film
How did D.W. Griffith got into filmmaking?
Was an actor
the directing of Dw
focused on things like mise en scene, used imagination, and editing
What did a typical film look like when he began to direct in 1908?
long shot, camera in one place, filmed in chronological order
What were Griffith’s contributions to narrative cinema in the areas of i) mise-en-scène
i) cast characters who looked the part/ carefully rehearsed before shooting the scenes. brought realism told the actors to act natural
dw griffith ii) cinematography
played a lot with the camera movement, camera movement going closer during cruical moments or objects that may be cruical unfolding the plot
dw griffith editing
iii) Breaking a scene down into numerous shots instead of photographing the action in one leg the long shot
How does Fabe define a “match cut”?
Any element in conjoined shots that smooth the transition from one shot to the next
How does Fabe Describe i) a movement match,
gesture happens during a long shot, must continue smoothly in the close up shot so viewer focuses on the gesture, masks the cut
How does Fabe Describe ii) a direction match,
person or object is moving is kept consistent across the splice
How does Fabe define iii) an eyeline match.
Eyeline match: match the direction of the two characters eye lines so that they would seem to converge. Carefully matching his shots, succeeded in breaking down the action of his narratives into a number of separate shots creating dramatic emphasis without drawing attention to the medium or confusing his audience
What kinds of transitional editing devices did Griffith employ, and how do they function in his films?
Fade-ins: shot begins in darkness and gradually brightens until the image appears fully exposed
Fade-outs: opposite, slowly fades to black.
Iris-ins: black screen opens in from darkness expanding circle of light
Iris-outs: reverse the process
Control over the pacing of the narrative
Used these to signal that time has elapsed from the end of one sequence to another
What are associative editing techniques, and how do they work in The Birth of a Nation?
Made dramatic use of the POV SHOT, followed by a REACTION shot, gives us two ways of identifying with on screen characters
Cross cutting, end of the film for a grand finale he cut back and forth between the climaxes of the various tales
Describe Eisenstein’s path into filmmaking
red army designed propgandic posters, and then joined a workers theatre
What was V.I. Lenin’s view of the cinema? Why did he nationalize the film industry and establish state film workshops?
Should do more than entertain, could instruct the illiterate masses on the history and theory of socialism.
What was the most famous discovery to emerge from Lev Kuleshov’s film workshop?
editing was the foundation of film art
How does the “Soviet montage” style of editing differ from the continuity style of D.W. Griffith?
montage
Why did Eisenstein distance himself from realistic theatre (and, by implication, realistic film)?
Inappropriate for the new society.
Describe Eisenstein’s “montage of attractions” in his theatre work.
Take theatre back to its primitive roots in spectacle or circus entertain
How did Eisenstein define his “montage of conflict”?
Conflict to create new meaning through a dialectic approach of a film form
What do the authors mean by “film form”?
The way parts work together to create an overall effect
Explain how the expectations of the audience relate to the question of film form.
feel an emotional response to the pattern we help create
What is meant by the term “conventions” in film criticism?
Dubious things we learn from the movies. (a man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds)
Discuss the idea of “suspense” as an example of the workings of expectation in film.
Involves a delay in fulfilling an established expectation
What is referential meaning? Provide an example from a film on our course.
Refer to things beyond themselves; represent aspects of the real world. (example hard times of americas in the 1930s.) the wizard of oz
What is the explicit meaning? Again, provide an example.
Stated openly (example theres no place like home, dorothy goes on an adventure and realizes that the land of oz isnt what it is when shes not with her family back home in kansas.)
implicit meaning? Define these types of meaning and provide examples from films screened in class.
Implying things and different interpretations will occur (subtext) (example some might argue that the wizard of oz is about growing up and realising the world isn't nice and has to accept the factors that come with growing up)
symptomatic meaning
Situates trend of thought from the time of when the film was released (1930s) all sorts of meanings are largely social phenomenon
Explain each of the authors’ four principles of film form: function, similarity and repetition, difference and variation, and development.
Function: motivations point to functions they do something in the larger whole
Similarity and repetition: ABACA experiment estab;ished and satisfied formal expectations
Difference and variation: plain patterns are boring and there's no development if you were to make a film you would seek out ways to contrast your characters and their environments
development : places similar and different elements within a pattern of change.
