Cinematography Terminology and Concepts

Introduction: Thinking Like a Filmmaker

  • Greg M. Smith's essay argues for actively "thinking" about movies rather than passively "watching" them.
  • Understanding film construction and meaning leads to deeper pleasures and insights.
  • Film analysis is akin to analyzing literature, fostering critical engagement.

Key Concepts

  • Active Viewing vs. Passive Consumption:
    • Moving from watching for entertainment to engaging with film as a text for analysis.
  • Understanding Construction:
    • Examining filmmaking techniques, conventions, and choices (narrative structure, cinematography, editing, sound, genre).
  • Meaning-Making:
    • Exploring meanings conveyed by films, their creation, and socio-cultural implications.
  • The “Educated Person” and Media Literacy:
    • Critical engagement with media, including film, is crucial in a media-saturated world.
  • Pleasure and Insight:
    • Analyzing films offers pleasure derived from understanding, in addition to simple enjoyment.
  • Connection to Other Disciplines:
    • Film studies connects to cultural studies, history, and political analysis.

How To Watch a Movie

  • Actively watching movies involves understanding cinematic language.
  • Movies create the illusion of movement through projected still images.
  • Filmmakers use conventions to communicate meaning.
  • Understanding shots, editing, scenes, and sequences is vital.
  • Distinguishing between explicit and implicit meanings is important.
  • Form and content are equally significant.
  • Cinema serves as a cultural document, reflecting and influencing societal norms.

Key Concepts

  • Cinematic Language:
    • Rules and conventions filmmakers use to communicate meaning, a visual language viewers learn.
  • Illusion of Movement:
    • Cinema creates movement by rapidly projecting still images.
  • Shots, Scenes, and Sequences:
    • Basic building blocks: shots (individual recordings), scenes (composed of shots), sequences (composed of scenes).
  • Editing:
    • How shots are assembled to create meaning and rhythm.
  • Explicit vs. Implicit Meaning:
    • Explicit meaning is directly stated; implicit meaning is deeper, suggested meaning.
  • Form and Content:
    • How a story is told (form) is as important as the story itself (content).
  • Cinema as a Cultural Document:
    • Movies reflect and influence societal norms and values.

Film Form, Narrative Form

Narrative

  • Narrative is storytelling; movies organize events in a cause-and-effect sequence within time and space.
  • Key elements of narrative structure: story and plot.
  • Narrative patterns, character types (protagonist, antagonist), and narrative devices shape the viewer's experience.

Key Concepts

  • Narrative as Storytelling:
    • Recounting events in film.
  • Story vs. Plot:
    • Story: complete chronological, causal sequence of all events.
    • Plot: specific selection and arrangement of events presented in the film.
  • Cause and Effect:
    • Narrative events linked through cause-and-effect, driving the story.
  • Time and Space:
    • Narrative unfolds within a defined timeframe and in specific locations.
  • Narrative Structure:
    • Framework/organization of the plot (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution).
  • Narrative Patterns:
    • Recurring structures and ways of organizing stories.
  • Character Types:
    • Common roles (protagonist, antagonist, supporting characters).
  • Narrative Devices:
    • Techniques to shape narrative: flashbacks, flash-forwards, point of view, narration.
  • Viewer Experience:
    • Narrative choices impact audience understanding and engagement.

Film Form: Cameraperson (2016) Kristen Johnson

  • A personal, reflective documentary exploring the ethics and emotional impact of documentary filmmaking.
  • Johnson uses footage from 25 years of work, weaving together scenes from around the world.
  • Examines the role and responsibility of the cameraperson, blurring observer/participant lines.
  • Reflects on power dynamics in filming, filmmaker-subject relationship, and consequences of bearing witness.
  • Relies on motifs, parallels, and formal decisions to create meaning and suggest themes.

Key Terms

  • Motifs: elements or details that gain significance through repetition.
  • Parallels: Comparing characters, events, locations using narrative, visual, or sound devices.
  • Themes: Suggested by motifs, parallels, and formal decisions.

Form and Style

  • Form: overall patterning of the film; how parts work together to create effects.
  • Style: use of cinematic techniques in mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, and sound.

