is assumed to be inaudible to the characters on-screen 2.) The most familiar forms of nondiegetic sound are musical scores and narration spoken by a voice that does not originate from the same place and time as the characters on the screen

Dialogue

Recorded during production or rerecording during postproduction, is the speech of characters whoa re either visible on-screen or speaking offscreen -say, from an unseen part of the room or from an adjacent room. Dialogue is a function of plot because it develops out fo situations, conflict, and character development. Further, it depends on actors' voices, facial expression, and gestures and is thus also a product of acting. By expressing the feelings and motivations of characters, dialogue is one of the principal means of telling a story. In most movies, dialogue represents what we consider ordinary speech, but dialogue can also be highly artificial.

Cameos and Walk-ons

*Cameos* are small but significant roles often take by famous actors. *Walk-ons* are even smaller roles, reserved for highly recognizable actors or personalities.

What is the fundamental building block of film editing?

*Editing* is the selection and arrangement of shots and sounds. Film editors determine what you see, how long you see it, and the order in which you see it. 1.) The basic building block of film editing is the shot.

Extras

*Extras* usually appear in nonspeaking or crowd roles and receive no screen credit.

High-key Lighting

*High-key lighting*, which produces an image with very little contrast between the darks and the lights, is used extensively in dramas, musicals, comedies, and adventure films. Its relatively even illumination is unobtrusive and does not call particular attention to the lighting style. When the intensity of the fill light equals that of the key light, the result will be the highest of high-key lighting: no shadows at all.

What are the different types of match cuts?

1.) Match-on-Action Cut 2.) Eyeline Match Cut 3.) Graphic Match Cut → By repeating a similar shape, color, or other compositional element from one shot to the next, the graphic match cut implies a direct link between the events and content presented in the two different shots. For this reason, graphic match cuts are often used to bridge scenes taking place in the present to sequences depicting past events or memories 4.) Point-of-View Editing

What are the perceptual characteristics of sound?

1.) Pitch 2.) Loudness 3.) Quality 4.) Fidelity

What are the three basic phases of making a movie?

1.) Preproduction 2.) Production 3.) Postproduction

Theme

A unifying idea that is a recurrent element in a literary or artistic work.

Minor Roles (supporting roles)

Actors who play *minor roles* (or supporting roles) rank second in the hierarchy. They also help move the plot forward (and thus may be as important as actors in major roles), but they generally do not appear in as many scenes as the featured players.

What is persona?

In our everyday lives, each of us creates a persona, the image of character and personality that we want to show the outside world. 1.) For movie actors, those personae are their appearance and mannerisms of moving and delivering dialogue - unique creations that are relatively consistent for role to role and from performance to performance 2.) Actors' personae are usually (but not always) rooted in their natural behavior, personality, and physicality

The movie camera can shoot from various angles. What are they? What meaning does each imply? Do these implications always hold true? (see video tutorial "Camera Angles")

The *camera angle* is the level and height of the camera in relation to the subject being photographed. Sometimes, the camera angle on the subject simply reflects spatial relationships between characters and objects seen separately on-screen, as with a shot depicting the point of view of a character looking out of an upstairs window. But oftentimes, camera angles offer filmmakers a range of more expressive possibilities: 1.) *Eye-level shot* 2.) *High-angle shot* 3.) *Low-angle shot* 4.) *Dutch-angle shot* 5.) *Bird's-eye view shot* *No cinematic meaning is carved into stone. How we experience and understand any shot depends on the surrounding context*

Pitch

The pitch (or level) of a sound can be high (like the screech of tires on pavement), or low (like the rumble of a boulder barreling downhill), or somewhere between these extremes. Pitch is defined by the *frequency* (or speed) with which it is produced (the number of sound waves produced by second). Most sounds flat somewhere in the middle of the scale. But the extremes of high and low, as well as the distinctions between high pitch and low pitch, are often exploited by filmmakers to influence our experience and interpretation of a movie.

Deep-focus Cinematography

Using the short-focal-length lens, keeps all three planes of depth in sharp focus. Tolan used deep-focused cinematography to create deep-space composition, the compositional approach introduced in Chapter 5 that emphasizes depth by placing significant visual and narrative information on two or more of the three planes of depth. 1.) He dramatically increased depth of field by combining the fastest film stock available with greatly increased lighting intensity, which allowed him to close the aperture to the smallest possible setting 2.) Deep focus (and deep-space mise-en-scène) allowed directors to use blocking to arrange and move actors within the full depth of the setting, which made possible multiple compositions within a single shot → This flexibility made it possible to sustain dramatic action within a single extended show without cutting, which helped distance Hollywood from the editing-centered theories

What are the names of the most commonly used shots used in a movie? Be able to describe them based on proximity. (see video tutorial "Shot Types and Implied Proximity")

When we are sitting in a dark move theater, we unconsciously identify with the viewpoint of the camera, which has replaced our own viewpoint. Implied proximity refers to the distance between the camera (and thus the viewer) and the subject on-screen. Whether or not that distance is implied or literal, the appearance of a subject's proximity is important to a central aspect of framing and meaning — the whole idea of significance (each of the possible arrangements of subjects in proximity to each other and to the camera has the potential to convey something meaningful about the subjects on-screen). Implied proximity is the reason behind some of the most common terms for shots used in movies: a close-up implies close proximity, a medium shot is a medium distance, a long shot is a longer distance. Depending on the context in which they are used these shot types can connote significance, convey meaning and a character's state of mind, and elicit emotional responses from the audience. 1.) *Extreme long shot (XLS or ELS)*: Typically photographed at a great distance, the subject is often a wide view of a broad locale surrounding more specific locations where the action takes place. Extreme long shots typically present general background information, rather than a particular featured subject. When used to provide spatial context at the beginning of a scene, the XLS is also an establishing shot (even when human beings are included in such a shot, the emphasis is not on them as individuals but on their relationship to the surroundings). The XLS may also be used to depict a character dwarfed by his or her environment or for depicting large-scale action, such as a battle scene, in which masses of figures function as a sort of collective subject 2.) *Long shot (LS)*: Presents background and subject information in equal measure and is as much about setting and situation as any particular character. Long shots are often used as establishing shots at the beginning of a scene to indicate where the scene is taking place, who is involved, and what they are doing. The full bodies of characters can be seen, often with enough physical detail to allow us to recognize them, but psychological information (what characters are thinking or feeling) is limited to what can be conveyed through action or gesture 3.) *Medium long shot (MLS)*: Is neither a medium shot nor a long shot, but one in between. It is used to photograph one of more characters, usually from the knees up. In this shot type, background is reduced and the subject or subjects begin to predominate. Because the human body is shown in full, or at least nearly so, the MLS is often used for moments of physical action 4.) *Medium shot (MS)*: Frames subjects somewhere around the waist and up, making them large enough in the frame to reduce background to the point of insignificance. The MS is the most frequently used type of shot because it replicates our human experience of proximity without intimacy. We can read increasingly subtle psychological and physical information on the increasingly domination, and thus significant, subject. Medium shots are often used to convey interaction between multiple subjects: medium shots featuring two subjects are called two-shots, a three-shot has three subjects, and group shots have more than three people 5.) *Medium close-up (MCU)*: Shows a character from approximately the middle of the chest to the top of the. head. The character's face, gestures, and posture can begin to provide the kind o physical and psychological detail that implied proximity we associate with the close-up 6.) *Close-up (CU)*: The subject's face fulls the frame, so the camera (and, by extension, the viewer) is up close and personal with the subject. The character's face is close enough to communicate maximum physical and psychological detail — even the subtlest shift in expression can feel monumental. This intimate proximity imparts a heightened sense of significance 7.) *Extreme close-up (XCU or ECU)*: Fills the frame with a part of a subject's face or, oftentimes, with an object revealed in great physical detail. When the XCU enlarges a normally small object to monumental proportions, it may anticipate the use of the object. If the an object is isolated and presented with great implied significance, the audience knows, or at least senses, that the object is important and will be used in some significant manner. The resulting expectation can generate suspense or impart to the object a kind of symbolic value

Diegetic Element/Nondiegetic Element

1.) *Diegetic element*: The elements that make up the diegesis are called diegetic elements. 2.) *Nondiegetic element*: Those things we see and hear on the screen that come from outside the world of the story, such as score music (music not originating from the world of the story), titles and credits (words superimposed on the images on-screen), and voice-over comments from a third-person voice-over narrator.

What are the principal activities in each of the three basic phases of making a movie? ("How a Movie is Made")

1.) *Preproduction*: consists of planning and preparation. It takes a long as necessary to get the job done - on average a year or two. Initially, filmmakers develop an idea or obtain a script they wish to produce. They may secure from a publisher the rights to a successful novel or buy a writer's "pitch" for a story 2.) *Production*: The actual shooting, can last 6 weeks to several months or more. Although the producer and director continue to work closely together, the director ordinarily takes charge during the shooting 3.) *Postproduction*: When the shooting on a film has been completed. Postproduction consists of three phases: → Editing (assembling the visual imaged and sound recordings, adding the musical score and sound effects, integrating special effect, assembling the sound tracks, and doing any necessary dubbing) → Finishing (mixing the many tracks of sound into one unified composite sound track and color grading the edited images to create the visual look of the film and maintain consistency of brightness and color from shot to shot) → Bringing the film to the public (marketing and distribution; setting the release date and number of theaters, finalizing distribution rights and ancillary rights, and finally exhibiting the film)

What are the differences between acting for screen and acting for the stage?