Provide a definition of “motif” and then explain why a significant motif in one of the films on the course would be considered as such.
The key: to the apartment in the apartment represents the one way into the top is sacrificing your comfort and someone to be trusted while the men have their affairs, he is within the corrupt system
Provide an example of a film element being repeated differently in one of the films on the course. Explain how the repetition affects the film’s meaning.
Similarity and repetition: everytime dorothy meets a new character, they mention something they wish for, and the other characters tells them to join along to see the wizard of oz and then off they skip singing the wizard of oz song
Explain “unity” and “disunity” as aspects of film form.
Unity: provide motivation for all the elements
Disunity: something is out of place.
Provide a definition of narrative.
Change of events in a cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space
Provide definitions of the terms story and plot as they are used in film studies.
story: Events in narrative both explicitly presented and simplicity
Plot: everything that is shown in the film
What does the term “diegesis” mean? How is it used in film studies?
Total world of the story action, in the story (kyles radio playing a song and us hearing it) not brought from an outside source
Explain how the flashback and the flash-forward are instances of the manipulation of story order.
Each choice brings out different choices, play around and that can help you create a different narration and idea.
Discuss the elements of story duration, plot duration, and screen duration with reference to a film from our course.
Story duration: time it takes to view the film
Plot duration: events actually portrayed in the film
Story fuartion: all story events including those we infer but do not see/ hear
When critics refer to temporal frequency in a film, to what are they referring?
The a story event presented only once in the plot
What does the Latin phrase in medias res mean?
In the midst of things; practice of beginning an epi by plunging into crucial situations part of a related chain of events.
What is “exposition”?
Explanation to get across an idea
Discuss the “goal-oriented plot” as an aspect of narrative development.
Familiar devices: appointment or deadlines
Delays, obstructions
Climax and anticlimax
Explain in your own words what the authors mean when they write that “A film doesn’t simply stop; it ends.”
Ending resolves or closes off the chains of cause and effect
How does a film’s climax generally function? What does it achieve in terms of the narrative?
Action presented as having a narrow range of possible outcomes
What is unrestricted narration?
We know more than the character knows
Is the traditional detective story an example of unrestricted narration or restricted narration? Why?
Restricted because well find out information rhe same time the detective does
How can a film employing unrestricted narration create suspense?
Finding out things as they go
What do the authors mean by “depth” in narration?
How deeply the narrative goes
What is a “noncharacter narrator”?
Never learn who belongs to the anonymous “voice of God”
What are the characteristic features of the classical Hollywood cinema (or classical Hollywood narration)
Plot focuses on one or two central characters who want something. Cause-effect relationship in time and space
Individual characters as agents
Goal or desire motivate the action
Clear resolution
What is the literal meaning of the phrase “mise-en-scène”?
Placed or set in that scene
The concept of mise-en-scène comes originally from what art form?
theatre
Aside from “realism,” what other goals might directors have in mind when crafting mise-enscène?
fantasy
Name the four general categories of mise-en-scène used by the authors.
Setting and props
Costume and makeup
Staging of the action
lighting
Explain why the frame from Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (fig 4.1) demonstrates the way mise-en-scène shapes our perception of story action.
Each thing ties into one another, the lighting covering the characters faces, the costume one an ss solider and the way he presents himself presents the characters behaviour
What do the writers mean by a “construct[ed]” set?
Where theyre able to control everything
Explain how costuming in a film may contribute to narrative progression.
transformation
What is a “prop”? For what word is the word “prop” a short-form?
Property, an object that has functions within the ongoing action
Explain why it’s wrong to say that makeup in film is always best when it is unnoticed by the audience.
Used to shape humans into things that help with horror films
Why do the authors write that, in film, “lighting is more than just illumination that permits us to see the action”?
Different types of lighting do different things
How can the viewer spot when a film uses hard light and when it uses soft?
Hard: crisp texture, shadows, sharp edges
Soft:diffused illumination
What is edge lighting? How is it produced? Why is it used?
Backlighting, positioned at many angles, high above the figure to cast shadows, subtle contour
Explain the uses of the “key light” and the “fill light” on a film set.
Keylight: primary source suggested as the light source in film
Fill light: fills in
What is “three-point lighting,” and how does it work?
Backlight: behind and above
Keylight: diagonally from the front
Fill Light: position near the camera
What are “high-key” and “low-key lighting”?
Highkey: overall lighting that uses fill light and backlight to create low contrast
Lowkey: creates stronger contrast and sharper, darker shadows
What do the authors mean by a “stylized” acting performance?
Method acting
What is the distinction between “motion capture” and “performance capture”?
Motion capture: whole body is filmed
Performance capture: concentrates on the face
What particular objects typically attract viewers’ attention as they scan a frame of film?
Face, hands, dialogue
Explain “bilateral symmetry” and the basic principles on which it is based.
Balance various points of interest around the shot evenly. Assume viewers focus more on the top half try to balance the right and left halves
Describe the types of depth cues in film and how they suggest spatial depth in a frame.
Volume by shape, shading, and movement
Explain the difference between deep-space and shallow-space mise-en-scène.
Shallow-space: little depth closest and most distant planes only slightly separated
deep=space: significant distance to separate planes
separated
What is “frontality”?
When characters are facing the camera, looks like they are looking at them
Name and define four most common forms that the “join” between shots can take.
Cut: instant change one shot to another
Fade in:lightens shot from black
Fade out: darkens shot to black
Dissolve: shot A blends into Shot B
What do the authors mean when they discuss the “purely pictorial qualities” of a shot?
Any two shots together, youll create some interaction of those shots
Define “graphic match” and provide an example.
Filmmakers link shots by close similarities. example Aliens film
What is “graphic discontinuity” and why would a director choose this style of editing?
Clash from shot to shot, to contrast between two things.
In film, it’s obvious that aspects of sound or mise-en-scène can affect the rhythm of a sequence. The addition of fast-tempo music, for example, or energetic acting can punctuate the rhythm, making it dynamic and exciting. Editing can also influence the rhythm of a sequence. Explain how editing can both increase and decrease the rhythmic tempo of a sequence.
Directors play with the frame per second, they decide onhow long r short and play with the films rhythm
Define “establishing shot.”
Shot that establish the spatial place
Define “intra-frame editing.”
Different shots into one
How is it that films are able to establish spatial relations even in the absence of establishing shots?
You infer what happened in between
Provide the text’s definition of the “Kuleshov effect,” and provide an example from any film we’ve
Derives new interpretations from composition and sequence, new meaning depending on the shots (alfred hitchcock experiment)
Explain the use of a flashback as an instance of the way in which editing influences the plot’s manipulation of story time.
Shows stuff from the past that affects the character.
What is “elliptical editing”? “Overlapping editing”?
elliptical : action that consumes less time on the screen
Overlapping: action from the end of one sot repeated in the new shot
What is continuity editing? What are its basic features? Why is it used?
Patterned use of technique based on filmmakers decision
Transmit information smoothly over series of shots
Shape space and time in particular ways
What is the axis of action? Why is it significant in filmmaking?
180 degree rule
What is an eyeline match? What does it achieve for the filmmaker?
Shot a presents someone looking at something offscreen shot b show us what is being looked at
What is a re-establishing shot? When is it used?
Pattern is repeated. Bilds our senses of space without an establshing shot
What is a “match on action”? Explain how it achieves continuity between cuts.
Single ,movement across a cut
What is a “cheat cut”?
When it doesnt follow the 180 rule but if the narrative flows whos to notice
Explain how the Kuleshov effect is at work in optical point-of-view shots.
Narration is subjective ddepending on what they first see will affect things later on (rear window)
What is “crosscutting”? How can crosscutting create a greater range of knowledge?
Expand or contract on viewers knowledge as long as the 180 rule is not disrespected
How is temporal continuity created in a sequence involving multiple cuts?
Order, frequency, and duration
What is an ellipsis? How is it indicated?
Skip over less important moments, cutting through the less important stuff.
What is a montage? How is montage related to ellipsis?
One form of ellipsis, skipping over time (timelapse)
What is a jump cut? How is it achieved (or avoided)?
Cut together two shots of the same suject differeing slightly noticeable jump on the screen
Avoided by shifting camera 30 degree angle
What is a nondiegetic insert? Provide an example, of your own devising, of an ironic use of a nondiegetic insert.
Metamorphic or symbolic shot that does not belong to the space of the narrative