Transcript Film Language

Film Language
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Aims
To illustrate and apply basic critical methodology of film
analysis:
•
Signs: denotation, connotation, motivation
•
Cinematography (the shot): camera distance, angle, movement; their
motivations and connotations
•
Mise-en-scène analysis: lighting, objects, colour etc - everything in the
frame
•
Editing: types of edit; their motivations and connotations; continuity
editing
•
Sound
Explicit and implicit meaning
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Signs:
Denotation and Connotation
• Sign:
any unit of meaning
(graphic, aural, verbal)
• Denotation:
the (literal) description
of a sign
• Connotation: the meaning associated
with a sign
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Signs: Motivation
Motivation: the reason a film element is
included:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Realism
Narrative
Intertextuality (including “hommage”)
Artistic
NB A sign can connote and/or be motivated.
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Key Elements of Film Language
or the Poetics of Cinema
Mise en Scene and Cinematography
Editing
Sound
How they combine to create meaning
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Cinematography (The Shot)
Camera Distance
•
Extreme Long Shot (ELS)
–
Shows location
–
Often used as an initial establishing shot in a
sequence
–
Also called a master shot as whole scene is usually
shot in LS before breaking down into MS and CU
–
Example: Shot of Ethan near start of The Searchers
(John Ford,
1956)
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•
Searchers opening
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The Shot: Camera Distance
ELS/Establishing shot shows the location, setting or
landscape of a scene; presents the action’s setting, with
some characters. A mood or sense of drama may be
presented with this shot
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The Shot: Camera Distance
Long Shot (aka Full Shot) frames the entire
body of one or more characters
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The Shot: Camera Distance
Medium Long Shot: (also called “plan américain” or American shot)
shows 1 to 3 characters from the thigh up. This shows characters
and their roles without emphasising their emotions.
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The Shot: Camera Distance
MLS shows location/ relationships
- often used as an initial establishing shot in a
sequence
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The Shot: Camera Distance
Medium Shot (MS)
– Waist up
– Focus on
character(s)
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The Shot: Camera Distance
This MS shot allows other characters to be in view and so
allows character interaction. This often makes for more
sociable shots.
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The Shot: Camera Distance
Medium shots put more
emphasis on characters and
their emotions.
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The Shot: Camera Distance
Medium Close Up (MCU)
– Chest up
– Focus on character(s)
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The Shot: Camera Distance
CLOSE UP:
• Generally any close up shot
of an object gives the
object meaning. If the close
up is of the whole or part of
the face then it shows
emotion and reinforces
spectator involvement
•Before advent of widescreen in
mid 1950s, only one character
usually in a close up - character on
their own and can seem isolated in
this type of shot - but wider fram
allows CU two-shot
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The Shot: Camera Distance
Close Up (CU)
Can be of people
Can be of objects
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The Shot: Camera Distance
Extreme Close Up (ECU)
–
Part of face
–
Often used at
climax of
drama
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The Shot: Camera Distance
An extreme close up is more
magnified than close up, and will
focus on one part (hand, eye,
mouth, etc.)
Insert: a detail shot magnifying
a thing (letter, business card,
etc.)
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The Shot: Camera Distance
“Sergio Leone Shot” (ECU)
–
Isolates eyes
–
Often used at climax of drama, eg in
Leone’s films in the lead-up to a shootout
Clip 1
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The Shot: Camera Angle
Straight-on Angle
– Connotes
equilibrium
(normality) and
makes spectator
feel
comfortable
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The Shot: Camera Angle
Canted Angle (aka Dutch Angle)
• Connotes
disequilibrium
(physical or
mental) and
produces sense of
unease in
spectator
• “The world is out
of joint”
Clip 2
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The Shot: Camera Angle
High Angle Shot
Connotation lack of
power
Motivation:
can be
point-ofview (POV)
shot
In The Color of Paradise/Rang-e Khoda,1999) a blind son Mohammad and his elderly
grandmother are ruled over by a dominant father and are often shot from a high angle,
emphasizing their dependence and smallness.
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The Shot: Camera Angle
In this high angle shot,
the angle - combined with
mise en scene (prop) - the
wheelchair - can make the
character seem small and
vulnerable.
