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Film Unit

Media Studies

Mrs. Tuccillo

Film Notes

Please be aware that these notes are an ABBREVIATED list of film terms; it is meant to give you a general idea of the concepts of film – it is in no way a complete list of notes… but it will suffice for the intents and purposes of this class.

The Structure of a Film

  1. Frame – an individual picture, or exposure, on a strip of film (24 fps)
  2. Shot – the basic unit of film 0 any continuous piece of unedited film (average 20 – 30 seconds)
  3. Scene – a group of interrelated shots taking place in the same location
  4. Sequence – a group of interrelated scenes that form a natural unit in the story

Types of Shots

  1. ELS – (“establishing shot”) Extreme Long Shot – ¼ mile away usually at the beginning of a sequence that establishes setting.
  2. LS – Long Shot - shows the main visual subject of the shot in its surroundings
  3. MS – Medium Shot – shows the main subject in its immediate surroundings
  4. CU – Close Up – shows just the main subject
  5. ECU – Extreme form of the Close Up

Camera Angles

  1. ELA – Extreme Low Angle – camera is directly below the subject looking up
  2. LA – Low Angle – makes subjects look powerful/important – conveys authority or strength
  3. FA – Flat Angle – (or an “eye level shot”) – neutral shots – convey no sense of strength/weakness
  4. HA – High Angle – camera is higher than the subject – looks down at the subject and the subject appears inferior and insignificant – conveys a sense of defeat or weakness
  5. EHA – Extreme High Angle – (“bird’s eye view”) camera is directly overhead looking down at the top of subject – sometimes to give the viewer a sense of seeing something s/he is not supposed to see

Camera Movements

  1. Pan – camera is in place and swivels side to side, capturing horizontal movement
  2. Track – captures horizontal movement , but moves the entire camera
  3. Zoom – camera is in place, lens is manipulated to create appearance of movement closer/further away
  4. Dolly – camera moves in and out – difference between zoom-dolly is that the dolly leaves more background visible
  5. Tilt – camera stays still, but tilts up and down (captures vertical movement)
  6. Boom – camera moves up and down to capture vertical movement (usually mounted on a crane or mechanical arm)
  7. Subjective POV – it’s like your seeing what the subject is seeing (like Blair Witch)

Moving from One Shot to Another

  1. Cut – a change in camera angle or placement, location or time
  2. Fade – a smooth gradual transition from a normal image to complete blackness or vice versa.
  3. Dissolve – an editing technique whereby the images of one shot are gradually replaced by the images of another

Other Terms

  1. Superimpose – when one image is placed over another
  2. Montage – strobe light effect – when the director cuts from one image to the next to the next very quickly, usually to create a sense of panic, fear, confusion…

Definitions Useful for Discussing Film

  • PROTAGONIST - the most important character
  • ANTAGONIST - the major character or force opposing the main character
  • CONFLICT - the tension or struggle that develops between the pro. and ant.
  • Person against person
  • Person against environment
  • Person against self
  • Between good and evil
  • Between two good outcomes or two evil outcomes
  • DEVELOPING CHARACTER - one who undergoes an important change or learns a lesson as a result of his or her experiences
  • STATIC CHARACTER - one who changes little
  • STOCK CHARACTER - a type that has occurred so often in fiction that his or her behavior will be predictable
  • FLAT CHARACTER - one who has only one or tow significant traits (entirely good or entirely bad)
  • ROUND CHARACTER - one who has a complex mixture of traits
  • FOILS - characters in fiction who serve as contrasts to each other
  • SETTING - time and place
  • THEME - the central ideas or truths
  • MOOD - the emotion, feeling, atmosphere, or tone
  • FORESHADOWING - the use of significant hints to predict outcomes
  • FLASHBACK - a scene inserted showing events that had happened at a time before the action of the main plot
  • DENOUEMENT - the events following the climax of a store; concluding scenes where mysteries are unraveled and confusions are set straight
  • CLIMAX - the turning point
  • RISING ACTION - events leading to the climax
  • SATIRE - comedy that makes fun of human character traits or typical patterns of behavior; we are amused but uncomfortable seeing ourselves in the characters
  • PARODY - a comic imitation of a serious literary form
  • NEGATIVE/TRAGIC RESOLUTION - the protagonist is defeated by his/her opposition, or fails to overcome the difficulties presented
  • POSTITIVE/COMIC RESOLUTION - the protagonist solves his or her problems and overcomes the difficulties
  • FIRST PERSON VIEWPOINT(SUBJECTIVE) - telling of the story by one of the characters involved
  • THIRD PERSON VIEWPOINT(OBJECTIVE) - telling of the story by the narrator who is not involved in the action.

Criteria for Judging a Film

Subject:

  • What is the film about? What is its plot?
  • What is its storyline? Into what genre does it fall?
  • What is the value of the subject? How important is it to you?

Theme:

  • What are the underlying messages of the film?
  • Are these important to society? To you?