Narrative Form

  • Rashomon effect: a plot device; contradictory versions of the same incident.
  • Narrative: Storytelling
    • Story (fabula) vs. plot (syuzhet).
    • Flashback, flash-forward.
    • What has been omitted, what occurs more than once?
    • Screenplay.
    • Narrative: story, plot, screenplay.
    • Diegesis: diegetic, non-diegetic.
  • Narrative structure:
    • Exposition, backstory, dénouement, closure.
    • 3-act, 4-act, episodic, frame.
  • Characters: protagonist, anti-hero, antagonist, flat, round.
  • Narration: restricted, omniscient.
  • Genre

Diegesis

  • Diegetic: onscreen/offscreen, external and internal monologue.
  • Non-Diegetic: music, voiceover narration (external source), score.

Narrative Structure

  • Exposition: backstory.
  • Inciting incident.
  • Dénouement: falling action.
  • Resolution.
  • Closure: loose ends tied up.

Alternatives to 3-Act Structure

  • 4-Act Structure:
    1. Setup.
    2. Complicating action (turning point).
    3. Development (climax).
    4. Resolution.
  • Frame Narrative: character narrates embedded tale to implied viewer.
  • Episodic: less tightly connected events, unmotivated characters, various goals, often open-ended, day-in-the-life.

Characters

  • Protagonist.
  • Antagonist.
  • Anti-hero.

Narration

  • Restricted: conveys external events and mind of one character, story unfolds, (may have selective moments of omniscience).
  • Omniscient: can follow any character to show the audience what they need to know.

Genre

  • Types of stories based on narrative conventions.
  • Examples: Western, horror, romantic comedy, sports movie.
  • Useful classifier for audiences, producers, studios, distributors.
  • Formulaic? Rules to be broken?.
  • Hybridity.

Plot Segmentation

  • Division of film into structural units based on narrative time and space.
  • Change in time and/or place indicates a segment end.
  • A segment has “unity”.
  • Techniques like fades, dissolves, cuts, black screens mark sequence ends.
  • A plot segmentation “blueprint” helps visualize patterns.
  • Simple outline aids visualization.
  • Segmentation provides insights about film structure.

Mise-en-Scène

  • French term meaning "putting on stage," encompassing all elements within the film frame.
  • Creates overall look and feel, aesthetic context, unified visual experience.
  • Director manages mise-en-scène to shape film's appearance.

Key Concepts

  • Mise-en-scène: Overall look and feel of film, carefully arranging all elements within the frame.
  • Setting: Physical environment where the action takes place.
  • Character Design: Appearance of characters, including costume, hair, makeup.
  • Lighting: Use of light and shadow to create mood and emphasize elements.
  • Composition: Arrangement of elements within the frame.

V. F. Perkins: “Moments of Choice”

  • Discusses director's choices in translating script to screen.
  • Directing involves numerous choices, from casting to editing.
  • Director coordinates elements to create engaging story.
  • Control over camera angles, movement, editing shapes audience's viewpoint.
  • Director's style elevates film, offers personal conception of story's significance.

Key Concepts

  • Director's Choices: Directing involves numerous choices in all aspects of filmmaking.
  • Collaboration: Director must effectively coordinate all production elements.
  • Visual Storytelling: Directors use techniques like camera angles and editing to convey meaning.
  • Personal Style: A director's unique approach can enhance a film.
  • Audience Engagement: Director aims to create a vivid and engaging experience.

What is Mise-en-Scène?

  • Elements within frame contributing to film's overall look.

Main Components

  1. Setting.
  2. Character.
  3. Lighting.
  4. Composition.

Key Terms

  • Setting: visual, spatial, relationship to genre, prop
  • Performance/Character: acting, costume, make-up, movement
  • Lighting: hard, soft, natural/available, 3-point lighting (key, fill, back), high-key, natural-key/normal, low-key
  • Composition: rule of thirds, balance, symmetry, lines, diagonals, foreground/background, light and dark, chiaroscuro, color

Mise-en-Scène: Setting

  • Design shapes understanding of story action.
  • Setting creates backdrop but can be foregrounded.

Choices

  • Color
  • Use of props
  • Backdrop: matte paintings, CGI, green screen

Mise-en-Scène: Performance

  • Staging and movement of figures, actors’ performance.
  • Actor’s performance may be more or less individualized (type to complex) or stylized (flat to theatrical).
  • Motion and performance capture allow for realistic CGI characters.