Gattaca, Andrew Noble, 1997)
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The Shot: Camera Angle
LOW ANGLE SHOT
A shot taken from
below an character, as
if he/she is looking
down on us. This may
make us feel small and
vulnerable and the
character seem
powerful and
authoritative
Gladiator, Ridley Scott,
2000
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The Shot: Camera Angle
LOW ANGLE SHOT
This shot from The
Magnificent Seven
bestows authority on
the Yul Bryner
character. Although
the Steve McQueen
character is also shot
from a low angle, he
has less authority
because of his position
vis a vis the Yul
Bryner character see Mise en Scene
(later)
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The Shot: Camera Angle
Low Angle
• Often connotes
power but
motivation can
simply be POV
shot
In The Color of Paradise/Rang-e Khoda,1999) a dominant father is frequently shot
From a low angle
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The Shot: Camera Angle
In this clip from Citizen Kane, there is not
much difference in height (seated) between
Kane and his about-to-be mistress and
future wife, Susan Alexander.
However, as the shots cuts between the two,
we have a high angle on Susan and a low angle
on Kane, perhaps connoting that he will be
dominant in the relationship
Clip 3
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The Shot: Camera Angle
Need to avoid a mechanical interpretation of
camera angle - context needs to be taken into
account - high angle hardly connotes lack of
power but visual indication as to what’s about
to happen to “traitor”
eg North by North West (Alfred Hitchcock,
USA, 1959 )
Clip 4
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The Shot: Camera Movement
Pan: (panorama)
Camera swivels left or right on axis.
Used for:
–
–
–
–
Showing scene
Following movement
Show POV as head turns
Guiding attention
– eg Traffic (Stephen Sodeberg)
Clip 5
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The Shot: Camera Movement
Whip Pan
ie very rapid pan.
Used for:
– Rapid head-turn POV
– Style
Eg Fists of Fury/Tang Shan Da Xiong, Wei Lo, Honk Kong, 1971).
Clip 6
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The Shot: Camera Movement
Tilt
Camera swivels up or down.
Used for:
– Showing scene on different levels
– Following movement
– Show POV as head moves up/down
– Establishing shot e.g. ext: tilt up high building CUT int: room in
building
– eg In Leon (Luc Besson, 1994 ) tilt up used to reveal character of
Matilda. Audience asked to notice contradictions in her clothing,
starting with boots, her comic-book leotards, past her teenage
jewellery and her cigarette to gentle, vulnerable face hidden behind
ornate railing. Tilt-up allows audience to take in each item separately
and notice contradictions central to her character.
Clip 7
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The Shot: Camera Movement
• Track (dolly) (tracking shot)
- camera on wheels, usually on a little cart
called a dolly (so sometimes known as a
“dolly shot”; or the verb “to dolly” is used.
- can track in/out, left/right, slow/fast.
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The Shot: Camera Movement
Tracking in
Lateral
track(ing shot)
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The Shot: Camera Movement
Tracking Shot
Lateral track(ing shot)
Examples:
•Central do Brasil/Central Station
•Les 400 coups/ The 400 Blows
Clip 8
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The Shot: Camera Movement
Reverse Tracking Shot
In this example from Les Parapluies de
Cherbourg/The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
(Jacques Demy, 1964, France) note the effect
of the reverse tracking shot in combination with
the moving train
Clip 9
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The Shot: Camera Movement
Overhead Tracking Shot
In this example from 1984 (Michael Radford, 1984),
the overhead tracking shot of Winston Smith in his
workplace has connotations of surveillance, spying,
oppression.
Clip 10
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The Shot: Camera Movement
Crane shot
• Crane: camera on crane so can move in/out, up/down space
• Great potential from dramatic and aesthetically pleasing
shots
• Camera on crane so can move in/out, up/down space
• Very flexible - can produce dramatic/aesthetic effects
Examples from The Player (Robert Altman), Once Upon a
Time in the West, Young and Innocent (where it
combines with a zoom)
Clip 11
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The Shot: Camera Movement
Handheld:
Portable camera so get jiggling image.
Used for:
– Realist documentary look
– Convey dynamism of action
– Eg Dancer in the Dark (Lars von
Trier, 2000)
Clip 12
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The Shot: Camera Movement
Steadicam
Portable camera with weights which is
‘worn’ by camera operator. Used to:
– Steady image
– Film scene without multiple takes
– Film on terrain where tracks difficult (or
where the director wants to show the
floor)
– Eg The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
Clip 13
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The Shot: Camera Movement
Steadicam
• Use of Steadicam in Goodfellas (Martin
Scorsese, 1990)
• In five-minute shot, audience follows
gangster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) in the
back door, through the kitchen and up to
the bar, stopping to meet patrons all the
way
• Shows how gangsters don’t have to wait
in queues like everyone else
Clip 14
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The Shot: Camera Movement
Zoom
Use of zoom lens to create illusion
of camera moving in/out. Can zoom
in/out (forward zoom/reverse
zoom)
Examples:
The Stendhal Syndrome (Dario Argento, 1996)
The Godfather Part 2 (Francis Ford Coppola,
1974)
Clip 15
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The Shot: Camera Movement
Rack or Pull Focus
Change focus during scene to new point of interest
•In this clip from 1984, note the way that Julia
(Joanna Hamilton) is in focus and then there is a rack
focus and she comes out of focus while O’Brian
(Richard Burton) comes into focus.
•This has narrative significance as it shows that a
member of the inner party is noticing her, perhaps
suspicion that her zeal is attacking the image of
arch-traitor Goldstein in hiding some deviant
thoughts.
Clip 16
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The Shot: Camera Movement
Vertigo effect
aka “dolly zoom” or “transtrav” “trombone shot”
Unsettling in-camera special effect that appears to undermine normal
visual perception in film
Effect achieved by using setting of zoom lens to adjust field of view
while camera dollies (or tracks) towards or away from subject in such a
way as to keep subject same size in frame throughout.
From Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Scotty - former policeman: fear of heights ends his career
The effect gives an insight into his state of mind as he is going up
spiral staircase near climax of film
Clip 17
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The Shot: Camera Movement
This effect used expressively in a variety of films to show
characters’ state of mind:
• Jaws (Spielberg, USA, 1973) - shows Chief Brodie’s dread when he
realises the killer shark has returned
• Goodfellas (Scorsese, USA, 1980) - here used very slowly to
indicate that the world is closing in on Henry Hall as former
comrades plotting to kill him
• The Quick and the Dead (Sam Raimi, USA, 19) - here used to
show unnatural state of affairs in which a son Leonardo di Capprio)
fights a gun duel with his father (Gene Hackman). Note way in which
young woman seems literally to recoil in fear. Combined with a
canted/Dutch frame: the world really is out of joint
Clip 18
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The Shot
Freeze Frame
Achieved by repeating the same frame again and again so
thatit gives the screen the appearance of a still
photograph
Can have the effect of leaving us uncertain about the final
consequences of the action (ie prevents “narrative closure”
Most famous use of this technique: Les 400 coups/The 400
Blows (Francois Truffaut, 1959) but much imitated in later
films
At the end of the film, its protagonist turns to camera direct address - as the frame freezes - ambiguous:
happiness? hope? uncertainty? disillusionment?
Clip 19
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Mise en scène
(pronounced “meez on sen” with second syllable
nasalised)
Term from French theatre - literally, what has been
put on the stage.
In film refers to everything we see on the screen:
Main elements of mise en scene are:
• setting, objects (props), people, make up, costumes,
figure arrangement and movement (aka blocking),
colour, lighting, gesture, acting styles etc
• Analysis of mise-en-scène can reveal how themes are
symbolised
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Mise en scène
Lighting
• Three point system of lighting
– Key light: main source of
light
– Backlight: adds highlights
and differentiates actor
from background
– Fill light: softens shadows
from key light
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Mise en scène
Lighting
Classical use of three-point lighting - all three elements are in
balance. Connotes normality. Here, the actors are made to look
glamorous by the balanced lighting.
Written On The Wind (Douglas Sirk, 1956)
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Mise en scène
High Key Lighting
- lighting scheme in which fill light is raised to almost the
same level as key light - produces images that are
usually very bright, few shadows on principal subjects.
This bright image is characteristic of entertainment
genres such as musicals (eg classic MGM style)
Peking Opera Blues /Do Ma Daan, Tsui Hark (Honk Kong, 1986)
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Mise en scène
Low Key Lighting
Key light dimmed (may be moved – kick light), very little fill light,
creating strong contrasts between the brightest and darkest parts
of an image and often creating strong shadows that obscure parts
of the principal subjects.
Shadows - connote unease, sense of evil - feature of horror and
‘film noir’ (style or genre of filmmaking prominent in 1940s)
Touch of Evil
(Orson Welles,
1957)
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Mise en scène
Props and Objects
Costumes are important props. In film, any portion of a costume
may become a prop. When Hildy Johnson switches from her role of
aspiring housewife to that of reporter, her stylish hat with its lowdipping brim is replaced by a “masculine” hat with its brim pushed
up, reporter-style
His Girl Friday (Howard Hawkes, 1940)
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Mise en scène
Props and Objects
This staircase is a
signifier. Notice how
structure is so similar to
shape of DNA (our genetic
blue print).
Gattaca, Andrew Noble, 1997)
(Note: the DVD cover even placed a
model image of DNA next to the
staircase.
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Mise en scène
Props and Objects
This sequence from North by North-West
(Alfred Hitchcock, 1959) seems at first simply to
be economical transition from previous scene but
metaphorical information in dissolve: CIA imposes
itself on UN; Capitol is reflection of CIA - ie
intelligence agency imposes over seat of
government
Clip 20
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Mise en scène
Props and Objects
What might these
signifiers represent?
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Mise en scène
Props and Objects
.. and this?
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Mise en scène
Colour
•Like light colour has a symbolic and subconscious affect on us.
We passively accept colour more than lines (light and dark), but
it too has a profound affect on us as viewers.
•Colour is strongly linked to emotions (though the specifics are
very cultural)
•Cool colours (blue, green, violet) suggest calm, tranquility,
aloofness, and tend to recede in images (go to the back)
•Warm colours (red, yellow, orange) suggest aggression, violence,
stimulation, and come forward in images (stand out)
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Mise en scène
Colour
In Three Colours: Blue (1993), Krzysztof Kieslowski used a
number of different connotations of the colour blue. It is one
of the colours of the French tricolour, it perhaps represents
freedom, but it also stands for sadness: “the blues”.
Julie (Juliette Binoche) loses her husband and daughter in a car
crash in the opening sequence. She decides to block herself off
by attempting to “free” herself from all the associations of her
past life
Throughout the film Kieslowski uses blue motifs as in the brief
montage which follows
Clip 21
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Mise en scène
Colour
• Connotations of colours culturally determined - don’t
necessarily carry exclusive meanings.
• Compare the use of red Zhang Yimou's Ju Dou (1990),
for example with Ingmar Bergman's Cries and
Whispers (Viskingar Och Rop, 1972),
• Zhang exploits red as signifier of unrestrained passion fairly typical connotation
•
However, Ingmar Bergman associates the color with
stagnation and contaminated blood.
Clips 22, 23
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Mise en scène
Colour
In Traffic (2000), Steven Soderbergh decided to shoot all the
sequences in the Northern Mexico desert overexposed. Resulting
images give impression of barren, desolated land being mercilessly
burnt by sun, no-man's land over which police and customs have no
control.
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Mise en scène
Proxemic Patterns and Gestures
• The relationships between the organisms in a space are
called Proxemic Patterns.
• The proxemic pattern is determined by distance and may
be Intimate (touching – ½ m away), Personal (½ m – 1m) ,
Social (1m – 4m), or Public (greater than 4m distance).
• These patterns can be manipulated using camera shots
and angles
For example this big
close up brings us into
intimate proximity with
the character.
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Mise en scène
Proxemic Patterns and Gestures
Sometimes two people in close proximity form a
heart shape.
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Mise en scène
Proxemic Patterns and Gestures
Expansive outward movements generally associated with explosive
emotions such as joy or terror. Look at example of The French
Connection, William Friedkin, 1971)
Scene occurs at climax of chase sequence in which protagonist
Popye Doyle (Gene Hackman) finally triumphs over vicious killer by
shooting him - just as he seems on verge of eluding him once again
Kinetic outburst symbolises not only bullet exploding in victim’s
body, but joyous climax for protagonist after humiliating and
dangerous pursuit
Kinetic “ecstasy of death” also releases dramatic tension built up in
audience during chase sequence: in effect we are seduced into
sharing protagonist’s joy in the kill
Clip 24
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Mise en scène
Proxemic Patterns and Gestures
From “Understanding Movies”, Louis Giannetti
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Mise en scène
Gesture
Capturing of
gesture or look just
as or more
important
than objects or
colour, as in this
shot of a
confrontation in
American History X
(Tony Kaye, 1998)
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Editing
• How the shots are arranged in sequence
• Involves choice of length of each shot and of the
kind of transition between each shot
• Primitive film: no editing - just filming from fixed
position till the reel ran out
• eg The Workers Leaving the Factory
• The Little Rascal (or The Hoser Hosed)
and The Arrival of a train at La Ciotat
(Auguste and Louis Lumiere, 1895, 1896)
Clip 25
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Editing
Montage is the French term for editing; but also
generally used to mean a succession of shots that clash
to create new meaning (aka “Soviet Montage”)
Emphasises dynamic, often discontinuous, relationships
between shots and the juxtaposition of images to
create ideas not present in either shot by itself.
eg
October (1925) and Battleship Potemkin
(Sergei Eisenstein, 1927)
Clip26
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Editing: Types of Edit
Why did Eisenstein edit these shots of the lion
statues in this way?
2 most obvious answers:
• To suggest that a stone lion would be shocked
by the massacre on the Odessa steps
•The lion could represent the workers and
peasants rising up against their oppressors
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Editing: Types of Edit
“American Montage”
Succession of shots to indicate
compressed time (frequently linked by
dissolves)
Example:
The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola,
1972)
Clip 27
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Editing: Types of Edit
Cut:
Shot A followed by shot B.
Used for:
• Sequence in real time
• Parallel editing: cutting between related actions
Most common transition - there will be hundreds of cuts in an
average film (ASL =“average shot length”)
1930s - 1950s: ASL = between 8 and 11 seconds
1960s
ASL = between 6 and 8 seconds
1970s
ASL = between 5 and 8 seconds
1970s
ASL = between 5 and seconds
From mid-1990s, many films as low as 3-4 seconds
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Editing: Types of Edit
Cut:
Tension built by way scene is cut - cf this
sequence from The Birds (Hitchcock, 1963)
Average shot length short but rate of cutting
faster at highest point of tension
Clip 28
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Editing: Types of Edit
Parallel edits/cross cutting: a way of
showing two actions taking place
simultaneously; originally used for
excitement; later more sophisticated
effects, eg Godfather: cross-cuts
between baptism of Michael’s nephew
(connotations of innocence) and the
preparation and execution of the murder
of rival gang leaders - ordered by
Michael - irony
Clip 29
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Editing: Types of Edit
Fade
Fade In: shot lightens from black.
Used to:
– Signify start of scene/new day
• Fade Out: shot darkens to black. Used to:
– Signify end of scene/day
• Fade Out/Fade In:
– Signifies time has passed
– eg The Searchers (shadow of chief on girl)
Clip 30
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Editing: Types of Edit
Fade
Fades not always to black - sometimes to colour
eg red dominant colour in Bergman’s Cries and
Whispers and Bergman fades to red rather than
black
Clip 31
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Editing: Types of Edit
Dissolve:
Shot A overlaps with shot B.
Used for:
– Jump in time/space (e.g. flashback, dream)
– eg North by North-West (Alfred Hitchcock,
1959)
Clip 32
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Editing: Types of Edit
Wipe:
Shoot A peels off to reveal shot B.
Horizontal/vertical /digital wipe. Used to:
– Move to new setting
– Style (eg in modern films to give a sense
of nostalgia for old films)
– eg The Seven Samurai (Kurosawa
Clip 33
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Editing: Types of Edit
Iris
A round moving mask that can close down to end a scene (iris-out)
Or can open to begin a scene (iris in) or reveal more space round a
detail.
A common device in early cinema. When used post 1930, usually has
connotations of nostalgia (eg Tirez sur le pianiste/Shoot the Piano
Player - Francois Truffaut, 1960) or a self-conscious referencing in
films about film.
In this scene from Neighbours (Buster Keaton, 1920)
the iris is used for the comic effect as that the
female protagonist is getting ready for her wedding
Clip 34
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Editing
Types of Edit
Bazz Luhrman combines wipes, irises (sort of they are square!) and freeze-frames in his
postmodernist version Romeo and Juliet.