Acting:

  • How believable are the actors and actresses?
  • Do they express a wide range of experience and emotion? A depth of realism?
  • Does their timing seem realistic and natural?
  • Are the characters they portray believable relative to the situations in which they are involved?

Dialogue:

  • Are the lines spoken by the characters appropriate and natural regarding time, place and situations in which they are appearing? Are lines spoken convincingly?
  • Are these spoken to give the viewer clues about what is happening?

Settings:

  • How are the locations, props, and costumes used to create atmosphere?
  • Are they appropriate to the era in which the film is set?
  • To what level of detail are the settings realistic?
  • How are settings used as devices of character development?

Lighting:

  • How is lighting used to set the tone and atmosphere of the scene?
  • Are shadows and intense contrasts of light and dark used to communicate plot and character development? Are lighting devices overused?

Music:

  • How much of a film’s score is original, and how much is taken from other sources?
  • Is the music used as a crutch to generate excitement or tension?
  • Is it used to complement the feel of a scene?
  • How well matched is the music to the action or mood on-screen?

Cinematography:

  • Are camera techniques used in conventional ways or does the film include any unique visual style?
  • Do shot lengths and angles vary?
  • Is camera movement relied on to create excitement?
  • Is composition used creatively to convey meaning?

Special Effects:

  • What purpose do special effects serve in the scene(s) where these are used?
  • Are these FX spectacular?
  • Are these FX subtle? Why?

Editing:

  • How does the pace of editing establish the rhythm and momentum of the film?
  • Is the editing appropriate to the action which take place?
  • Are transitions between shots used or overused?

Overall Direction:

  • Has the director skillfully blended all the visual and acoustic elements together?
  • Is s/he clearly more comfortable with one element at the expense of another?
  • Does the technical form of each shot bring out the inner nature of the subject matter?
  • How well did the film achieve its objectives?

Lighting?

Name:Period:Date

Title of Film/Director

Scene/Chapter

Summary of Scene:

Technique Analysis

Background Set/Pieces

  • Shapes/color of scenery, sets, costumes, use of light and darkness, mood or tone of scene

Performance of Individual Actors

  • Lead character’s performance, other characters, effectiveness of dialogue and story line, does it feel honest???

Director’s “Fingerprints”

  • Use of particular camera angles/shots, use of lighting, use of music

Particular Angle/Shot/Light/MusicSuggests…

Characteristics of Classic Film Noir (Black Cinema)

Visual style

Film noirs tended to use low-key lighting schemes producing stark light/dark contrasts and dramatic shadow patterning. The shadows of Venetian blinds or banister rods, cast upon an actor, a wall, or an entire set, are an iconic visual in film noir and had already become a cliché well before the neo-noir era. Characters' faces may be partially or wholly obscured by darkness—a relative rarity in conventional Hollywood moviemaking. While black-and-white cinematography is considered by many to be one of the essential attributes of classic noir, the color films Leave Her to Heaven (1945) and Niagara (1953) are routinely included in noir filmographies, while Slightly Scarlet (1956), Party Girl (1958), and Vertigo (1958) are classified as noir by varying numbers of critics.

Film noir is also known for its use of Dutch angles, low-angle shots, and wide-angle lenses. Other devices of disorientation relatively common in film noir include shots of people reflected in one or more mirrors, shots through curved or frosted glass or other distorting objects (such as during the strangulation scene in Strangers on a Train), and special effects sequences of a sometimes bizarre nature. Night-for-night shooting, as opposed to the Hollywood norm of day-for-night, was often employed. From the mid-1940s forward, location shooting became increasingly frequent in noir.

*Cinematographic choices emphasize the story’s themes and mood.*

Structure and Narrational Devices

Film noirs tend to have unusually convoluted story lines, frequently involving flashbacks and other editing techniques that disrupt and sometimes obscure the narrative sequence. Framing the entire primary narrative as a flashback is also a standard device. Voiceover narration, sometimes used as a structuring device, came to be seen as a noir hallmark; while classic noir is generally associated with first-person narration (i.e., by the protagonist), Stephen Neale notes that third-person narration is common among noirs of the semi-documentary style.

Bold experiments in cinematic storytelling were sometimes attempted during the classic era: Lady in the Lake, for example, is shot entirely from the point of view of protagonist Philip Marlowe; the face of star (and director) Robert Montgomery is seen only in mirrors. In their different ways, both Sunset Boulevard and D.O.A. are tales told by dead men. Latter-day noir has been in the forefront of structural experimentation in popular cinema, as exemplified by such films as Pulp Fiction, Fight Club, and Memento.

Plots, characters, and Settings

Crime, usually murder, is an element of almost all film noirs; in addition to standard-issue greed, jealousy is frequently the criminal motivation. A crime investigation—by a private eye, a police detective (sometimes acting alone), or a concerned amateur—is the most prevalent, but far from dominant, basic plot. In other common plots the protagonists are implicated in heists or con games, or in murderous conspiracies often involving adulterous affairs. False suspicions and accusations of crime are frequent plot elements, as are betrayals and double-crosses. According to J. David Slocum, "protagonists assume the literal identities of dead men in nearly fifteen percent of all noir." Amnesia is fairly epidemic—"noir's version of the common cold", in the words of film historian Lee Server.