Costume and Makeup

  • Can have specific functions in film's events.
  • Can be realistic or stylized.
  • Interact with setting.

Mise-en-Scène: Lighting

  • Creates composition and guides attention.
  • Creates shape and texture through highlights and shadows.
  • Features: source, direction, quality, and color.

Lighting: Three-Point Lighting (Source)

  • Basic technique suited for high-key lighting.
  • Key light illuminates a subject.
  • Fill light fills out shadows.
  • Back light separates subject from background.

Lighting: Direction

  • Frontal Lighting: eliminates surface shading.
  • Backlighting: creates depth and separates character from background.
  • Top Lighting: glamorous effect.
  • Sidelighting: sharp shading or sculpting.
  • Underlighting: distorts features, creates mystery or horror.
  • Rim Lighting: Lighting the edge, creating separation, depth, drama (halo effect).

Composition

  • Arrangement of elements in an image.
  • Focal points, lines, rule of thirds.
  • Balance, symmetry.
  • Color: hue, saturation, desaturated

M (1931) by Fritz Lang

  • Lang was Austrian-American, worked in Germany and the US.
  • M was Lang’s first sound film, co-written with his wife Thea von Harbou.
  • M was released in 1931, banned in 1934.
  • German Expressionism (1920s in film): key mise-en-scène element (distorted, exaggerated shapes to suggest emotional states, mental subjectivity), departure from realism.

Reception of M

  • Based on a true crime story: Peter Kürten, serial killer in Düsseldorf.
  • Pivotal film for Lang as his first sound film.
  • Not immediately popular, seen as an “issue” film (protection of children).
  • Now admired for complex form, ambivalence, ambiguity, sound, and images.
  • Unique structure built around the search process and modern city setting.
  • Mystery/serial killer film but murderer's identity is never in doubt.

Mise-en-Scène: Key Terms for M

  • Bilateral Symmetry: near perfect, minimize distraction.
  • (Un)Balanced Composition: suggests change to come, creates desire.
  • Contrast: in light, color, movement/stillness, chiaroscuro
  • Depth Cues: planes, 3D, shading, movement, overlap, color, size.
  • Deep/Shallow-Space Composition: distance between planes.
  • Frontality: forward-facing figures draw our eye, denying it creates suspense or desire.

Props

Inventory shots. Lighting: low-key (strong contrast, dark shadows).

  • Chiaroscuro: extreme low-key, high-contrast lighting.
  • Bilateral Symmetry, Shallow Space Composition.
  • Deep Space Composition.
  • Frontality (denial of…).

1920-30s Cinema

  • 1920s Cinema: transitions from spectacle to art, German Expressionism
  • 1927: Introduction of synchronized sound (The Jazz Singer)
  • 1929: Stock market crash, Great Depression (global impact)
  • 1930s French cinema: Golden Age, Poetic Realism:
    • director’s own outlook on life
    • social observation, working class, existential disenchantment
    • themes: doomed quest, tragic destiny, pessimism
    • style: deep space composition, long takes, location shooting, natural light and sound

Jean Renoir (1894-1979)

  • Son of Pierre-Auguste (painter)
  • Fought in WWI (cavalry, pilot), turned pacifist
  • Committed to ideals of Left, French Popular Front
  • Emigrated to US (Hollywood) during WWII, 1940s
  • “Greatest” and “most French” filmmaker, influenced Welles, New Wave, Scorsese

Selected Filmography

  • Madame Bovary (1934), The Grand Illusion (1937), The Rules of the Game (1939), French Cancan (1955)

The Rules of the Game (1939)

  • Social satire on the eve of WWII, prewar social disintegration, moral decline of the upper class, senseless violence
  • Lucid, bitter work with complex, theatrical structure
  • Style: long shots and deep space composition as though filming a stage, long takes, meticulous mise-en-scene
  • Message? Subversive and demoralizing, “unpatriotic, frivolous, and incomprehensible”
  • Reception: banned in France in October; restored in 1950s and recognized as a masterpiece

Cinematography

  • Capturing the moving image.
  • Requires mise-en-scène and a narrative.
  • Director of Photography (DP) translates the director’s vision into usable footage.
  • Camera department: camera operator, assistants, focus puller, DIT.
  • Lighting and grip departments: on-set safety.
  • Key terms: