Film Midterm - Key Terms

medium

a technology for communication, kind of

form

way of categorizing narrative based on its structure or purpose

genre (won’t be asked definition*)

most simply, a way of characterizing narratives by type

cinema of attractions

• Cinematic movement associated w/ early cinema (~1895-1906) showcasing the possibilities of the medium of film, focusing on spectacle over narrative. (The “attraction” was the magic that film can produce rather than the stories it can tell.)

• Still see movies today draw on this

Actualité Films

• Type of cinema of attractions

• Lumerie bros.

• realism, voyeurism

• documentary, travel

• **look at what cinema can capture

Theatrical/trick films

• type of cinema of attractions

• George Melies

• fictional, theatrical

• exhibitionism, acknowledges the camera

• **look at what cinema can create

Narrative image

• The idea of the film, arrived at via publicity and marketing, institutionalized public discourse (i.e. journalism), and unofficial word of mouth

Generic image

• Our culturally circulating idea of what a genre looks like

Generic realms of verisimilitude

• The standards by which something seems plausible/appropriate within a genre

Repetition + difference

• Genres repeat recognizable conventions while varying them

Story

• The raw material of a story, or the overarching narrative

Plot

• The unique sequence of events that organizes how the story is told

Themes

• Idea or unifying concepts that pervades in a work of art or literature (can often be stated in a word or short phrase)

Motifs

• A repeated narrative element that supports one or more of the themes of the story (can be visual, auditory, or verbal)

Mise en scène

• everything placed or arranged in front of the camera

• Encompasses

  • setting/props, costuming, blocking, staging, performance, lighting

high-key lighting

• low contrast

low-key lighting

• high contrast

hard lighting

• has sharp edges

soft lighting

• has soft/hazy edges

chiaroscuro lighting

• dramatic type of lighting

• hard and low-key

Shot

• uninterrupted duration on screen

Cinematography

• how the camera presents what is in front of it

• includes

  • framing

  • lenses

  • camera movement

  • focus

  • exposure/color

4 categories of framing

• Camera angle

• Camera height

• Camera level

• Camera distance

Camera angle

• high, low, eye-level

Camera height

• the camera’s distance above the ground, usually with respect to the human body

• includes crane shots, bird’s eye views, aerial

Camera level

• only worried about it if it is canted (“titled”), also called a dutch angle

Camera distance

• the camera’s distance from the subject

Camera movements (see videos on slides, 144-154)

• pan (left to right)

• tilt (up to down)

• track/dolly (camera mounted on platform, moves smoothy)

• pedestal (entire camera moves up and down without changing angle of lens)

• Arc (physical camera orbits in curved, semi-circular, 180/360 motion)

• handheld

• steadicam

• zoom

How to tell if something is a dolly/track in vs. a zoom

• background will change dimensions in a dolly/track

speed of motion

• has to do with frame rate and refers to the number of frames per second

  • standard in film is 24 fps

Lenses

Lenses can affect:

• How much we see (angle of view)

• How space appears (depth and spatial relationships)

• How subjects appear (size and distortion)

• What is in focus (in combo with aperture, distance, etc.)

A lens doesn’t just determine what fits in the frame, but also changes how it appears to us.

Wide/short lens

• often leaves everything in focus

• exaggerates depth

• wider field of view

• can distort image at edges of frame (fish eye)

normal/standard

• most closely approximates the human eye

• horizontal and vertical lines rendered straight/perpendicular

long lens

• often makes what’s not in focus blurry

• compresses depth

• narrower field of view

• very long = called telephoto

racking focus

• change focus of a lens

• accomplished with a zoom lens

deep focus

• term for keeping subjects in front and back in focus. This technique is specific to the wide-angle lens

deep space

• refers to the staging of elements within the frame

editing

• the coordination of one shot to the next

transitions

• cut

• dissolve

• fade in/fade out

• wipe

• smash cut

• iris

• invisible cut

  • gives impression of single take

continuity editing

• Editing designed to make space, time, and action feel continuous across cuts. The goal is for you not to notice the editing

• techniques

  • 180 degree rule + 30 degree rule

  • shot-reverse-shot

  • eye-line match

  • certain match cuts

  • elliptical editing

    • leaves out parts of an event to shorten screen time (ex. someone at bottom of stairs, cut to them at top)

Kuleshov effect

• “Kuleshov cut together shots of actors ‘looking at each other’ but on Moscow streets miles apart, then meeting and strolling together and looking at the White House in Washington” (Film Art, 228).

  • He was thus able to make it seem as though the actors were in D.C. instead of Moscow. Get it?

Discontinuity editing

• designed to disrupt or draw attention to relationships of space, time, and action across cuts. The editing itself may become noticeable

• techniques

  • breaking 180 degree + 30 degree rule

  • certain match cuts

  • jump cuts

    • slice time out of a continuous shot, making subject leap into a diff time or position

  • freeze frames

  • sometimes parallel editing/cross-cutting

  • overlapping editing

overlapping editing

• technique of discontinutiy editing

• cinematic technique that expands the duration of a scene by repeating an action from multiple camera angles or shots

time of film

• runtime of film

time of action / story duration

• total time of narrative (day, weeks, years, millennia…)

film sound

• is selected, recorded, created, edited and mixed. Everything you hear has been put there

3 types of film sound

• speech

• noise

• music

• *can all overlap

properties of sound

• loudness

• pitch

• timbre

loudness

• perceived volume/intensity

pitch

• perceived highness or lowness

timbre

• the color, tone, or quality of the sound

  • helps you tell diff instruments or voices apart even when they hit the same note at the same volume

diegetic sound

• originates in the story world

• on or off-screen

non-diegetic sound

• originates outside of the story world

• ex) a film’s score

synchronous sound

• occurs at the same story moment as the image

asynchronous sound

• audio doesn’t match with a visible source on screen

sound bridge

• sound occurs across a cut, starting early or ending late, connecting shots or scenes

fidelity

• The extent to which a sound seems appropriate to the source we believe produced it

synchresis

• term for our tendency to perpetually weld a sound and image together when they occur simultaneously

rhythm

• sound has rhythm and can establish patterns of

  • pace, duration, accent, repetition

• sound can be

  • rhythmically coordinated

  • rhythmically disparate

sonic perspective

• how the soundtrack represents the spatial relationship b/w sound and listener (Where is the sound coming from, and how far away does it seem?)

point of audition

• the perspective from which we hear the scene (with whom are we listening?)