1.) *Screen acting* (Movie actors) → Through composition, close-ups, camera angles and movements, and other cinematic techniques, movie actors always come closer to the audience and appear larger than actors on the stage do → The camera makes possible an attention to detail that was impossible before the invention of cinema, mainly because stage acting forced actors to project their voices and their gestures to the back of the theater. Screen acting, as an experience, can be as tight and intimate as examining a painting at arm's length → Movie actors, using gesture and movement - and voice since the coming of sound - convert their characters directly to the camera (*in turn, that camera is what makes the movie actor's performance so different from the stage actor's) → Movie actors are subject to the shooting schedule (for budgetary and logistical reasons, most shots are not made in the sequence indicated in the screenplay, so movie actors learn only those lines that they need for the moment; movie actors bear the additional burden, particularly on their memory, of creating continuity between related shots, even though the shots may have been made days, weeks, or even months apart) → Screen actors are constrained by the physical space before the camera, the lighting and other technical aspects, and the much greater size of the image on the screen → Editing is a major factor in putting shots together and creating a performance → The actor may be asked to do many takes before the director is satisfied with the performance → Before a shot is made, the movie actor must be prepared to wait, sometimes for long period, while camera, lighting, or sound equipment is moved or readjusted → Movie actors must play director to the camera while dozens of people are standing around just outside the camera's range (these people are doing their jobs, but also watching and listening to everything the actors do).* 2.) *Stage Acting* → Stage actors covert their interpretations of the characters they play directly to the audience through voice, gesture, and movement → Stage actors play to a large audience and must project their voices so they can be heard throughout the theater. They must avoid soft speech, subtle facial expressions, or small gestures that are fundamental tools of the movie actor → Stage actors, who must memorize their lines, have the advantage of speaking them in the order in which they were written (this makes it much easier to maintain psychological, emotional, and physical continuity in a performance as the play proceeds) → Free to move where they want, add things to their roles, and have a natural appearance of an actor on the stage → The stage actor performs each scene only once → There are no delays or interruptions (setting up shots) → Although the theater and the movies are both collaborative arts, once the curtain goes up, stage actors need not think much about the backstage crew, for the crew will perform scenery or lighting changes according to a fixed schedule *Although previous generations of stage actors knew their duty was to convert emotions through recognized conventions of speech and gestures (mannerisms), screen actors have enjoyed the freedom to adopt individual styles that communication emotional meaning through subtle and highly personal gestures, expressions, and varieties of intonation. In addition, many different types of inspiration fuel screen acting; many factors guide actors toward their performances in front of the camera.*

The Director

1.) Despite its central importance, acting is also the aspect of filmmaking over which directors have the least precise control → Directors may describe literally what they want form their principal collaborators (screenwriters or costume designers), but they can only suggest to actors what they want 2.) Directors and actors have collaborated closely since the days when D.W. Griffith established the art of screen acting with Lillian Gish → Inevitably, such relationships depend on the individuals: What each brings to his or her work, what each can do along, and what each needs from a collaborator → Such different approaches taken by different directors in working with actors are as necessary, common, and useful as the different approaches taken by different actors as they prepare for roles

Be familiar with ways that Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) "revolutionized the medium and has since been considered the most important movie ever made."

1.) First real "sound designer" 2.) Told story in unconventional order (not chronological order) 3.) Used deep space cinematography that allowed actors to move wherever they want in focus 4.) The elaborate flashback structure employed great skill in editing for rhythm 5.) Recorded audio on set 6.) Used sounds to transition from shot to shot and scene to scene 7.) Used sound to represent time 8.) Used sound to establish a character's place in the mise-en-scene 9.) Case: Citizen Kane (1941): uses match-cuts in the opening

Montage Editing or Montage Sequence

1.) The creation and communication of meaning through juxtaposition, a concept known as *montage editing*, is an essential aspect of editing that affects nearly every cut in every film. Montage editing can be as simple as showing the exterior of a building, then cutting to a shot of people in a room. Neither shot by itself coveys that the room is inside the building, yet when we watch the shots put together (or juxtaposed), that is exactly what we assume. Likewise, when we see a shot of someone looking, followed by a shot of a tree, we intuitively understand the the person is looking at the tree. One shot tells us "that person is looking"; the other shot tells us "here is a tree." Only the juxtaposition of those shots provides a third and new meaning: "that person is looking at a tree" 2.) A *montage sequence* is an integrated series of shots that rapidly depicts multiple related events occurring over time. Music or other sound often accompanies the sequence to further unify the presenting events → Montage sequences are usually used to condense time when an accumulation of actions is necessary to the narrative, but developing each individual action would consume too much of the movie's duration *Although all aspects of editing are related, the montage sequence should not be confused with montage editing. Montage - form the French verb monter, "to assemble or put together" - is French for "editing." Because French scholars and filmmakers were among the first to take cinema seriously as an art form, their broad term would up applied to more than one specific editing approach!*

What are the functions of film sound?

1.) To reveal the movie's story 2.) To provide audience awareness and expectation → Sound can define sections of the screen, guide our attention to or between them, and influence our interpretation → The sound design helps us distinguish the individual sounds and also helps us understand how they are arranged in relation to one another. Furthermore it creates a brooding suspense and raises fundamental questions about the narrative and the characters → In addition to directing out attention to both the spatial and temporal dimensions of a scene, sound can create emphasis by how it is selected, arranged, and if necessary enhanced → Sounds create expectations. For example, in a scene between a man and a women in which you hear quiet music, the sounds of their movements, and a subtle sound of moving clothes, you might expect intimacy between the characters → Sound also requires precise timing and coordination with the image → When a particular sound signals an action and that sound is used repeatedly, it plays on our expectations 3.) To express a point of view of storyteller or character → By juxtaposing visual and aural images, a director can express a point of view. In countless movies, for example, the sounds of big-city traffic - horns honking, people yelling at one another, taxis screeching to a halt to pick up passengers - express the idea that these places are frenetic and unlivable → Directors of visionary movies - those that show the past, present, or future world in a distinctive, stylized manner - rely extensively on sounds of all kinds, incldyidng music, to create those worlds 4.) To provide rhythm → Sound can add rhythm to a scene, wether it is accompanying or juxtaposed against movement on the screen → A montage of sounds is a mix that ideally includes multiple sources of diverse quality, levels, and placement and usually moves as rapidly as a montage of images 5.) To provide characterization → All types of sound - dialogue, sound effects, music - can function as a part of characterization → Musical themes are frequently associated with a character's thoughts → Musical themes often identify characters, occurring and recurring on the sound track as the characters make their entrances and exits on the screen. But music can also underscore characters' insights 6.) To provide continuity → Sound can link one shot to the next, indicating that the scene has not changed in either time or space. Overlapping sound carries the sound from a first shot over to the next before the sound of the second shot begins 7.) To provide emphasis → A sound can create emphasis in any scene: it can function as a punctuation mark when it accentuates and strengthens the visual image. Although some movies treat emphasis as if it were a sledgehammer others handle it more subtly

What were the six characteristics/dynamics that defined Hollywood's Golden Age (1927-1947) as explored in the reading?

1.) Transition from silent to sound production 2.) Consolidation of the studio system 3.) Exploitation of familiar genres 4.) Imposition of the motion picture production code 5.) Changes in the look of movies 6.) The economic success of feature length narrative films

Kuleshov Effect

A mental phenomenon by which viewers derive more meaning from the interaction of two sequential shots than from a single shot in isolation.

Flash-Forward

A scene in a movie, play, short story, novel, or narrative poem that interrupts the present action of the plot to shift into the future.

Flashback

A scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time

The Sound Designer

A sounds designer treats the sound track of a film the way a painter treats a canvas. For each shot, the designer first identifies all the sounds necessary to the story and plot. The next step is laying in all the background tones (different tones equal different colors) to create the support necessary for adding the specific sounds that help the scene to function. 1.) It is now conventional for sound designers (or supervising sound editors) to oversee the creation and control of the sounds (and silences) we hear in movies. They are, in a sense, advocates for sound 2.) During preproduction, sound designers encourage directors and other collaborators to understand that what characters hear is potentially as significant as what they see. 3.) Sound designers encourage screenwriters to consider all kinds of sound; working with directors, they indicate in shooting scripts with voices, sounds, or music may be appropriate at particular points 4.) They also urge their collaborators to plan the settings, lighting, cinematography, and acting (particularly the movement of actors within the settings) with awareness of how their decisions affect sound. 5.) During production, sound designers supervise the implementation of the sound design. During postproduction, after the production sound track has been cut along with the images, they aid the editing team. But although their results Amy far exceed the audience's expectations of clarity and fidelity, sound designers keep their eyes and ears on the story being told. They want audiences not only to regard sound tracks as seriously as they do visual images, but also to interpret sounds as integral to understanding those images

The Technological Approach

All art forms have a technological history that records the advancements in materials and techniques that have affected the nature of the medium. Of all the arts, though, cinema seems to rely most heavily on technology. Historians who chart the history of cinema technology examine the circumstances surrounding the development of each technological advance as well as subsequent improvements. 1.) They pose questions such as: When was each invention made? Under what circumstances, including aesthetic, economic, and social, was it made? Was it a totally new idea or one linked to the existing state of technology? What were the consequences for directors, studios, distributors, exhibitors, and audiences? 2.) By studying how the major developments (including the introduction of sound, the moving camera, deep-focus cinematography, color film stock, and digital cinematography, processing, and projection) occurred, historians show us how the production of movies has changed and can also evaluate whether that change was significant (like widescreen processes) or transitory (like Smell-O-Vision). This approach cuts across artists, studios, movements, and genres to focus on the interaction of technology with aesthetics, modes of production, and economic factors

What are the factors involved in casting?

Although casting takes many factors into account, in theory the most important is how the prospective actors' strengths and weaknesses relate to the roles they are being considered for. 1.) In reality, casting - like every other aspect of movie production - depends heavily on the movie's budget and expected revenues 2.) An actor's popularity in one film often leads to casting in other films. *Still, the key factor in casting is who brings in the most money!* 3.) Other general factors considered in casting include an actor's reputation and popularity; prior experience on the screen or stage; chemistry with other actors, particularly if ensemble acting scenes are part of the script; result of a screen test or reading, often required for newcomers or those about whom the director and others are uncertain; and, equally important, the actor's reputation for professionalism, reliability, ability to withstand the physical challenges of filming certain productions, and personal behavior on the set

What are the four key types of actors presented early in your reading?

Although there are probably as many types of actors as there are actors themselves, we can identify four key types: 1.) Actors who take their personae from role to role (*personality actors*) → For many movie actors, the persona is the key to their careers as well as an important part of film marketing and why we choose particular movies over others → Part of the fun comes from seeing that persona in different kinds of movies, enjoying the interaction with a particular role or genre 2.) Actors who deliberately play against our expectations of their personae → Sometimes an actor with a familiar, popular persona takes on a role that goes against what we expect → A major factor affecting our enjoyment of actors in such roles is not just the role, but the strange sensation of seeing an actor whose persona we have come to know well play a totally different sort of role 3.) Actors who seems to be different in every role (*chameleon actors*) → Chameleon actors adapt their look, mannerisms, and delivery to suit the role → They surprise us as persona actors when they are cast in a role we do not expect - one that extends their range 4.) Actors who are often nonprofessionals or people who are cast to bring verisimilitude to a part → Non professional actors are real-life people who take roles in feature films (not documentaries) to play characters whose lives are much like their own → The earliest movies were cast with only nonprofessionals, and the tradition has remained in movies that call for such casting

Ambient Sound

Ambient sound, which emanates from the ambience (or background) of the setting or environment being filmed, is either recorded during production or added during postproduction. Although it may incorporate other types of film sound - dialogue, narration, sound effects, Foley sounds, and music - ambien sound should not include any unintentionally recorded noise made during production, such as the sounds of cameras, static from sound recording equipment, car horns, sirens, footsteps, or voices from outside the production. Filmmakers regard these sounds as an inevitable nuisance and generally remove them electronically during postproduction. Ambient sound helps set the mood and atmosphere of scenes, and it may also contribute to the meaning of a scene.

Formal Analysis

An analytical approach primarily concerned with film form, or the means by which a subject is expressed. It dissects the complex synthesis of cinematography, sound, composition, design, movement, performance, and editing orchestrated by creative artists such as screenwriters, directors, cinematographers, actors, editors, sound designers, and art directors as well as the many craftspeople who implement their vision. 1.) The movie meaning expressed through form ranges from narrative information as straight forward as where and when a particular scene takes place, to more subtle implied meaning, such as mood, tone, significance, or what a character is thinking or feeling 2.) Cinematic storytellers exploit every tool at their disposal and that, therefore, every element in every frame is there for a reason. It is the analyst's job to carefully consider the narrative intent of the moment, scene, or sequence before attempting any interpretation of the formal elements used to communicate that intended meaning to the spectator *You do not have to agree with the meaning or values projected by the object of your analysis; you can learn even from a movie you dislike*

Axis of Action

An imaginary line connecting two figures in a scene that defines the 180-degree space within which the camera can record shots of those figures.

Animal Actors

Animal actors, too, play major, minor, cameo, and walk-on roles. Most of these animals are specially trained to work in front of the camera, and many were sufficiently valuable that they, like other stars, had stand-ins for setups and stunt doubles for hazardous work. 1.) Working with animal performers often proves more complicate than working with human actors

Stunt Person/Stunt Double

Because actors in major roles are ordinarily not hired for their physical or athletic prowess, *stun-persons* double for them in scenes requiring special skills or involving hazardous actions, such as crashing cars, jumping from high places, swimming, and riding (or falling off) horses

Film as Social History

Because society and culture influences the movies, and vice versa, the movies serve as primary sources for studying society. 1.) Writing about movies as social history continues to be a major preoccupation of journalists, scholars, and students alike. Philosopher Ian Jarvie suggests that, in undertaking these studies, we ask the following basic questions: Who made the movies, and why? Who saw the films, how, and why? What was seen, how, and why? How were the movies evaluated, by whom, and why? 2.) In addition, those interested in social history consider such factors as religion, politics, and cultural trend and taboos. They ask to what extent, if any, a particular movie was produced to sway public opinion or effect social change. They are also interested in audience composition, marketing, and critical writing and reviewing int he media, from gossip magazines to scholarly books. Overall, they study the complex interaction between the movies - as a social institution - and other social institutions, including government, region, and labor

Surprise

Because there are no repeat surprises, we can be surprised in the same way only once. As a result, a surprise, being taken unaware, can be shocking, and our emotional response to it is generally short-lived.

Discontinuity

But movies are a malleable medium. Even in cinemas infancy, some filmmakers were more concerned with ideas and expression than with orientation and invisibility. They embraced *discontinuity editing*, which emphasizes dyadic, often discontinuous relationships between shots, including contracts in movement, camera angle, and shot type. This approach deliberately incorporates abrupt spatial and temporal shifts between shots, especially if doing so covers meaning or provides reaction. Instead of seeking to make viewers forget they are watching a movie, discontinuity editing calls attention to itself as an element of cinematic form. 1.) The resulting discontinuous editing techniques include associative editing, the freeze-frame, split screen, the jump cut, and the ellipsis

What are the sources of film sound?

By source, we mean "the location from which a sound originates." When we talk about source, we are speaking of the implied origin of that sound, whether it is a production sound or a postproduction sound. 1.) Diegetic Sound 2.) Nondiegetic Sound 3.) Onscreen 4.) Off-screen 5.) Internal 6.) External

What is "casting"?

Casting is the process of choosing and hiring actors for both leading and supporting roles. 1.) In the studio system of Hollywood's golden years, acting was done in several ways, but the overall process was supervised by a central casting office → Often a director, producer, writer, or studio head already had his or her own idea of an actor for a particular role. That choice could be solely based on the actor's looks, screen presence, or overall charisma → Actors were under contract (typically required to appear in 7 films over 5 years), and studio heads, mindful of this, often based casting decisions on availability rather than suitability for the sole → Unknown actors were often given *screen tests* (filmed auditions) to see how they looked under studio lighting and how they sounded in recordings 2.) Today, hasting has moved into the front office and become more professional. Independent casting directors (CDs) work under contract to independent producers or directors on a film-by-film basis. → The CD typically scouts talent wherever actors are working, whether it is movies, theater, or commercials, and maintain regular contact with a variety of actors → Casting directors are represented by their own professional association, the Casting Society of America (CSA) → Actors learn about casting through direct contact by CDs, producers, directors, or screenwriters, as well as through online audition listings posted by casting services and industry publications. After initial interviews, they may be asked to read for parts, either alone or with other actors, or take screen tests. If they are chosen for the part, negotiations in most cases are handled by their agents. But if they belong to one of the actors' unions (SAG/AFTRA), the conditions of their participation are governed by union contract 3.) A good CD must have a strong artistic sense of which actors are right for the roles in question, a comprehensive knowledge of all the acting talent available at a particular time for a particular movie, a memory capable fo remembering an actor's achievements on-screen, and the ability to avoid playing favorites and keep the process as professional as possible

What are the fundamental building blocks of continuity editing?

Continuity editing seeks to achieve logic, smoothness, sequential flow, and the temporal and spatial orientation of viewers to what they see on the screen. As with so many conventions of film production, the conventions of continuity editing remain open to variation, but in general, continuity editing ensures that: what happens on the screen makes as much narrative sense as possible, screen direction is consistent from shot to shot, graphic, spatial, and temporal relations are maintained from shot to shot. Maintaining a coherent sense of space in a medium that comprises constantly shifting viewpoints is one of continuity editing's primary functions. Filmmakers have developed a number of different techniques to help viewers maintain their bearings form shot to shot: 1.) *Shot Types and Master Scene Technique* → The master scene technique provides the editor with a variety of different shot types covering the same action so that the scene may be constructed using the framing the best serves each dramatic moment. The master shot is a long shot covering most or all of the scenes action. The editor uses the master shot to provide the viewer with a kind of reference map: whenever the location, background detail, and spatial relationship of the characters need to be established (or reestablished), she can simply cut to the master shot before proceeding with the rest of the scene (coverage is captured in spatial increments so that the editor can move gradually between different implied proximities and thus avoid jarring leaps in spatial perspective) → Cinematographers also vary the angle of their camera position in relation to the subject when shooting coverage so that when the editor does cut from, say, a medium shot to a close-up of the same character, there is enough variation in framing to avoid a jarring effect that makes the subject appear to "jump" forward or backward. This so called *30-degree rule* states that the camera should shift at least 30 degrees between different shot types of the same subjects. Filmmaker sometimes intentionally break this rule to intentionally "jump" in at (or away from) a character or object multiple times in quick succession an effect called the *three-shot salvo* 2.) *The 180-Degree Rule and Screen Direction* → Screen direction applies to both the movement of subjects in the frame and to the direction each subject faces in relation to other characters. If either is inconsistent form shot to shot, the scene risks losing its spatial coherence. → To help editors avoid this spatial disjunction, cinematographers devised the *180-degree rule* *Master shot coverage and maintaining screen direction with the 180-degree system!*

Shot/Reverse Shot

Conversations between characters are often captured and edited using the shot/reverse shot method. The entire interaction is filmed with the camera first framed on one character (the camera usually positioned just behind the second character's shoulder), then the camera s moved to a reverse position facing the second character's from a corresponding position just behind the first character's shoulder. 1.) Even coverage as simple as a shot/reverse shot gives the editor a great deal of creative freedom. She can control the pace of the conversation and which character's face we are seeing at any particular moment in the exchange 2.) We often need to see the character speaking, but sometimes it may be more compelling to see character reading to dialogue delivered by an offscreen character

Cutting on Action

Cutting during a physical action helps hide the instantaneous and potentially jarring shift form one camera viewpoint to another. When connecting one shot to the next, a film editor often ends the first shot in the middle of a continuing action and starts the connecting shot at the same point in the same action. As a result, the action flows so continuously over the cut between different moving images that most viewers fail to register the switch.

Composition

Design and lighting function as elements of mise-en-scène. But what really makes mise-en-scène work is how those visual elements are arranged within each shot. A shot's composition is the organization, distribution, balance, and general relationship of objects and figures, as well as of light, shade, line, color, and movement within the frame. 1.) Composition is important for a number of reasons. A consisted approach to composition over the course of the movie helps ensure that the movie's overall style will have aesthetic unity 2.) How elements are arranged helps guide the viewer's eye through the frame and makes us aware of what elements are most significant at any given moment 3.) Composition can minimize or enhance the appearance of depth in a shot 4.) *The way elements are organized on-screen can help viewers understand a character's state of mind and interpret different characters' physical, emotional, and psychological relationships to one another* 5.) The two major elements of composition are: *Framing and Kinesis*

Match Cut

Editors use a match cut to carry an element from one shot into the next shot using action, graphic content, or eye contact. These match cuts help create a sense of continuity between contiguous shots in the same scene or between shots that connect different scenes.

Crisis

Eventually, our protagonist must face a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, and our story must reach a turning point and work its way toward resolution and the third and final act. This narrative peak is called the crisis. 1.) The goal is in its greatest jeopardy, and an affirmative answer to the central question seems all but impossible

External

External sound comes from a place within the world of the story, and we assume that it is heard by the characters in that would. The source of an external sound can be either on-screen or offscreen.

Fidelity

Fidelity is a sound's faithfulness or unfaithfulness to its source.

What are the five primary functions of editing (and responsibilities of the editor)?

Film editing has five primary functions: 1.) Organize fragmented action and events 2.) Create meaning through juxtaposition 3.) Create spatial relationships between shots 4.) Create temporal relationships between shots 5.) Establish and control shot duration, pace, and rhythm *None of these functions work autonomously. Like all things cinematic, fragmentation, juxtaposition, spatial and temporal connection, and pace and rhythm are all interconnected and interdependent!*

Framing

Framing is the process by which the cinematographer or camera operator uses the boundaries and dimensions of the moving image to determine what we see on the screen. 1.) Framing involves composition and vice versa, so understanding where one concept ends and the other begins can be quite difficult. Composition is the organization, distribution, balance, and general relationship of actors and object within the space of each shot → Obviously, how the camera frames this elements is a key part of how that arrangement appears on-screen 2.) To understand what distinguishes framing, it helps to consider the term itself: framing directly engages the frame — the boundaries of the image, including the farthest visible depth and the fourth wall behind the lens — and how what we see and the way in which we see it is shaped by those borders → Framing turns the comparatively infinite sight of the human eye into a finite movie image — an unlimited view into a limited view 3.) This process require decisions about each of the following elements: → The implied proximity to the camera of main subjects → The depth of the composition → The camerawomen angle and height space within and outside of the frame → Point of view → The type of camera movement, if any *Framing is also used to determine what we do not see on-screen*

When evaluating an actor's performance, the textbook stresses four criteria for analysis. What are the four and what does each represent? (Be able to use an example from The Silence of the Lambs or Citizen Kane to illustrate each.)

In analyzing any actor's performance, you might consider the following criteria: 1.) *Appropriateness/Transparency*: Does the actor look and act naturally like the character he or she portrays, as expressed in physical appearance, facial expression, speech, movement, and gesture? If the performance is non naturalistic, does the actor look, walk, and talk the way that character might or should? → Paradoxically, we expect an actor to behave as if he or she were not acting but were simply living the illusion of. character we can accept within the context of the movie's narrative. Such appropriateness in acting is also called transparency, meaning that the character is so clearly recognizable - in speech, movement, and gesture - for what he or she is suppose to be that the actor become, in a sense, invisible. Most actors agree that the more successfully they create characters, the more we will see those characters and not them 2.) *Inherent Thoughtfulness/Emotionality*: Does the actor convey the character's thought process or feelings behind the character's actions or reactions? In addition to a credible appearance, does the character have a credible inner life? → An actor can find the motivations behind a character's actions and reactions at any time before or during a movie's production. They may come to light in the script (as well as in any source on which it is based, such as a novel or play), in discussions with the director or with other cast members, and in spontaneous elements of inspiration and improvisation that the actor discovers while the camera is rolling. No matter which of these aspects or combinations of them reveal the character's motivations, we expect to see the actor reflect them within the character's consciousness or as part of the illusion-making process by which the character appears. To put it another way, the characters must seem vulnerable to forces in the narrative. They must be able to think about them and, if necessary, change their mind or feelings about them 3.) *Expressive Coherence*: Has the actor used these first two qualities to create a characterization that holds together? → Whatever behavior an actor uses to convert character, it must be intrinsic, not extraneous to the character, "maintaining not only a coherence of manner, but also a fit between setting, costume, and behavior." When an actor achieves such as fit, he or she is playing in character. Maintaining expressive coherence enables the actor to create a complex characterization and performance, to express thoughts and reveal emotions of a recognizable individual without veering off into mere quirks or distracting detail 4.) *Wholeness and Unity*: Despite the challenges inherent in most film productions, has the actor maintained the illusion of a seamless character, even if that character is purposely riddled with contradictions? → Whereas express coherence relies on the logic inherent in an actor's performance, wholeness and unity are achieved through the actor's ability to achieve aesthetic consistency while working with the director, crew, and other cast members; enduring multiple takes; and projecting to the camera rather than to an audience. However, wholeness and unity need not mean uniformity. The point is this: as audience members we want to feel we are in good hands; we want to know that the apparent incoherence happened intentionally, for an aesthetic reason, as part of the filmmakers' overall vision. For example, if a given character suddenly breaks down or reveals himself to be pretending to be somebody he isn't the actor must sufficiently prepare for this change in the preceding scenes, however, he choses, so that we can accept it

Continuity Editing

In most of the world, the first filmmakers to employ editing were in the business of entertainment. To attract and satisfy audiences, they had to develop methods that exploited the expressive power of cinema without confusing their fledgling viewers. They also also recognized the movies' unprecedented capacity to transport viewers into a different world and so took care to avoid reminding audiences they were watching a manufactured illusion. The *continuity editing* that evolved out of these concerns seeks to keep viewers oriented in space and time, to ensure a smooth and subtle (preferably invisible) flow between shots, and to maintain a logical connection between adjacent shots and scenes.

Foley Sounds

In the 1930s, Jack Foley, a sound technician at Universal Studios, invented a special category of sound effect: Foley sounds. There are two distinct differences between Foleys and the sound effects just described. The first is that traditional sound effects are created or recorded "wild" and then edited into the film, whereas Foleys are created and recorded in sync with the picture. To do this, the technicians known as Foley artists have a studio equipped with recording equipment and a screen for viewing the movie as they create sounds in sync with it. The second different is that traditional sound effects can be taken directly for a library of prerecorded effects (e.g., church bells, traffic noises, jungle sounds) or created specifically for the movie. By contrast, Foley sounds are unique. Foley artists use a variety of props and other equipment to simulate everyday sounds - such as footsteps in the mud, jingling car keys, the rustling fo clothing, or cutlery hitting a plate - that must exactly match the movement on the screen. Such sounds fill int eh soundscape of the movie and enhance verisimilitude, but they also convey important narrative and character information. Although these sounds match the action we see on the screen, they can also exaggerate reality - both loud and soft sounds - and thus may call attention to their own artificiality. Generally, however, we do not consciously not them, so when they are truly effective, we cannot distinguish Foley sounds from real sounds.

Implicit Meaning

Lies below the surface of a movie's story and presentation; implied or suggested; is closest to our everyday sense of the word "meaning" (what is the meaning beneath that event). 1.) In Juno: A teenager is faced with a difficult decision makes a bold leap toward adulthood but, in doing so, discovers that the world of adults is no less uncertain or overwhelming than adolescence

Continuity

Like realism and antirealism, continuity and discontinuity are not absolute values but are instead tendencies along a continuum. An average Hollywood movie may exhibit continuity in some parts and discontinuity in others, even if the movies overall tendency is toward conventional continuity. Similarly, an experimental film that is mostly discontinuous may include scenes that employ continuity editing. *Many of today's creative filmmakers use whichever approach best suits the expressive needs of the story at any given moment.*

Restrictive Narration

Limits the information it provides the audience to things known only to a single character. 1.) This approach encourages the audience to identify with the character's singular perspective on perplexing and frightening events and invites us to participate in the gradual unlocking of the narrative's secrets

Mise-en-Scène

Mise-en-scène means literally "*staging or putting on an action or scene*" and thus is sometimes called staging. A film's mise-en-scène is everything we see in every shot: every object, every person, and everything about their surrounding, and how each of these components is arranged, illuminated, and moved around. And very little of this is left to chance — virtually everything on-screen was carefully chosen and placed there by the filmmakers for a reason (sometimes those choices are made for reasons of authenticity; other times those choices are driven by the filmmaker's goal of creating mood, conveying character, and telling a story). 1.) Keep in mind that the director has a purpose for each thing put into a shot or scene, but each of these things does not necessarily have a meaning in and of itself. The combination of elements within the frame — and the context in which they are presented — gives the shot or scene much of its overall meaning → While decisions about mise-en-scène are driven primarily by the needs of a film's story, mise-en-scène can also be highly personal and can help us distinguish one director's work from another's → Genre formulas can also have a powerful influence on the mise-en-scène of individual films within that genre 2.) Mise-en-scène is made of four primary components: *Design, lighting, composition, and movement (also known as kinesis)*

Kinesis

Movement. 1.) Movies do not just move from shot to shot and scene to scene, obviously — people and things move around within the frame, and when the camera moves, the frame itself can move through space 2.) Both of these forms of kinesis are used to "stage or put on an action or scene" and can thus be considered components of mise-en-scène

Music

Music often directs our emotional reaction. Music is used in many distinct ways in the movies, but in this discussion we are concerned principally with the kind of music that Royal S. Brown, an expert on the subject, describes as "dramatically motivated ... music composed more often than not by practitioners specializing int eh art to interact specifically with the diverse facets of the filmic medium, particularly the narrative." 1.) Such music can be classical or popular in style, written specifically for the film or taken from music previously composed for another purpose, written by composers for other kinds of music or by those who specialize in movie score. It also can be music played by characters int eh film or by offscreen musicians 2.) Like other types of sound, music can be intrinsic, helping to tell the story, whether it pertains to plot, character, or mood; indeed, music plays an indispensable role in many movies. Perhaps the most familiar form of movie music is the large symphonic score used to set a mood or manipulate our emotions (big scores are still used when large stories call for them). Movie music can be equally effective when it creates or supports ideas in a film 3.) Irony often results from the juxtaposition of music and image because the associations we bring when we hear a piece of music greatly affect our interpretation of the screen 4.) Music can help underscore surprises in its story or to enhance the pace, or tempo 5.) Many directors use music to provide overall structural unity or coherence to a story 6.) A movie which tells a story spanning some 80 years in three different settings with three different women, presents a unique challenge to a musical composer to find some way to unify all these elements. Therefore, viewers might expect a three-part musical score with one distinct sound for each historical period and location, and perhaps even a distinct theme for each principal character. Instead the classical composer links the three stores with recurring musical motifs played by a chamber orchestra of pianist and five string players 7.) Finally, film music may emanate from sources within the story - a television, a radio or stereo set, a person singing or playing a guitar, an orchestra playing a dance 8.) Although a movie's characters and its viewers hear diegetic music, which can be as simple as sound drifting in through an open window, only viewers hear nondiegetic music, which usually consists of an original score composed for the movie, selections chosen from music libraries, or both 9.) Nondiegetic music is recorded at the very end of the editing process, so that it can be matched accurately to the images. In recording an original score, the conductor and musicians work on a specially equipped recording stage that enables them to screen the film and tailor every aspect of the music's tempo and quality to each scene that has music (similar to how Foley sounds are created) → Further adjustments of the sounds of individual musicians, groups of musicians, or an entire orchestra are frequently made by sound technicians after recording sessions and before the final release prints. Similar efforts are made to fit selections taken from mimic libraries with the images they will accompany

