FILM STUDIES: A BRIEF OVERVIEW• 19th Century: rise of photography, which is soon made available to middle-class consumers. In

1896 Henri Bergson’s Matter and Memory argues for the need to theorize motion.

• In 1878 Eadweard Muybridge’s photographs titled “Horse in Motion” proved that a horse’s four feet all leave the ground while galloping. This overturned common thinking and artistic representation that one of the horse’s feet always remained on the ground. Importantly, this series showed how technology could capture what the human eye could not.

• Rise in the 1920s and 1930s of film schools that were more concerned with the practical aspects of filming and technique rather than its aesthetics or abstract theories.

• 1960s and 1970s film studies enter the academy and borrow from psychoanalysis, formalism, and structuralism.

• Film scholars begin counting the “cuts” in a film and analyze its angles, its sound, its narrative structures.

• 1975: Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”

MUYBRIDGE’S HORSE • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Muybridge_race_horse_animated.gif

• Pictorial narration

• Narrator largely disappears

• Operates in real time, so limited to ~2 hours

• Direct stimulation of visual perception

• Spatial structure – rectangular frame organize what the viewer takes in

• Draws on visual, aural, and verbal signifiers that work directly, sensuously and perceptually

• Linguistic narration

• Narrator mediates the story

• Little to no constraints on time

• Indirect stimulation of visual perception

• Linear structure – words appear in lines on the page that organize what the reader takes in

• Draws on verbal sign system that work conceptually

READING FILM AND NOVEL

Novel/Literary Text Film

Content borrowed from Jane Thrailkill’s introduction to ENGL 444, Maymester 2012 on May 15, 2012

FILM TERMS: SHOT• A shot is the basic unit of the moving picture. It is continuous: it can zoom, track, pan,

or follow, but the shot ends with a cut, the transition between shots.

• The type of shot depends on:

• Lens, or the focal length of the camera used to take the shoot

• Framing, or what’s included and excluded in an individual shot based on the camera’s distance from the action

• Camera position, or where the camera is in relation to the subject

• Camera movement, or how the camera is set in motion in relation to the subject

FILM TERMS: LENSESCamera lenses vary by focal length: the distance from the optical center of the lens to the focal point on the film stock when the image is clear and in focus

• A long lens, or telephoto lens, allows the camera to flatten space and film close-up shots. It reduces the apparent depth, creating a shallow space.

• A medium lens is used for most normal shots

• A short lens, or wide-angle lens, elongates depth thus keeping everything in focus. It results in an exaggerate perspective and can make the viewer feel closer to the action.

• A variable-length lens can zoom in and out while the shot is in progress.

Images from Payback (Brian Helgeland, 1999) and www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials

FILM TERMS: LENSES, FOCUSLenses also influence the focus of the shot.

• Depth of field refers to how much of the shot seems to be in focus, in front of and behind the subject.

• In a deep focus shot, everything in the shot appears to be in focus. We can be looking at action taking place in the foreground, middle ground, and background.

• In a shallow focus shot, the subject is isolated from the background.

Images from Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) and Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006).

FILM TERMS: FRAMINGFraming describes what is included (or excluded) from an individual shot.

• In a very long shot/wide shot, figures appear small in the landscape. It often begins a film to show where the action is taking place.

• In a long shot, the figure can been seen from head to toe.

• In a mid shot, the figure can been seen from the waist to head.

Images from A Summer Tale (Conte d'Été, Eric Rohmer, 1996)

FILM TERMS: FRAMING, CONT• In a medium close up, the figure is seen from chest

to head.

• In a close-up, figure is seen from head to shoulders, enabling you to see facial expressions.

• A big close up shows the head only and is used when expressions are important.

• An extreme close up, from just about the eyebrows to just below the mouth (or closer), is used to emphasize facial expression.

Images from Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999) and The Stendhal Syndrome (Dario Argento, 1996)

FILM TERMS: FRAMING, CONT• A two shot contains two people in it.

• A point of view shot is shot from a character’s point of view

• A recreation shot is shot showing a character’s expression as they react to something

• A noddy is a type of reaction shot used in interview, where we see the interviewer apparently reacting to the interviewee.

• An over-the-shoulder shot is a shot in which we see a character over another’s shoulder. This is often used in interviews or dialogues.

Images from Forrest Gump (Robert Zemeckis, 1994), The Royal Tenebaums (Wes Anderson, 2001), The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980), The Cobert Report, and Titanic (James Cameron, 1997).

