How the camera is used in TV and Film to tell a story, character and action.
The art of cinematography
Basic Elements:
The shot: Affects our emotional and psychological relationship with character and setting through composition and speed.
Movement: Affects our emotional and psychological relationship.
Why do we use shots?
Basic building blocks of visual grammar
Visual equivalent of sentence structure
If shots are words mise en scene is meaning and editing narrative structure
Basic shots: Wide shot -Medium shot - Close up - Extreme close up
Wide shot: covey a sense of context, character relationship to the surroundings. Establishing shot
Mid shot: Focus attention on one or more principal characters.
Close up: Conveys intimacy and emotion
Extreme close up: Highlighted emotion, dramatic tension or a reveal
In a documentary interview or conversation the person who is being interview doesnt look at the camera, trying to give the idea that the camera isnt there and the conversation isn't directed at you.
"The rule of thirds is applied by aligning a subject with the guide lines and their intersection points, placing the horizon on the top or bottom line, or allowing linear features in the image to flow from section to section."
Angels and speed.
High angle shot: Objective and alienating, diminishes a character
Low angle shot: emphasises a character, they probably are powerful or have dominance
Dutch/Tilt angle: disorientating, creates psychological tension.
Expressionism presents subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect to evoke a certain mood or idea. Emotional experience rather than physical reality
Motion and emotion:
Why do we move the camera?
To heighten action or emotion. Michael Bay likes to move the camera for no reason - It's not particularly helping us understand what is going on
To convey objective or subjective viewpoints
Refocus the audiences attention within a scene
Explore or change the environment or setting
The only 4 reasons we should really be moving a camera.
Hitchcocks Frenzy - Use of the camera movement to emotionally distance audience from action.
The moving camera shows isolation, the women in the scene has no chance to escape the serial killer.
One of the reason why its so creepy is the how the camera is placed. Its always placed in a way that you are looking through the killers eyes.
Alienation - The use of a reverse crane shot is an example of alienation effect.
Alienation is the extent to which you maintain a critical distance from a cultural production. It's often associated with passively experience the media. The audience remains removed from the media, critically considering the signs, narrative and so on.
The use of the camera in Halloween (1978) is incredible because it was the first time ever that a steady cam was used, it was also all in one shot from a particular viewpoint (Michael Myres)
We dont think this whole view is of a child until it is revealed to us later on in the scene. Then in a brief moment we are removed from the point of view of Michael to looking down on him holding a knife with who would guess are his parents.
Elements of visual style:
Denotive: directing attention
Expressive: Bringing out or magnifying feelingful qualities
Decorative: independent or semi independent of narrative design
Symbolic functions: invoking abstract concepts.
Use of handheld in documentary:
Heightens action and emotion
Dynamics of transition
Places character in context
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EDITING
"The assembling of visual material into sequences"
Constructs a narrative
Used to manipulate time (condense, lengthen, flashback and flash forward)
Juxtaposes ideas an concept (visual and intellectual)
Long take examples. ROPE (1948) By Alfred Hitchcock has 10minute takes with hidden edits to join up the whole action. The way to make it look like there is no edits is for example someone moving that fills up the screen or zooming right into something so that when you go to cut back with a new camera it doesn't look like there is any edits.
RUSSIAN ARK (2002) 87 minute continuos shot using a steadicam
Mise en scene and cinematography create implicit meaning WITHIN shots. What editing creates is an implicit meaning between shots.
The shot by itself doesn't mean anything but in the context of what is happening in the scene you know what happens.
4 Key elements of editing.
Spatial: relationship between different spaces and editors manipulation of them
Temporal: manipulation of time within the film in relation to order, duration and frequency eg: montage
Rhythmic: manipulation of duration shots; accents, beats and jumps and the tempo eg: action and suspense scene.
Graphic: A relationship between pictorial qualities of shots or scene eg: graphic match cut
Editing is important because it creates a visual narrative from simple script descriptions or unedited rushes. It's also the most creative aspect of filmmaking.
A good editor can make bad shots work, a bad editor can ruin a good shot.