Voice-over Narration

Narration heard concurrently and over a scene but not synchronized to any character who may by talking onscreen. It can come from many sources, including a third person, who is not a character, to bring us up to date; a first-person narrator commenting on the action; or in a nonfiction film, a commentator. 1.) When we hear a character's voice over the picture without actually seeing the character speak the words 2.) This technique of a character speaking to the audience allows us to hear one narration - from the first-person character narrator - while simultaneously watching the narration provided by our narrator camera

Temporal Relationship

Nearly every cut an editor makes provides an opportunity to expand or condense time. For the most part, this temporal manipulation is more practical than expensive. The pace of an exchange between characters in separation can be sped up or slowed down by either trimming or maximizing the actors' pauses between lines. Time nearly always elapses between the last shot of one scene and the first shot of the next. And unnecessary action - and the time it consumes - is routinely removed from within scenes in a way that we have become conditioned to accept and understand without even noticing. 1.) Oftentimes, editing is used to jump from one moment to another in ways that are more evident - and more expressive. This temporal leap between shots is called an *ellipsis* 2.) A *montage sequence* is an integrated series of shots that rapidly depicts multiple related events occurring over time 3.) Sometimes the temporal relationship between shots doesn't condense or propel time. Editors can juxtapose shots in sequence in a way that extends an action across time. (*overlapping action*: the repetition of parts or all of an action using multiple shots, which assigns emphasis and significance to the extended action) 4.) Editing can even suspend the viewer in a single instant. The *freeze-frame* suddenly stops a shot to hold on a single "frozen" image of the arrested action. The editor accomplishes this by simply repeating the same frame for whatever length of time is required for the desired effect

Off-screen

Offscreen sound, which can be either diegetic or nondiegetic, derives from a source that we do not see. When offscreen sound is diegetic, it consists of sound effects, music, or vocals that emanate for the world of the story. When nondiegetic, it takes the form of a musical score or narration by someone who is not a character in the story. *Note that on-screen and offscreen sound are also referred to, respectively, as simultaneous and non-simultaneous sound. Simultaneous sound is diegetic and on-screen; non-simultaneous occurs familiarly when a character has a mental flashback to an earlier voice that recalls a conversation or earlier sound that identifies a place. We recognize the sound too because its identity has previously Beene stablished in the movie.*

Master Shot

Often, directors being shooting a single scene with a long shot that covers the characters, setting, and action in one continuous take. With this *master shot* as a general foundation, the scene's action is captured repeatedly using more specific framing, so that a single character's dialogue and blocking may be captured multiple times using a variety of shot types. 1.) In the editing room, the editor can begin the scene with the master shot, then cut closer as the story dictates 2.) The master shot can be integrated whenever setting or spatial relationships need to be reestablished

What is method acting? And what was it based upon?

On Broadway, stage actors were becoming acquainted with a Russian theory that became known as method acting. Method acting did not make a major impact on Hollywood until the 1950s, but it marks a significant point int he evolution of screen acting from the studio system's reliance on "star acting" in the 1930s and 1940s to a new style. 1.) What Americans call method acting was based on the theory and practice of Konstantin Stanislavsky, who cofounded the Moscow Art Theater in 1897 and spend his entire career there. In developing what became known as the *Stanislavsky system* of acting, he trained students to start by conducting an exhaustive inquiry into their characters' background and psychology. With an understanding of those aspects, they could then work form the inside out (in other words, they had to be the character before successfully playing the character) 2.) Acting teachers loosely adapted Stanislavsky's ideas. They used his principle that actors should draw on their own emotional experiences to create characters as well as his emphasis on the importance of creating an ensemble and expressing the subject, the nuances lying beneath the lines of the script. The naturalistic style that they popularized (called method acting) encourages actors to speak, move, and gesture not in a traditional stage manner but just as they would in their own lives. Thus, it is an ideal technique for representing convincing human behavior on the stage and on the screen → *Major characteristics of method acting*: Intense concentration and internalization (sometimes mistaken fro discomfort) on the actor's part, low-key almost laid-back delivery of lines (sometimes described as mumbling), and an edginess (sometimes highly neurotic) that suggests dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and alienation

Onscreen

On-screen sound emanates from a source that we can see. *Note that on-screen and offscreen sound are also referred to, respectively, as simultaneous and non-simultaneous sound. Simultaneous sound is diegetic and on-screen; non-simultaneous occurs familiarly when a character has a mental flashback to an earlier voice that recalls a conversation or earlier sound that identifies a place. We recognize the sound too because its identity has previously Beene stablished in the movie.*

What is meant when an actor is "typecast"?

Once *typecast* - chosen for particular kind of roles because of their looks or "type" rather than for their acting talent or experience - they continue to be awarded such parts as long as they bring in good box- office receipts.

Resolution

Once the goal is either gained or lost, it is time for the resolution — the third act of falling action, in which the narrative wraps up loose ends and moves toward a conclusion. 1.) For some protagonists, the struggle continues well into this final act 2.) But sooner or later, virtually every story resolves the conflict and allows the audience a chance to celebrate and/or contemplate the final score before the credits roll

Spatial Relationship

One of the most powerful effects of film editing is to create a sense of space in the mind of the viewer. When we are watching any single shot from a film, our sense of the overall space of the scene is necessarily limited by the height, width, and depth of the film frame during that shot, our sense of the overall space in which the characters are moving shifts and expands. The juxtaposition of shots within a scene can cause us to have a fairly complex sense fo that overall space (something like a mental map) even if no single shot discloses more than a fraction of that space to us at a time. 1.) The power of editing to establish spatial relationships between shots is so strong, in fact, that filmmakers have almost no need to ensure that a real space exists whose dimensions correspond to the one implied by editing 2.) In addition to pairing a mental picture of the space of a scene, editing manipulates our sense of spatial relationships among characters, objects, and their surroundings → For example, the placement of one shot of a persons reaction after a shot of an action by another person immediately creates in our minds the thought that the two people are occupying the same space, that the person in the first shot is visible to the person in the second shot, and that the emotional response of the person in the second shot is a reaction to what has happened to the person in the first shot

Content Curve

Our perception of the duration of any shot is affected by the content that shot presents. A shot with relatively straightforward content, such as a close-up of a coffee cup, can be on-screen fr a relatively short amount of time because the viewer only needs a moment to understand and absorb that content before she is instinctively ready for the next image. Holding on that simple coffee cup for anything longer than a few seconds, past the point where the audience has absorbed all of its available information, may even make the view uneasy. In contrast, a shot containing a great deal of information, such as an establishing shot with background detail and multiple interacting characters, typically takes longer for the viewer to process and thus may be held on-screen for significantly more time before the audience is ready to move on to another viewpoint. This interplay between duration and information is known as the *content curve* because it can be visualized as a bell curve, with the peak representing that point fo optimum duration where a cut will typically occur. Editors often use the concept when deciding - or sometimes just sensing - how long to make each individual shot. 1.) Editors can also deviate from standard practice for expressive purposes. If the editor cuts before the peak - that is, before the viewer has had time to filly comprehend the content and prepare for the next shot - the technique can disorient the audience or create a sense of excitement as viewers attempt to keep up with the accelerated pace. A series of shots cut at this point amplifies the effect → Music videos, commercials, and action movies take full advantage of the phenomenon, but often run the risk of visually exhausting their audiences and thus diminishing the intended experience → Very short shots that cut before the peak of the content curve are also used to simulate flashes of lost or suppressed memories 2.) Holding a shot until after the peak of the content curve, past the point where the viewer has processed all of the immediately available information, can make the viewer feel trapped. In some contexts, extended duration causes viewers to look deeper into an image in search of meaning not readily apparent at first glance

Rising Action

Over the course of the second act, narrative typically builds toward a peak, a breaking point of sorts, as the conflict intensifies and the goal remains out of reach. 1.) The tension it provokes enhances our engagement with the ongoing narrative

Silence

Paradoxically, silence has that function when the filmmaker deliberately suppresses the vocal, environment, or musical sounds that we expect in a movie. When so used, silence frustrates our normal perceptions. It can make a scene seem profound or even prophetic. Furthermore, with careful interplay between sound and silence, a filmmaker can produce a new rhythm for the film - one that calls attention to the characters' perceptions (can be used to evoke psychological alienation of their characters; in the absence of a lot of sound, the sound effects are particularly striking and memorable; when long sections of a movie are as conspicuously silent, audiences automatically are obliged to listen more carefully; make a place seem peaceful).

Point-of-view Editing

Point-of-view editing also uses a character's eyeline to create connection between subjects in separate shots, but instead of simply imparting a spatial relationship between interacting characters, the point-of-view edit seeks to convert the viewpoint and perspective of a character's offscreen gaze. Most frequently, a point-of-view edit juxtaposes an object shot of a character looking offscreen with a shot of an object, person, or action. The juxtaposition causes the viewer to interpret the second shot as the object of the looking character's gaze. This framing of this point-of-view shot often reflects a spatial relationship between the looking character and the looked-at object. However, if the filmmakers wish to communicate how the looking character feels about the object of her gaze, the second shot can be framed in a way that converts significance, rather than distance.