Film noirs tend to revolve around heroes who are more flawed and morally questionable than the norm, often fall guys of one sort or another. The characteristic protagonists of noir are described by many critics as "alienated";[130] in the words of Silver and Ward, "filled with existential bitterness".Certain archetypal characters appear in many film noirs—hardboiled detectives, femme fatales, corrupt policemen, jealous husbands, intrepid claims adjusters, and down-and-out writers. For characters of every stripe, cigarette smoking may seem virtually mandatory. As can be observed in many movies of an overtly neo-noir nature, the private eye and the femme fatale are the character types with which film noir has come to be most identified, but only a minority of movies now regarded as classic noir feature either.

Film noir is often associated with an urban setting, and a few cities—Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, in particular—are the location of many of the classic films. In the eyes of many critics, the city is presented in noir as a "labyrinth" or "maze". Bars, lounges, nightclubs, and gambling dens are frequently the scene of action. The climaxes of a substantial number of film noirs take place in visually complex, often industrial settings, such as refineries, factories, train yards, power plants—most famously the explosive conclusion of White Heat. In the popular (and, frequently enough, critical) imagination, in noir it is always night and it always rains.

Worldview, Morality, and Tone

Film noir is often described as essentially pessimistic. The noir stories that are regarded as most characteristic tell of people trapped in unwanted situations (which, in general, they did not cause but are responsible for exacerbating), striving against random, uncaring fate, and frequently doomed. The movies are seen as depicting a world that is inherently corrupt. Classic film noir has been associated by many critics with the American social landscape of the era—in particular, with a sense of heightened anxiety and alienation that is said to have followed World War II. Film noirs, especially those of the 1950s and the height of the Red Scare, are often said to reflect cultural paranoia; Kiss Me Deadly is the noir most frequently marshaled as evidence for this claim.

Film noir is often said to be defined by "moral ambiguity", yet the Production Code obliged almost all classic noirs to see that steadfast virtue was ultimately rewarded and vice, in the absence of shame and redemption, severely punished (however dramatically incredible the final rendering of mandatory justice might be).

The tone of film noir is generally regarded as downbeat; some critics experience it as darker still—"overwhelmingly black", according to Robert Ottoson. Influential critic (and filmmaker) Paul Schrader wrote in a seminal 1972 essay that "film noir is defined by tone", a tone he seems to perceive as "hopeless". In describing the adaptation of Double Indemnity, leading noir analyst Foster Hirsch describes the "requisite hopeless tone" achieved by the filmmakers, which appears to characterize his view of noir as a whole. On the other hand, definitive film noirs such as The Big Sleep, The Lady from Shanghai, and Double Indemnity itself are famed for their hardboiled repartee, often imbued with sexual innuendo and self-reflexive humor—notes of another tone.

Now… outline the article. Learn the article. Know the article. Love the article. Here’s some help…

What is important about VISUAL STYLE?

Lighting schemes?

Shadows?

Faces?

Cinematography?

What is important about STRUCTURE and NARRATIONAL DEVICES?

Story lines involve…

Narration?

What is important about PLOTS, CHARACTERS and SETTINGS?

Common/basic plot elements?

Characteristics of HEROES?

ARCHETYPAL characters? Archetypal means ”the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based”.

Settings?

What is important about WORLDVIEW, MORALITY and TONE?

How are noir stories often described?

Discuss morality of film noir.

The tone of film noir?

Preparing for your Film Critique

Some pointers…

Personal opinion and taste will become part of your argument.

In addition to your feelings about a film, analyze the film OBJECTIVELY by understanding the aspects that make up the film.

Understand the basic film vocabulary and the basis of film structure.

Questions should begin to form themselves regarding the film.

Jot down notes with questions you have concerning the film – a good way to start an analysis.

Images are constantly moving, so try to look for key moments, patterns or images…

Ask certain questions – What does the title mean? Why does the film start the way it does? Why does it conclude on a particular image? Is there a pattern of especially striking camera movements?

What shots are used?

How are light and shadow used?

Your critique should include:

A summary of the film.

A discussion of the director’s intent and/or controlling images –

Controlling ideas – revenge, romance, etc.

Film techniques

Final statement

Include the following points…

A brief summary so the reader (me) will understand that you are referring to specific narrative elements.

A discussion of the director’s intent in terms of theme and social/political outlook.

Discussion of the controlling images or ideas.

Discussion of specific scenes that support themes, director’s intent and controlling ideas.

Discussion of film technique and directorial style and how it supports the theme and concepts

  • Special effects
  • Camera techniques
  • Shots used
  • Symbols, controlling images

It must be typewritten, please.