Postmodernist style mixes different elements
eclectically - filmic technique often draws
attention to itself, unlike in continuity
(“invisible”) editing - see below
Clip 35
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Editing: Continuity Editing
• Classic Hollywood style is a set of techniques
which are designed to make the technical
construction of the film ‘invisible’ i.e. to make the
inherent discontinuity of film appear ‘continuous’
• In Classic Hollywood the plot is more important
than the style i.e. its prime motive is storytelling
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Editing: Continuity Editing
The main techniques are:
• Establishing shot: shows the setting and 180° line
(the camera will stay on one side of this line)
• Shot/reverse shot: cutting back and forth between
characters (sometimes using over-the-shoulder
shots)
• Eyeline match: shot A: someone looking; shot B
what is looked at with direction of look maintained
• Match on action: where a cut occurs at a point
when the actor is moving - makes cut “invisible”
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Editing: Continuity Editing
Establishing Shot
shows the setting and 180° line (the camera
will stay on one side of this line)
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Editing: Continuity Editing
Bordwell and Thomson
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Editing: Continuity Editing
Bordwell and Thomson
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Editing: Continuity Editing
Shot/reverse shot
Cutting back and forth between characters in
conversation, each shot being followed by one from
a more or less equivalent position from the other
side;
(sometimes using over-the-shoulder shots)
example:
Hush (Joss Whedon, 2000)
On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1947)
Clip 36, 37
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Editing: Continuity Editing
Eyeline match
Based on premise that audience will want to see what
the character on-screen is seeing. Begins with
character looking at something off-screen, then a cut
to the object or person that they are looking at.
If the person looks left, the following shot should
imply that the looker is off-screen right.
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Editing: Continuity Editing
Eyeline match
• Following shots from The Stendhal Syndrome
/La Sindrome di Stendhal (Dario Argento,
Italy, 1996), depict Anna looking a painting Brueghel's The Fall of Icarus. Scene takes
place inside Florence’s's most famous museum,
the Uffizi Gallery.
• As her interest grows, the eyeline match is
stressed with matching close-ups of Anna's
face and Icarus's falling into the ocean in the
painting.
Clip 38
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Editing: Continuity Editing
Match on action
• Match on action: action carried on across two shots
• Helps to mask the cut - viewer paying attention to
action rather than edit
• Connecting sounds: same sound carried across cut
• Examples from Orphans of the Storm (DW Griffiths, 1921)
• Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (Jacques Demy, 1964)
• Traffic (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)
Clip 39
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Editing: Continuity Editing
Graphic March (Match Cut)
When 2 successive shots joined so as to create strong similarity
of shape (and/or colour)
Used to smooth the transition between shots
eg clip from Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown
(Pedro Almodovar, 1988) [traffic light-sun]
But also capable of startling transitions such as one from ‘Dawn of
Man’ sequence of 2001: a Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick,
1968) where a bone used as a weapon is thrown into air in
prehuman times and cut to a graphic match to a spaceship floating
in space in imaginary future
Clip 40
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Editing: Continuity Editing
Sudden shift from longshot to close-up can be very
effective technique
In this clip from The Searchers (John Ford, 1956),
we go from:
a long shot of Ethan preparing a raid: we see
the landscape, including the Comanche camp where
Debbie being held
To a close-up to Ethan’s face, conveying his anxiety
Clip 41
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Editing: Continuity Editing
Rules of continuity editing long established and very
powerful. Even used by interviewers on TV news using
single camera to interview. Then camera position
reversed - interviewee may no longer be present - and
questions repeated and edited in. Interviewer even fakes
a reaction in longer takes by nodding, hence “the
noddies”
Standard way of editing scene: LS as an establishing
shot, followed by closer shots until close-up (including
shot/reverse shot in conversation); then re-establishing
shot to remind audience where they are.
Whole scene shot in long shot - “mastershot” - then
closer shots edited in)
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Editing: Continuity Editing
Mastershot and closer shots
In initial sequence from Peking Opera Blues/Do Ma Daan (Honk
Kong,1986), director Tsui Hark uses long shots to establish the locale
before moving in.
1
Three musicians shown against a fireplace in what looks like a luxurious
room.
2 Our suspicions confirmed by the second establishing shot, which shows
us other half of the ample room (shot/reverse-shot) and reveals a party
going on.