Blocking

Predetermined movement of actors that is planned according to the needs of the story. Blocking is usually decided during a rehearsal process in which the director and actors establish how characters in a given situation might move in relationship to their surroundings and one another. 1.) In theater, figure placement and movement is oriented towards an audience sharing a common static viewpoint 2.) Film blocking is oriented towards (and coordinated with) a camera that can be placed anywhere the director wants it to be

Inciting Incident (Catalyst)

Presents the character with the goal that will drive the rest of the narrative (something must occur to change that normal world). *Not all goals within a story are straightforward, some goals shift; This active pursuit of the goal signals the beginning of the second act*

Parallel Editing/Crosscutting/Intercutting

Scenes can also be broken up and integrated with other scenes using *parallel editing*, a technique that cuts back and froth between two or more actions happening simultaneously in separate locations. 1.) The trick used in Silence of the Lambs (1991) works because viewers assume spatial, causal, or narrative relationships between the intertwined actions, since that is almost invariable the case 2.) One of the things that makes parallel editing so compelling is the participation the technique requires of the viewer. As soon as we recognize that the movie is shifting between simultaneous events, we start trying to figure out how the events are related and how those relationships affect the narrative → Often, parallel editing sequences resolve by uniting the separate actions 3.) Crosscutting should not be confused with intercutting, the insertion of shots into a scene in a way that interrupts the narrative → Examples of intercutting include flashbacks, flash-forwards, shots depicting a character's thoughts, shots depicting events from earlier or later in the plot, and associative editing that inserts shots to create symbolic or thematic meaning through juxtaposition

The Actor

Screen acting of this kind is an art in which an actor uses imagination, intelligence, psychology, memory, vocal technique, facial expressions, body language, and an overall knowledge of the filmmaking process to realize, under the director's guidance, the character created by the screenwriter. 1.) Screen actors, or at least experienced screen actors, know that the essential relationship is between them and the camera - not between them and the director or even the audience 2.) A director's individual style plays a significant role in how actors develop their characters. The many approaches include: → Encouraging actors to identify with characters → Promoting a style loosely referred to as method acting → Favoring spontaneity, unpredictability and sometimes improvisation → Encouraging actors to see their performances from a cinematographic point of view and explicit imagine how their gestures and expressions will look on-screen (encourages actors to think more than to feel, to perform their roles almost as if they are highly skilled technicians whose main task is t control one aspect of the mise-en-scène [performance], much as set designers control the look and feel of sets, sound mixers control sound, and so on) 3.) No matter what type a movie actor is - how definite or changeable the persona is, how varied the roles are, how successful the career is - we tend to blur the distinction between the actor on-screen and the person offscreen → The heroes of today's world are performers (athletes, musicians, actors) and a vast media industry exists to keep them in the public eye and encourage us to believe that they are every bit as fascinating in real life as they are on screen → It is not actors' personal lives that count, but their ability to interpret and portray certain characters 4.) *One definition of great acting is that it should look effortless*, but that takes talent, training, discipline, experience, and hard work → It also takes the skills necessary for dealing with pressures that range from getting older to fulfilling a producer's expectation that you will succeed in carrying a multi-million dollar production and making it a profitable success

Anti-Hero

Seemingly unsympathetic protagonists chasing less than noble goals. 1.) Narrative craves imperfect characters because those imperfections provide obstacles, another essential building block of storytelling 2.) Character imperfections and flaws also give characters room to grow

The Aesthetic Approach

Sometimes called the *masterpiece approach* or *great man approach*, the aesthetic approach seeks to evaluate individual movies and/or directors using criteria that assess their artistic significance and influence. 1.) Ordinarily, historians who take this approach will first define their criteria of artistic excellence and then ask the following questions: What are the significant works of the cinematic art? Who are the significant directors? Why are these movies and these directors important? 2.) Historians who take the aesthetic perspective do not necessarily ignore the economic, technological, and cultural aspects of film history - indeed, it would be impossible to discuss many great movies without considering these factors - but they are primarily interested in movies that are not only works of art but also widely acknowledged masterpieces

What is sound?

Sound - talking, laughing, singing, music, and the aural effects of objects and settings - can be as expressive as any of the other narrative and stylistic elements of cinematic form. What we hear in a movie is often technologically more complicated to produce than what we see. In fact, because of the constant advances in digital technology, sound may be the most intensively creative part of contemporary moviemaking. 1.) The sound operates on both physical and psychological levels. For most narrative films, sound provides cues that help us form expectations about meaning; in some cases, sound actually shapes our analyses and interpretations 2.) Sound calls attention not only to itself but also to silence, to the carious roles that each plays in our world and in the world of a film 3.) The option of using silence is one crucial different between silent and sound films; a sound film can emphasize silence, but a silent film has no option. As light and dark create the image, so sound and silence create the sound track. Each property - light, dark, sound, silence - appeals to our senses differently

Sound Effects

Sound effects include all sounds artificially created for the sound track that have a definite function in telling the story. All sound effects, except this made on electronic equipment to deliberately create electronic sounds, come form "wild" recordings of real things, and it is the responsibility fo the sound designer and the sound crew to pick and combine these sounds to create the hyperreality of the film's sound track (wild recording is any recording of sound not made during synchronous shooting of the picture).

Loudness

Sound moves through the air in a wave that is acted upon by factors in the physical environment. Think of this as analogous to the wave that ripples outward when you throw a rock into a pond - a wave that is acted upon by the depth and width of the pond. The *loudness* (or volume or intensity) of a sound depends on its amplitude, the degree of motion of the air (or other medium) within the sound wave. The greater the amplitude of the sound wave, the harder it strokes the eardrum and this the louder the sound. Again, although movies typically maintain a consistent level of moderate loudness throughout, filmmakers sometimes use the extremes (near silence or shocking loudness) to signal something important or to complement the overall mood and tone of a scene.

The Producer

Studios began to reorganize their management into the producer-unit system. Each studio had its own variation of this general model, each with strengths and weaknesses. Although the resulting competitions among the units increased the overall quality of Hollywood movies, the rise of the unit producer served as a transition between the dying studio system and the emergence of the independent producer.

Quality

The *quality* (also known as timbre, texture, or color) of a sound includes those characteristics that enable us to distinguish sounds that have the same pitch and loudness. In music, the same note played at the same volume on three different instruments will produce tones that are identical frequency and amplitude, but very different in quality. The sound produced by each of these instruments has its own harmonic content, which can be measured as wavelengths. In talking about movie sounds, however, we do not need scientific apparatus to measure the harmonic content, because most often we see what we hear.

What is the title of the movie that signaled the sound era in motion pictures? (It is considered the first "talkie," and was mentioned in Singin' in the Rain)

The Jazz Singer

The Cinematographer/Director of Photography

The cinematographer (also known as the director of photography, or DP) uses the camera as an expressive instrument. The director of photography is the primary person responsible for transforming the other aspects of moviemaking into moving images. 1.) The collaborative relationship between the cinematographer and the director varies for movie to movie, but typically, these two positions form one of the most vital partnerships on the creative crew. The cinematographer's expertise can help shape and advise nearly every aspect of the director's preparation, including set designs, location selection, and especially previsualization storyboards 2.) On set, the director of photography and director are usually in constant communication as the director of photography translates the director's vision into specific decisions about how each shot will be photographed. And every choice the director of photography makes — the lighting, lenses, exposure, focus, camera positions and movements, even the camera model and media format — is largely driven by the needs of the story 3.) The cinematographer's responsibilities for each shot and setup, as well as for each take, fall into four broad categories: → Cinematographic prosperities of the shot (film stock, lighting, lenses) → Framing of the shot (proximity to the camera, depth, camera angle and height, scale, camera movement) → Speed and length of the shot → Special effects 4.) The director of photography control the cinematographic properties of the shot, those basics of motion-picture .photography that make the movie image appear the way it does. These properties include the recording medium, lighting, and lenses. By employing variations of each property, the cinematographer modifies the camera'a basic neutrality as well as the look of the finished image that the audience sees

Deep Space Composition (see video tutorial "Composing the Frame")

The composition conventions we have just described are primarily concerned with only two dimensions: height and width. But the world movies depict features a third dimension: depth. Deep-space composition emphasizes depth by placing significant visual and narrative information on two or more of the three planes of depth — foreground, middle ground, and background — in such a way that not only emphasizes depth but also conveys information, mood, and meaning. 1.) This meaning can take many forms, depending on how the levels of depth are presented. Meaning about the situation and relationships presented can be communicated by the relative placement of characters and objects, their relative size in frame, and whether or not a character is in focus

How are these two values demonstrated by Kuleshov's experiment (Kuleshov effect)?

The early Russian film theorists and filmmakers placed meaning through juxtaposition at the center of their approach to filmmaking. These pioneers, including Kuleshov, were the first filmmakers to systemically explore the expressive capacity of editing. 1.) In the 1920s, Kuleshov conducted an experiment in which he juxtaposed a shot of an actor wearing a neutral expression with a number of other shots and then screened them in sequence for a test audience. When viewers saw the man paired with a shot of a bowl of soup, they not only assumed he was looking at the soup but also interpreted his expression as one of hungry 2.) When shown the same shot of the expressionless actor, but juxtaposed instead with the image of a girl in a coffin, viewers assumed the relationship between the character and the corpse and felt the actor was expressing grief or remorse 3.) With this simple experiment, Kuleshov demonstrated a creative capacity of film editing that editors still use: *the juxtaposition of images to create new meaning not present in any single shot by itself*

Antagonist

The irony, however, is that if the goal is quickly and easily attained, our story is over. This is where conflict comes in. Narrative depends on obstacles to block, or at least impede, our protagonist's quest for the goal. 1.) The person, people, creature, or force responsible for obstructing our protagonist is known as the antagonist 2.) Sometimes the identity and nature of the antagonist are clear-cut. But, we have to be careful with this term because, while most movies have a single — or at least primary-protagonsist, the nature of the antagonist is much more variable 3.) So, just as not every protagonist is a hero, not every antagonist is necessarily a villain 4.) The antagonist need not even be human

The Production Designer

The leader of the team in charge of designing the look of the movie is the production designer. 1.) Generally one of the first collaborators that a director hires, the production designer, is both an artist and an executive and is responsible for the overall design concept (for the look of the movie — its individual sets locations, furnishings, properties, and costumes) and for supervising the heads of the many departments involved in creating that looks → These departments include art, costume design and construction, hairstyling, makeup, wardrobe, location, properties, carpentry, set construction and decoration, greenery, transportation, visual effects, special effects 2.) The production designer's process begins with the intensive previsualization — imagining, discussing, sketching, planning — that is at the core of all movies → Perhaps because the synthesis of mise-en-scène, cinematography, and directing is so crucial, many designers have become directors 3.) The production designer is usually brought into the film production process in pre-production

Form

The means by which that subject is expressed and experienced.