Two schools of editing theory:
Continuity Editing: Gives the viewer the impression that the action unfolds with spatiotemporal consistency. In most films, logical coherence is achieved by cutting to continuity, which emphasizes smooth transition of time and space.
Soviet montage is where a formal theory and technique where editing serves an ideological place.
Soviet filmmakers showed that film could serve a political education purpose for the betterment of society.
Eisenstien said that montage, especially intellectual montage is an alternative to continuity editing.
Montage is conflict - where new ideas emerge from collisions within the montage sequence.
5 principles of soviet montage:
Metric: Editing which follows a specific tempo, cutting the next shot no matter of action
Rhythmic: similar to metric but allowing for visual continuity from edit to edit
Tonal: uses the emotional meaning of the shot eg: sleeping babies denote peace
Overtone/Associative: a fusion of metric, rhythmic and tonal montage
Intellectual: editing together shots which when combined convey a intellectual or metaphorical meaning
Modern documentary editing:
Evidentiary: Meaning of edits is reinforced by narration or dialogue. shots are often illustrative and usually maintain some visual continuity.
Dynamic editing: In dynamic editing, concepts of matching and continuity rarely apply. Shots are ordered by meaning but not necessarily by their relationship to each other in time or space. A documentary filmmaker photographing a leopard taking down a gazelle can’t ask for a re-take or another angle. Generally, he only gets one shot at one angle. Because of this he will need to string together discontinuous shots to create meaning and tell his story.
EDITING
"The assembling of visual material into sequences"
Constructs a narrative
Used to manipulate time (condense, lengthen, flashback and flash forward)
Juxtaposes ideas an concept (visual and intellectual)
Long take examples. ROPE (1948) By Alfred Hitchcock has 10minute takes with hidden edits to join up the whole action. The way to make it look like there is no edits is for example someone moving that fills up the screen or zooming right into something so that when you go to cut back with a new camera it doesn't look like there is any edits.
RUSSIAN ARK (2002) 87 minute continuos shot using a steadicam
Mise en scene and cinematography create implicit meaning WITHIN shots. What editing creates is an implicit meaning between shots.
The shot by itself doesn't mean anything but in the context of what is happening in the scene you know what happens.
4 Key elements of editing.
Spatial: relationship between different spaces and editors manipulation of them
Temporal: manipulation of time within the film in relation to order, duration and frequency eg: montage
Rhythmic: manipulation of duration shots; accents, beats and jumps and the tempo eg: action and suspense scene.
Graphic: A relationship between pictorial qualities of shots or scene eg: graphic match cut
Editing is important because it creates a visual narrative from simple script descriptions or unedited rushes. It's also the most creative aspect of filmmaking.
A good editor can make bad shots work, a bad editor can ruin a good shot.
Two schools of editing theory:
Continuity Editing: Gives the viewer the impression that the action unfolds with spatiotemporal consistency. In most films, logical coherence is achieved by cutting to continuity, which emphasizes smooth transition of time and space.
Soviet montage is where a formal theory and technique where editing serves an ideological place.
Soviet filmmakers showed that film could serve a political education purpose for the betterment of society.
Eisenstien said that montage, especially intellectual montage is an alternative to continuity editing.
Montage is conflict - where new ideas emerge from collisions within the montage sequence.
5 principles of soviet montage:
Metric: Editing which follows a specific tempo, cutting the next shot no matter of action
Rhythmic: similar to metric but allowing for visual continuity from edit to edit
Tonal: uses the emotional meaning of the shot eg: sleeping babies denote peace
Overtone/Associative: a fusion of metric, rhythmic and tonal montage
Intellectual: editing together shots which when combined convey a intellectual or metaphorical meaning
Modern documentary editing:
Evidentiary: Meaning of edits is reinforced by narration or dialogue. shots are often illustrative and usually maintain some visual continuity.
Dynamic editing: In dynamic editing, concepts of matching and continuity rarely apply. Shots are ordered by meaning but not necessarily by their relationship to each other in time or space. A documentary filmmaker photographing a leopard taking down a gazelle can’t ask for a re-take or another angle. Generally, he only gets one shot at one angle. Because of this he will need to string together discontinuous shots to create meaning and tell his story.
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