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Summary of entire Media Aesthetics lectures and readings
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This summary includes a short summary of all essential concepts featured in the readings and seminars of the course.
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Media Aesthetics Full Course Summary - With practice analysis
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Media Aesthetic Notes - Looking at Movies
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Week 1: Cinematic languageThe word cinema comes from the Greek word for movement; kinesis. It is used by Auguste and Louis
Lumière as the name for their film hall.
Film: a celluloid strip on which the images that form motion picture are captured. Movies is short for
motion pictures. A shot is an unbroken span of action captured by an uninterrupted run of the
camera (LaM).
Film analysis involves more than breaking down a sequence, scene or an entire movie to identify the
tools and techniques that compose it; the investigation is concerned with the effect and function of
that combination.
Formal analysis: focusses on the means by with a product is expressed.
Cultural analysis: focusses more on the context of the product.
o These are not mutually exclusive. A formal analysis can point towards cultural
analysis.
Fade-in/out is used to convey a passage of time. Based on the principle that the rising and setting of
the sun let us know that time has elapsed.
Low angle shot empowers the subject. We are used to look up to important figures who often stand
on podiums or stages. This portrays them as strong, noble or threatening.
Cut on action hides potentially jarring shifts from one shot to another by cutting on the moment of a
happening action.
Explicit meaning: the concrete actions.
Implicit meaning: the underlying message and meaning.
Mono myth/hero’s journey: a story where ordinary people receive an unexpected call to adventure.
They ultimately win a decisive victory over a seemingly invincible opponent. They usually are
accompanied by a talisman of sorts (the lightsaber in Star Wars).
Bechdel test: a tool created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel that qualifies films as women friendly: An
artwork must (1) have at least two women characters who (2) talk to each other (3) about something
else besides a man.
High concept film: easily recognizable concept that is therefore ways to market and advertise.
Movie brats is the generation that grew up with film and therefore had a different style of directing.
They became the New Hollywood (Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, Brian de Palma, Martin
Scorsese). They often worked together and used the same people behind the scenes.
Hitchcock explains the difference between suspense and surprise: In order to get suspense, you give
the audience a certain amount of information and leave the rest to their own imagination.
The Spielberg Oner: a long shot built out of multiple other shots along the way.
Jaws novel trivia: Its massive success caused for great fear of sharks. It had a negative impact on the
image of the creatures.
, Week 2: Form and aesthetics
All subjects of film form:
Mise-en-scène: lightning, setting, props, costumes, make-up;
Sound: dialogue, music, ambience, SFX;
Narrative: establish, develop, resolve;
Editing: shots to sequences to scenes;
Content: subject of artwork;
Form: means by which the subject is expressed and experienced (in a particular way).
Content and form understanding can help us distinguish one work of art from another or compare
styles and visions.
Parallel editing: a technique that makes different lines of action appear to be occurring
simultaneously.
Movies depend on light to provide illusion and manipulate space and time in unique ways.
Freeze frame: stilling an image. This and slow-motion are used to keep viewers in the momentum.
Although not every film is realistic, nearly all films attempt to immerse us in a world that is
convincing.
Fictional movies often use realism to portray social issues.
Antirealism: when a movie seems to be in a realistic world at first but becomes more and more
subversive over the duration of the story.
Formalism: this is the opposite of realism, uses expressionistic approaches to convey meaning.
Verisimilitude: the appearance of being true or real. Believing in what you are seeing.
Animation can evoke the internal space and portray the invisible.
Motif is a specific element that reoccurs throughout the film that suggest something of meaning.
, Week 3: Elements of film narration
Narration: how a story is being told.
Narrator: the person/subject that delivers the story.
Forms of narration:
First-person narrator: told by a character within the narrative, often by the appliance of a
voice-over narration.
Direct address narration: addressing the audience directly, breaking the fourth wall.
Third-person narrator: this form carries over information that is not (yet) available to any
character within the story.
Omniscient: All-knowing storyteller.
Restricted narration: providing information only available to a single character in the story.
Frame narration: when a sequence starts at the moment that it is announced (let me tell you
of that time…).
First person narrator talks from their own perspective, third person is telling something about the
characters.
Narrative goals can give viewers a chance to participate in the expectancy of the story outcome.
Round characters: complex, may possess numerous subtle, repressed, or even contradictory traits.
Often develop over the course of a story. They display the complexity we associate with our own
personality and therefore are appearing lifelike (LaM).
Flat characters: possess only a few distinct traits that do not change over time (LaM).
Three-act structure:
1 Set up 2 Conflict and obstacles 3 Resolution
Works towards the catalyst or Rising action and stakes as the The crisis progresses towards a
inciting incident. story progresses toward a climax point where the story is
crisis. resolved.
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