3 After this introduction, the camera moves forward with several closeups of both musicians and spectators.
4 At the end of the sequence, Hark shows us the entire room in a larger
shot. This final establishing shot is called a reestablishing shot, for it
shows us once again spatial relationships introduced with establishing
shots.
Clip 42
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Editing: Continuity Editing
But rules are made to be broken, as in
this early sequence from Leon (Luc
Besson, 1994) where the director
dispenses with establishing shot
altogether.
Clip 43
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Sound
Sound can be:
•
Diegetic: coming from the story space
•
Non-diegetic: coming from outside the story space
e.g. soundtrack music, voiceover.
•
Another distinction to be made: external diegetic when other characters can hear the sound;
internal diegetic: what character ‘hears’ inside head
eg clip from Women on the Edge of a Nervous
Breakdown (Almodovar) = external diegetic
eg clip from Stendhall Syndrome - internal diegetic what the character can “hear” inside her head but noone else can
•
•
Clip 44
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Sound
Most important form of non-diegetic sound is music
(also known as source music) - change of music can
change whole mood of scene
Scene from Citizen Kane where editing combines
with non-diegetic music to show Kane’s gradual
estrangement from first wife, Emily
Breakfast montage representing several years, with
only a few lines of dialogue. Each section joined by a
whip pan as years are compressed into a few minutes
as Kane and his wife become more hostile
The music also reinforces the sequence’s development
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Sound
Citizen Kane breakfast montage contd
•
•
•
initial late supper/early breakfast accompanied by
lilting waltz
a comic variation of the waltz follows initial
statement, then tense one; then horns and trumpets
restate the Kane theme
final portion of scene accompanies stony silence
between couple - slow , eerie variation on initial theme
Dissolution of of marriage stressed by theme-and variation
accompaniment
Clip 45
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Sound
Stinger chord
A strongly accented chord used to register shock or.
surprise.
Developed by composers such as Max Steiner (eg John
Ford’s The Searchers (1956) and Bernard Herrmann (eg
Alfred Hitchcock’s North by North West)
Clip 46
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Sound
Mickey Mousing
Term which arose from the animated films of Walt
Disney in the 1930s. Mickey Mouse an the other Disney
characters often move in exact synchronization with
music, even when they are not dancing.
Can be applied to non-animated film when the music is
closely syncronised with the action.
In King Kong (Merian C Cooper, 1933), the music follows
the steps of the tribal chief, suggesting power.
In Les Parapluies de Cherbourg/The Umbrellas of
Cherbourg, the music ‘falls’ as the character faints
Clip 47
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Sound
Overlapping Sound
A technique where the sound from one scene overlaps into
the next - usually by the sound in the second of two
adjacent scenes beginning a second or two before the end
of the first.
Overlapping sound creates an aural association in a
thematically linked sequence.
Walter Murch, sound designer in Apocalypse Now and the
English Patient used it often
One of first films used extensively was Citizen Kane.
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Sound
Overlapping Sound
In this scene, Kane is in the flat of the woman who
becomes his mistress, then his wife, for the first
time. Then there is a dissolve to some time later
where the characters are in same position but clearly
time has moved on (suggesting Kane has ‘set her up’ in
another flat.
The same music bridges both scenes
Clip 48
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Sound
Overlapping Sound
Kane’s applause at the end of the scene also bridges
to the next scene, a political street meeting.
The speech of Jed, Kane’s friend and ally, bridges to
the next scene where Kane seems to carry on the
same speech at a political rally in a hall
Clip 49
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Sound and Image
Sound can:
• Parallel the images: say the same thing e.g.
expressive music which reflects
characters’ emotions
• Counterpoint the images: say different
things e.g. ironic commentative music
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References
Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kristin (2004) Film Art: an
Introduction (7th edition). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Giannetti, Louis Understanding Movies
Monaco, James (1990) How to Read a Film (5th edition), New
Jersey, Prentice Hall
O’Shaughnessy, Michael (1999) Media and Society: an
Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thompson, Kristin (1999) Storytelling in the New Hollywood:
Understanding Classical Narrative Technique. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press)
Van Sijll, Jennifer (2005) Cinematic Storytelling: the 100 Most
Powerful Film Conventions Every Filmmaker Must Know. Studio
City CA: Michael Wiese.
Vogler, Christopher (1996) The Writer’s Journey: Mythic
Structure for Storytellers and Screenwriters.
London:Boxtree.
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