FILM TERMS: CAMERA POSITION• In an eye-level shot, the camera is on the same level as

the subject. This shot connotes neutral judgment of the subject matter.

• In a low-angle shot, the camera points upward so that the viewer is lower than the subject. This shot connotes the subject’s superiority, power, and dignity.

• In a high-angle shot, the camera looks down on the subject, connoting the subject’s inferiority, abjection, or shame.

• A bird’s eye shot looks vertically down on the subject.

• A Dutch-angle shot skews the viewer’s vertical and horizontal axes. It connotes instability or uncertainty.

Images from Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990), Matilda (Danny DeVito, 1996), The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)

FILM TERMS: CAMERA MOVEMENTS

• Tilt shot – camera tilts vertically to “look” up or down

• Pan shot – camera twists horizontally to “look” right or left

• Whip pan – a sudden, fast pan

• Dolly shot – camera is mounted on a wheeled dolly

• Tracking shot – dolly is track-mounted to follow action

• Arc shot – camera moves in an arc around the subject

• Crane shot – camera is mounted on a crane and moves up or down

• Handheld shot – camera is carried by the operator to convey a sense of immediacy

• Steadicam – camera is mounted on operator

FILM TERMS: EDITINGThere are two main types of editing:

• Continuity editing is the most common editing technique it is edited so that time seems to flow, uninterrupted, from shot to shot. This type of editing may include crosscutting, which alternates shots of two or more lines of action occurring in different places, usually simultaneously.

• A montage is a series of shots or images shown in succession to imply a longer period of time or action, usually unified by a single theme or type of behavior. Think Rocky’s training montage http://youtu.be/kfL85DJFtXg

Editing can vary both in pace (how long individual shots stay on a screen) and in the transition between shots.

FILM TERMS: EDITING, TRANSITIONS

Transitions describe the way in which one shot replaces the previous one:

• Cut – one image is suddenly replaced by another

• Cross-Dissolve – one image dissolves into another

• Fade up – an image gradually fades in

• Fade out – an image gradually fades out

• Fades to and from black usually man that time has passed

• Wipe – one image replaces another without dissolving; the border between the images moves across or around the screen

• Freeze frame - image appears as a still image; on film, it is actually a repeated image

FILM TERMS: LIGHTING• High-key – lighting is bright and relatively low in contrast

• Low-key – much more pronounced shadows and dramatic contrasts

• Lighting from below – makes the subject appear threatening or horrific

• Backlighting – produces a halo effect

• Cold (blueish) lighting can convey a sense of cold, alienation, or technology while warm (yellowish) lighting can be used to convey comfort, sunset, etc.

• Rich colors are described as saturated

• Black-and-white or sepia can be used for scenes set in the past.

Images from www.filmschoolonline.com, www.pixeljoint.com, www.onstagelighting.co.uk,

FILM TERMS: SOUND

• Diegetic sound is sound that we think is part of what’s going on on the screen horse’s hooves, the sound of thunder, and so on even though many of these will have been added later by a ‘Foley artist’.

• Non-diegetic sound is sound that we know is not part of what’s on screen, such as music (unless there's an orchestra in shot!) and voiceover.

• A sound bridge uses sound to link two scenes, by having the picture and the diegetic sound change at different points. Usually the sound from the second scene is heard before we start to see the picture from that scene.

THE NARRATOR IN FILM• First-person narrator

• Camera situated at character’s eye level, with an emphasis on point-of-view shots

• Oral narration or voice over

• Technical limitations to replicate consciousness of first-person narrator

• Omniscient narrator

• Camera is stand-in for narrator’s eye/I

• Control over mise-en-scene, sound, editing can approximate the narrator’s tone and style

• Limitations to the instantly apparent, instantly available commentary on the action as it unfolds

• Third-person, restricted consciousness narrator

• Camera positioned “over the shoulder;” does not fully occupy the POV of character

• Gives a sense of another, more knowing vantage point

• Film better suited to give both the character’s POV and a slightly wider POV, which includes the character

Content borrowed from Jane Thrailkill’s introduction to ENGL 444, Maymester 2012 on May 15, 2012

FILM TERMS: MISE-EN-SCENE

• The mis-en-scene refers to the way in which objects, scenery and the location are shown by using light and dark, pattern, colour, camera position and angle, and movement within the frame.

• It establishes mood and atmosphere, and can express the inner life of characters through the way in which their settings are depicted on screen.

• Narrative films often manipulate the elements of mise-en-scene, such as decor, costume, and acting to intensify or undermine the ostensible significance of a particular scene.