Transcript Powerpoint: Do The Right Thing–Film Terms

Do The Right Thing
Spike Lee, 1989
Review:
• Montage vs. Mise-en-scene
• Continuity Editing
– Shot-Reverse shot (Do The Right Thing (15:50-16:30)
Mother Sister and Da Mayor)
– Eyeline match
• Jump Cut—e.g. Bonnie and Clyde (Penn, 1967)
• Parallel Editing/Cross-cutting (Within Our Gates
[Micheaux, 1920])
• Subjective shot (e.g. Lady in the Lake [1947] and Being
John Malkovich (1999)
• Direct Address
• Shot: A. A stretch of film made up of a series
of frames that is uninterrupted by editing.
(The shot ends as soon as the editing begins.)
B. A single frame of a film.
• The Long Take: A shot that continues for an
unusually long period of time before the
transition to the next shot.
• E.g. A Touch of Evil (Welles, 1959)
• Angle:
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Camera Placement
Low Angle
Straight-on Angle
High Angle
Oblique Angle—comes at a diagonal, disrupts our sense of vertical
orientation.
• Height:
– Crane shot—Change in framing accomplished by having the camera
above the ground and moving through the air in any direction.
• Distance:
• Extreme Close up (usually focuses on some aspect of the face, not rendering
the entire face)
• Close-up (typically renders the entire face, scale of the face—or other object
is large)
• Medium Close-up (Frames the human body from the waist up)
• Medium shot
• American shot (Figure is shot from the knees up).
• Medium Long shot
• Long shot (Human figures are visible but background dominates.
• Extreme Long shot (Human figure is barely visible)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Do The Right Thing (1989)
Establishing shot
• Usually a distant framing that illustrates the
spatial relations among important figures,
objects and settings. It also usually provides a
view of all the space in which the action is
about to occur. Often comes at the beginning
of a scene. Can also tell us something about
the quality of this space.
Horizontal Camera Movement
• Achieved in two ways, generally:
– Panning—Camera mimics the action of turning one’s
head. When the angle of vision shifts horizontally, as if
the camera is “looking” from left to right, but the
camera itself stays stationary.
– Tracking Shot—Rather than just moving its head, the
camera “walks.” Tracking shot is when the camera
actually moves from left to right or backward or
forward. (Do The Right Thing [35:25])
• Zoom—Gives the viewers the sense of getting
closer to the subject through the camera’s
lens without moving the camera.
• Deep Focus—When the camera renders
figures in the foreground and background in
relatively equal focus, causing the viewer to
have to attend to multiple planes of action.
• Handheld shot—One created with a camera
not stabilized by a tripod. (Do The Right
Thing (7:40)
Two Shot: A shot with two figures in it.
Deep Focus
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
Deep Focus 2
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
Deep Focus 3
Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
Do The Right Thing (1989)
Mise-En-Abyme
• When one space gives way to another in a
seemingly infinite succession (e.g. The Gang’s
All Here [Berkeley, 1943])
• Three Point Lighting—Dominant in
Classical Hollywood film. There are
three sources of light in the shot:
– One primary source of light, usually
facing the scene’s primary figure
diagonally (Key Light);
– One from a source near the camera,
but still facing the figure (fill light)
and
– One from behind and above the
figure (back light).
• High Key Lighting—sense of
brightness and illumination
created. Not very much contrast
between light and dark.
• Low Key Lighting—e.g. Touch of Evil
(1959) The key light is dimmed to
create a high contrast between
light and shadow.
• Backlighting—Comes from behind
the subject being filmed. Creates a
silhouette.
Lighting
Backlighting
The Big Combo (1955)
Sound
• Sound’s three components: Noise, Music, Speech
• Diegetic sound—Comes from within the narrative.
• Non-Diegetic sound—Comes from outside the
narrative
– Voice-over
– Music on the soundtrack
• Sound Bridge—When a sound seems to carry over
from one scene to another.
• Polyphony—when (conflicting) voices are juxtaposed at
a dialogical angle that reveals more than any one voice
alone would have revealed.