Looking at Movies

Overview

Cinematic Language

• The visual vocabulary of film • Composed of myriad integrated techniques and

concepts • Connects the viewer to the story while deliberately

concealing the means by which it does so

Active Viewing of Movies

• Recognize the many tools and principles that filmmakers employ to tell stories, convey information and meaning, and influence emotions and ideas.

• Understand movies as narrative, as artistic expression, and as a reflection of the cultures that produce and consume them.

Sweeney Todd - the play

Sweeney Todd - the Movie

Film Analysis

• Analysis – the act of taking something complicated apart to figure out what it is made of and how it all fits together.

• Step 1 – Identify the tools and techniques within a scene, sequence, or movie

• Step 2 – Investigate the function and potential effect of that combination

Film Meaning

• No matter how many different layers of meaning are in a movie, each layer is either implicit or explicit.

• Implicit – lies below the surface of a movie’s story and presentation, more interpretive than explicit meaning

• Explicit – available on the surface of the movie, obvious

Film Construction

• Shots – unbroken span of action captured by an uninterrupted run of a motion-picture camera

• Editing – the joining together of discrete shots• With each transition from one shot to another, a

movie is able to move the viewer through time and space

How Movies Work

• Persistence of vision – the process by which the human brain retains an image for a fraction of a second longer than the eye records it (Apparent motion)

• Phi phenomenon – the illusion of movement created by events that succeed each other rapidly

• Critical flicker fusion – occurs when a single light flickers on and off with such speed that the individual pulses of light fuse together to give the illusion of continuous light

Film Form

• Movies are highly organized, and deliberately assembled and sculpted by filmmakers.

• The synthesis of elemental systems – mise-en-scène, sound, narrative, editing, and others – constitutes a movie’s overall form.

• Form – means by which the subject is expressed• Content – the subject of an artwork• They are interrelated, interdependent, and

interactive

Movie Types

• Narrative• Experimental • Documentary• Animation

Narrative

• Narrative – a cinematic structure in which the filmmakers arrange story events in a cause-and-effect sequence

• Narrative film – a movie devoted to conveying fictional or fictionalized stories

Narrative

• Tell a story• Directed towards fiction• Based on screenplays• Primary purpose is entertainment with commercial

intent

Realism vs Abstraction

• Realism – a tendency to view or represent things as they really are

• Abstraction – an interest in or concern for the non-realistic, speculative, or fantastic

• Movies can be both realistic and abstract

Employees Leaving the Factory - 1895

A Trip to the Moon - 1902