What is film editing's fundamental tool?

The most fundamental tool in film editing is the *cut*. The cut can be thought of in several ways: 1.) The first is as part of the editor's process. When an editor selects a shot for use in a sequence or scene, she determines *in-point* (the frame at which the shot will appear on-screen) and an *out-point* (the final frame we will see before that shot is replaced with another shot) → Each time the editor executes an in-point or out-point, she is making a cut 2.) The second way we can think of a cut pertains to watching a dilm → In that context, a cut is an instantaneous transition from one shot to another 3.) The third common use of the term cut refers to any edited version of a sequence, scene, or movie → For example, a director may tell her editor: "Let's take a look at your latest cut of this scene"

The Economic Approach

The motion-picture industry is a major part of the global economy. Every movie released has an economic history of its own as well as a place in the economic history of its studio (policies of production, distribution, and exhibition) and the historical period and country in which it was produced. 1.) Historians interested in this subject help us to understand how and why the studio system was founded, how it adapted to changing conditions (economic, technological, social, historical), and how and why different studios took different approaches to producing different movies, how these movies have been distributed and exhibited, and what effect this had on film history 2.) They study how and why the independent system of production superseded the studio system and what effect this has had on production, distribution, and exhibition. They are also concerned with such related issues as management and organization, accounting and marketing practices, and censorship and the rating system. Finally, they try to place significant movies within the nation's economy as well as within the output of the industry in general and the producing studio in particular

Protagonist

The primary character who pursues the goal is known as the protagonist. 1.) The protagonist is sometimes referred to as the hero (or heroine), but this term can be misleading, since engaging narratives do not necessarily depend on worthy goals or brave and sympathetic characters 2.) As long as the protagonist actively pursues the goal in an interesting way, the viewer cannot help becoming invested in that pursuit and, by extension, the story

Rule of Thirds (see video tutorial "Composing the Frame")

The rule of thirds breaks the frame into three vertical sections and three horizontal sections, resulting in a grid. This grid acts as a guide that filmmakers use to balance visual elements in the frame. 1.) It is not an exact science; art is never that simple. The basic idea is that composition is built in basic units of three: top, middle, bottom; left, center, right; foreground, middle ground, and background 2.) Usually, for every visual element placed on one section, there will be a corresponding element in the opposite section to counterbalance the composition 3.) Our gaze is drawn to the area along the top horizontal line of a composition. For this reason, significant information, including the faces of characters, is often placed in this area. Because we humans tend to focus attention on one another's eyes, close-up compositions often position character's eyes along this upper line 4.) Sometimes, a story calls for composition that pushes the idea of balance to the next level, resulting in compositions that are so perfectly balances that one side of the frame mirrors the other. This symmetry can, depending on the context in which it is used, convey a sense fo rigid order, ostentatious ritual, or formal elegance

The Screenwriter

The screenwriter is responsible for coming up with this story, either from scratch or by adapting another source, such as a novel, play, memoir, or news story. 1.) Screenwriters build the narrative structure and divide every character, action, line of dialogue, and setting (and all this must be managed within the fewest words possible) 2.) Each script page represents one minute of screen time 3.) The best screenwriters learn to craft concise but vivid descriptions of essential information so as to provide the director, cinematographer, designers, and actors a practical foundation that informs the collaborative creative process necessary to adapt the script to the screen 4.) No rule dictates the number of people who are eventually involved in the process. One person may write all the stages of the screenplay or may collaborate from the beginning with other screenwriter; sometimes the director is the sole screenwriter or co-screenwriter 5.) Most scripts are written entirely by independent screenwriters (either as write-for-hires or on spec) and submitted as polished revisions → Many other screenplays, especially for movies created for mass appeal, are written by committee, meaning a collaboration of director, producer, editor, and others (including script doctors; professional screenwriters who are hired to review a screenplay and improve it)

Jump Cut

The term jump cut is often generally (and incorrectly) applied to any noticeably discontinuous edit, but this particular editing technique defies our expectations of continuity in a very specific way. A jump cut is created when two shots of the same subject taken from the same camera position are edited together so that the action on-screen seems to jump froward in time. This jump usually amounts to a matter of moments; the effect is often created using a single shot of ongoing action. The editor simply removes a portion of the shot and then relinks the remaining footage.

What are the differences among a "setup", a "shot", and a "take"?

The three key terms used in shooting a movie are: 1.) *Shot*: The building block of cinema → When we are discussing a shot in an edited film, we can define shot as an unbroken span of action captured by an uninterrupted run of the camera → In a completed film, the duration of a shot (as well as its starting point and ending point) is determined by the editor. In that context, a shot is a discrete unit that lasts unit it is replaced by another shot by means of a cut or other transition → However, during the previsualization and production process, a shot can refer to a specific arrangement of elements to be captured in a particular composition from a predetermined camera position (so, the director may use shot when referring to a storyboard or production schedule; for various reasons that planned "shot" may be taken a number of times) 2.) *Take*: Act time that planned shot is captured 3.) *Setup*: Is one camera position and everything associated with it. The crew may shoot a number of different shots (and multiple takes of each of those planned shots) from a single camera position. → For example, if a film includes several separate shots of an office-worker character sitting at his desk on different days, all of the shots the can be captured from that particular setup will be shot in succession. The lighting, the actor's hair and wardrobe, and any necessary decor will be adjusted accordingly for each planned shot

Diegesis

The total world of the story — the events, characters, objects, settings, and sounds that form the world in which the story occurs — is called its diegesis.

What are the types of film sound?

The types of sound that filmmakers can include in their sound tracks fall into four general categories. However, any of these types of sound may dominate or be subordinate to the visual image, depending on the relationship that the filmmaker desires between sound and visual image. 1.) Vocal Sounds → Dialogue → Narration 2.) Environmental Sounds → Ambient Sound → Sound Effects → Foley Sounds 3.) Music 4.) Silence *The artistry involved in using all the various sources and types of sound has permanently established the role of the sound designer and exponentially increased the number of sound-related job titles, and therefore new employment, in the field of movie sound. All of these jobs are reflected in the large number of sound artists and technicians receiving screen credit. Furthermore, these roles have made necessary the invention and development of new equipment for sound recording, editing, and mixing and have brought changes to many theaters!*

What are the four basic approaches to studying film history? (be familiar with what each represents)

There are many approaches the studying film history, including studies of production, regulation, and reception. But the beginner should know the four traditional approaches: 1.) The Aesthetic Approach 2.) The Technological Approach 3.) The Economic Approach 4.) Film as Social History

Ellipsis

This temporal leap between shots is called an *ellipsis*. These cuts often interrupt the action of a scene unexpectedly, usually in the middle of a continuing action, and involve significant leaps of time. The direct connection of images and actions that would normally be temporally and spatially distant empowers the filmmaker to create meaning with juxtaposition that otherwise would have been impossible. The ellipsis also makes viewers fill in the gap in the story for themselves, a participatory experience that can be more rewarding than watching those missing events unfold on-screen

The Composer (music composer)

Those responsible for selecting music from other sources.

180 Degree Rule

To help editors avoid this spatial disjunction, cinematographers devised the *180-degree rule*. This system uses an imaginary line (called "the line," or the *axis of action*) drawn between the interacting characters being photographed. Once the line is determined, the camera remains on the same side of the line as it moves from position to position to capture different shots. As long as the camera stays within the 180-degree half-circle defined by that line, the characters on-screen will remain in the same relative spatial orientation regardless of which shots the editor chooses to used when cutting the scene.

Who was Lillian Gish and how did she serve in the evolution of screen acting?

Under Griffith's guidance, Lillian Gish invented the art of screen acting. 1.) Griffith encouraged her to study the movements of ordinary people on the street or in restaurants, to develop her physical skills with regular exercise and to tell stories through her face and body. He urged her to watch the reactions of movie audiences, saying, "If they are held by what you are doing, you have succeeded as an actress" 2.) Gish's performance in Broken Blossoms (1919) was the first great film performance by an actor → Her performance illustrates the qualities of great screen acting: appropriateness, expressive coherence, inherent thoughtfulness/emotionality, wholeness, and unity → Amazingly, the performance resulted from Gish's own instincts - her sense of what was right fr the climactic moment fo the story and the mise-en-scène in which it took place - rather than from Griffith's direction 3.) With the discovery and implementation of the principles of screen acting, Gish (and her mentor, Griffith) also influenced excellent performances by her contemporaries

What are the two explicit values in each shot?

What is in the shot and how it is situated to other shots.

Low-key Lighting

When little or no fill light is used, the ratio between bright illumination and deep shadow is very high; the high contrast effect produced is known as *low-key lighting*. Low-key lighting produces the harsh, gloomy atmosphere that we often see in horror films, mysteries, crime stories, and film noirs.

Eye-line Match

When looking at others, we humans are naturally drawn to the eyes. Filmmakers use this tendency to create spatial continuity between sequenced shots depicting interacting characters. On set, camera positions are calculated so that if one actor's gazes is aimed in a particular direction offscreen in one shot, the direction of the other actor's eyes is mirrored in the corresponding shot. The direction in which an actor looks is known as his or her myeline. When the editor cuts between two such corresponding shots, the resulting *eyeline match cut* creates a logical and spatial connection between the juxtaposed images.

Rhythm

When the editor employs patterns of duration over time, she is using pace and rhythm. Those two terms are often used interchangeably, but there are important differences: 1.) *Pace*: Is the speed at which a shot sequence flows. The pace of a scene or sequence is accomplished by using shots of the same general duration. An action sequence using a series of short-duration shots could be considered as fast paced. A slow-paced sequence made up of shots of similarly long duration might be found in a serious dialogue-driven drama 2.) *Rhythm*: In editing applies to the practice of changing the pace, either gradually or suddenly, during a scene or sequence

In what ways was the evolution of screen acting dependent upon technological changes in the making of motion pictures? (consider the early stages of development of motion pictures - silent shorts, silent features, the talkies)

1.) In the early 1900s, filmmakers started to tell stories with their film and thus needed professional actors → Most stage actors at the time scorned film acting, however, and refused to take work in the fledgling industry. Therefore, the first screen actors were usually rejects from the stage or fresh-faced amateurs eager to break into the emerging film industry 2.) Because no standard language of cinematic expression or any accepted tradition of film direction existed at the time, these first actors had little choice but to adopt the acting style favored in the 19th century theater and try to adapt it to their screen roles → The resulting quaint, unintentionally comical style consists of exaggerated gestures, overly emphatic facial expressions, and bombastic mouthing of words (which could not yet be recorded on film) that characterized the stage melodramas popular at the run of the twentieth century → It is interesting to observe how closely this "canned theater" resembled an actual stage production. The pace we see is that of the theater, which is limited to having actors enter and exit from tase left or right (it is unlike the cinema, where characters are not confined to the physical boundaries imposed by theater architecture 3.) Not long after Griffith and Gish established a viable and successful style of screen acting, movie actors faced the greatest challenge yet: *the conversion from silent to sound production* → Instead of instantly revolutionizing film style, the coming of sound in 1827 began a period of several years in which the industry gradually converted to this new form of production → Filmmakers made dialogue more comprehensible by developing better microphones; finding the best placements for the camera, microphone, and other sound equipment; and encouraging changes in actors' vocal performances → At first they encased the camera, whose overall size has changed relatively little since the 1920s, in either a bulky soundproof booth or the later development known as a *blimp* - a soundproofed enclosure, somewhat larger than a camera, in which the camera may be mounted so that its sounds do not reach the microphone (such measures prevented the sounds of the camera from being recorded, but they also restricted how freely the camera - and the actors - could move) → Eventually, technicians were able to free the camera for all kinds of movement and find ways of recording sound that allowed the equipment and actors alike more mobility 4.) Although sound enabled screen actors to use all their powers of human expression, it also created a need for screenplays with dialogue, dialogue coaches to help the actors "find" their voices, and other coaches to help them master foreign accents → The more actors and the more speaking a film included, the more complex the narrative could become 5.) The directors had to make changes, too. Before sound, a director could call out instructions to the actors during filming; once the microphone could pick up every word uttered on the set, directors were forced to rehearse more extensively with their actors, thus adopting a technique from the stage to deal with screen technology 6.) Acting in the Classical Studio Era → The golden age of Hollywood, roughing from the 1930s until the 1950s, was the age of the movie star. Acting in American movies then generally meant "star acting." During this period, the major studios gave basic lessons in acting, speaking, and movement, but because screen appearance was of paramount importance, they were more concerned with enhancing actors' screen images than with improving their acting → During the golden age, the studio system and the star system went hand in hand, and the studios had almost complete control fo their actors. Every six months, the studio reviewed an actors' standard 7 year *option contract*: if the actor had made progress in being assigned roles and demonstrating box office appeal, the stir picked up the option to employ that actor for the next six months and gave him or her a raise; if not, the studio dropped the actor's. Furthermore, the contract did not allow the actor to move to another stdio, stop work, or renegotiate for a higher salary (the contract had restrictive clauses that gave the studio total control over the star's image and services; including their name!) → Materialistic as it was, the star system dominated the movie industry until the studio system collapsed. It was replaced by a similar industrial enterprise powered essentially by the same motivation of making profits for its investors. However, because every studio had its own system, creating different goals and images for different stars, there was no typical star 7.) No star system exists to sustain careers and images, but now, as in earlier period of movie history, some individuals use films to promote themselves → The transition for studio production to independent production has markedly affected the livelihood of actors and the art of acting. The shape of the average career has fundamentally changed. Fewer major movies appear each year, so actors supplement film work with appearances on television shows, in advertisements, and in theater. → Moreover, actors are finding fewer quality roles because today's average movies are comedies that target the under-thirty audience → As independent agents, actors can contract for one film at a time and thus hold our for good roles rather than having to make a specific number of films for a given studio → These newcomers can negotiate a new salary for each film, and they routinely make more money from a single picture than some of the greatest starts of classical Hollywood made in there entire careers (they also usually work under their won names) 8.) Technology and Acting → Although digital technology is now affecting all aspects of filmmaking, we do not have to worry about it replacing actors entirely. Audiences say they choose movies that include their favorite actors. But, alongside real actors, CGI can create convincing characters. Digital animation technology has advanced to the point that real actors, supplemented by motion capture and CGI, can create compelling animated characters capable of convincingly interacting with live-action performers

Major Roles

Actors who play *major roles* (also called main, featured, or leading roles) become principal agents in helping to move the plot forward. Whether stars or newcomers, they appear in many scenes and ordinarily, but not always, receive screen credit above the title.

Omniscient Narration

An approach to narration (the act of telling the story). Narration can be omniscient, meaning it knows all and can tell us whatever it wants us to know. 1.) Omniscient narration has unrestricted access to all aspects of the narrative. It can provide any characters experiences and perceptions, as well as information that no character knows 2.) An omniscient camera shows the audience whatever it needs to in order to best tell the story

Explicit Meaning

Available on the surface of the movie; obvious (what is the plot event we see). 1.) Juno: The movie is about a rebellious but smart sixteen-year-old girl who gets pregnant and resolves to tackle the problem head-on.

Suspense

By contrast, suspense is a more drawn-out (and, some would say, more enjoyable) experience, one that we may seek out even when we know what happens in a movie. 1.) Suspense is the anxiety brought on by a partial uncertainty: the end is certain, but the means is uncertain 2.) Or, even more interestingly, we may know both the result and the means by which it is brought about, but we still feel suspense: we know what is going to happen, so we feel compelled to warn and protect the characters who don't

Character Roles

One of the joys of looking at movies from the studio system period comes from those *character actors* whose faces, if not names, we always recognize.

What are the four phases of sound production? Briefly describe what happens during each phase of sound production.

Sound production consists of four phases: 1.) *Design*: Sound design is the art of creating the sound for a film. As motion-picture sound has become increasingly innovative and complex, the result of comprehensive sound design, the sound designer's role has become more well known → Sound design combines the crafts of editing and mixing and, like them, involves matters both theoretical and practical → The contemporary concept of sound design rests on the following basic assumptions: ↳ Sound should be integral to all three phases of film production (preproduction, production, postproduction), not an afterthought to be added in postproduction only ↳ A film's sound is potentially as expressive as its images ↳ Image and sound can create different worlds ↳ Image and sound are co-expressible 2.) *Recording*: The process of recording sound is very similar to the process of hearing. Just as the human ear converts sound into nerve impulses that the brain identifies, so the microphone converts sound waves into electrical signals that are then recorded and stored → The history of recording movie sound has evolved from optical and magnetic systems to the digital systems used in today's professional productions. → Of the various types of film sound, dialogue is the only type typically recorded during production. Everything else is added in the editing and mixing stages of postproduction → The recording of production sound is the responsibility of the production sound mixer and a team of assistants, which includes, on the set, a sound recordist, a sound mixer, a microphone boom operator, and wranglers (in charge of the power supply, electrical connections and cables). This team must place and/or move the microphones so that the sound corresponds to the space between actors and camera and the dialogue will be as free from background noise as possible → On set, the motion-picture camera is responsible only for recording the image; the dialogue sound is recorded using a separate sound recorder, an approach known as *double-system recording*. Before any dialogue shot is captured on set, an assistant "claps" the hinged pieces of a simple device called the slate to create a simultaneous image and sound "mark" that are used to line up (or synchronize) the separate image and sound recording in postproduction, a process referred to as synching → Once the sound has been recorded and stored, the process of editing it begins 3.) *Editing*: The editor is responsible for the overall process of editing and for the sound crew, which consists of a supervising sound editor, sound editors (who usually concentrate on their specialties: dialogue, music, or sound effects), sound mixers, rerecording mixers, sound-effects personnel, and Foley artists → The editor also works closely with the musical composer → In the editing room, the editor is in charge; but the director and the sound designer may also take part in the process → Filmmakers first screen the dailies (or rushes), which are synchronized picture/sound work prints of a day's shooting. From these they select the usable individual shots from among the multiple takes, sort out the outtakes (any footage that will not be used), log the usable footage so it is easy to follow through the rest of the process, and decide which dialogue needs rerecording and which sound effects are necessary. If ambient or other noises have marred the quality of the dialogue recorded during photography, the actors are asked to come back, view the faulty scene, and perform the dialogue again while watching a looping (repeating) recording of the moment in question, a precess known as *automatic dialogue replacement (ADR), or looping. It is very much like selective lip-synching; when an acceptable rerecording that matches the take has been made, an ADR editor inserts it into the movie. Finally, the sound-editing team synchronizes the sound and visual tracks. Because the entire editing and mixing process is now done digitally, a certain amount of overlap can occur between the sound editing and mixing stages 4.) *Mixing*: Mixing is the process of combining all of the different individual edited tracks of dialogue, sound effects, music, and so forth, into one composite sound track to play in synchronization with the edited picture → Working with their crew, sound mixers adjust the relative loudness and various aspects of sound quality; filter out unwanted sounds; and create, according to the needs of the screenplay, the right balance of dialogue, music, and sound effects. The result is a sort of "audio mise-en-scene" that emphasizes significant sound elements in the mix, just as a visual composition uses placement and size in frame to feature significant subject matter in a shot → Sound elements that are mixed with lower loudness may not be emphasized, but they may still contribute to a scene's mood or meaning, much like background or other less prevalent visual elements affect the way we interpret composed images → The ideal result of sound mixing is clear and clean, so whatever the desired effect is, the audience will hear it clearly and cleanly. Even if what the filmmakers want is distorted or cluttered sound, the audience will hear that distortion or clutter perfectly

Stand-ins

Stars may be so valuable to productions that they have *stand-ins*, actors who look reasonably like them in height, weight, coloring, and so on and who substitute for them during the tedious process of preparing setups or taking light readings.

Climax

The climax comes when the protagonist faces this major obstacle. In the process, usually the protagonist must take a great risk, make a significant sacrifice, or overcome a personal flaw. 1.) As the term implies, the climax tends to be the most impressive event in the movie

What are the two senses explicitly engaged by a movie's formal elements?

The movies engage two senses: Vision and hearing. Although some viewers and even filmmakers assume that the cinematographic image is paramount, what we hear from the screen can be at least as significant as what we see on it, and sometimes what we hear is more significant.

Content

The subject of an artwork (what the work is about).

Digital Double

Through special effects, filmmakers may now augment actors' physical exertions so that they appear to do their own stunts. In effect, the computer becomes the sound double.