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Media Aesthetics – Looking at Movies notesChapter 1
What is a movie?
Exploring the difference between film, movie and cinema
o Finds these words are interchangeable
Cinema: originates from film making pioneers Auguste and Louis Lumiere
o Film derives from the celluloid strip on which the images that make up motion
pictures were originally captured, cut and projected
Movie: short from motion pictures
o Conventional motion pictures is usually one very long strip of images
Documentary films
o Strive for objective, observed veracity
o Are arranged and present factual information and images in a narrative form
Majority of movies adopt a narrative form, however cultural differences affect how the
stories are being presented
o E.g. Bollywood cinema differs from Hollywood as actors constantly face and address
the audience
o Hollywood uses the illusion of reality
Stage play vs movie
o Stage play confines viewers to a single wide-angle view
o Audience sees cast members at once and continuously from the same angle and
same size
o Play have fewer practical options to show what cast members are holding, much less
narrative significance or emotional meaning to the character
o Movie version of the same story can portray more dramatism and emotional
meaning with the use of close ups and wide angle viewpoint
The movie director
Directors role is to coordinate the lead artist
Seen as the top creative hierarchy responsible for choosing each primary collaborations
Primary responsibilities include performance and camera (and coordination of the two)
Director picks the actors for each role, develops characters, lead rehearsals
Gives directions about the creative look behind the movie
Ways of looking at movies
Invisibility and cinematic language
o Moving aspect of movies is one reason for its invisibility
Movies move too fast for most viewers to examine and process everything
they've seen
Fadeout/fade in - an example of the phenomenon. When screen turns dark
at the end easy for views to recognize what is happening
Low-angle shot - empowerment
Cutting on action - allows for continuous flow between two scenes
o Cultural invisibility
Controversial or provocative decisions can be successful if they trigger an emotional
response from their viewers
However, can leave viewers blind to the implied political, cultural and ideological
messages that can make the movie more appealing
, Refers to the neuropsychologist neither acknowledging nor inquiring about the
participants' Māori identity and their cultural backgrounds - receiving movies from
our cultural as "normal"
o Implicit and explicit meaning
Implicit - lies below the surface of the movies story and presentation e.g. themes
Explicit - available in the open e.g. plot summary
o Viewer expectations
Our expectations of every movie is shaped but what we are told beforehand
Commercials, reviews, previews, interviews
Can also be shaped by the actors who play the characters (may have seen them in
other films)
o Formal analysis
Dissects the complex synthesis of cinematography, sound, composition, design,
movement, performance and editing
Looking at the content + form and the construction of meaning
Cinematic Invisibility. The techniques and strategies employed by the film makers that are hidden
from the audience due to the passive experience of the film medium.
Chapter 2
Film form
Movies are highly organized and deliberately assembled and sculpted by filmmakers
o Mise-en-scene (system film)
Comprises design elements such as lighting, setting, props, costumes and
makeup within individual shots
o Sound
Organized into dialogue, music, ambience and effects tracks
o Lighitng
o Narrative
Structured into acts that establish, develop and resolve character conflict
o Editing
Juxtaposes individual shots to create sequences
Arranges the sequences into scenes and builds the movie
o Shots
One single video with no cuts
o Sequence
Multiple shots put together
o Scene
A series of sequences which form an entire occurrence
Form and content
Content
o The subject of an artwork (what the work is about)
o Provides something to express
, Form
o As the means by which that subject is expressed and experienced
o Supplies methods and techniques necessary to present to the audience
o Enables artists to shape a particular experience and interpretation of that content
Both terms often paired as art needs them both
Rather than two separate things, they are interrelated, interdependent and interactive
Form and expectations
Nineteenth-century Russian playwright Anton Chekhov famously said that when a theatre
audience sees a character produce a gun in the first act, they expect that gun to be used
before the play ends
Showing props during a movie gives the audience the expectations that they will be used
later on
Hitchcock however, sends our expectations in a new direction by sometimes not using these
props at all
Patterns
People often search for patterns and progression in all art forms
The more they meet our expectations (or contradict them in an interesting way), the more
likely we are to enjoy, analyse and interpret the work
D.W. Griffith employs parallel editing
o A technique that makes different lines of action appear to be occurring at the same
time
o Parallel editing is not the only means of creating and exploiting patterns
o Some patterns are also made to be broken
Narrative patterns provide structure and keeps us familiar or acquaint with the unfamiliar
Fundamentals of film form
Movies depend on light
Movies provide an illusion of movement
Movies manipulate space and time in unique ways
Movies depend on light
Light is the essential ingredient in the creation and consumption of motion pictures
Images are made when a camera lens focuses light onto either film stock or a digital video
sensor
Projectors and video monitors transmit motion pictures as light
Movie production crew devote a lot of time and equipment to illumination design and
execution
Distinguish between luminous energy we call light and crafted interplay between motion-
picture light and shadow known as lighting
Light is responsible for images we see
Is also responsible for effects in each shot - enhances texture, depth, emotions and mood
Movies provide an illusion of movement
Movies are a quick succession of still photographs called frames
In early days of cinema, filmmakers found that a projection of at least 24 images per second
was needed to present smooth, natural looking movement
Projectors were developed to perform 24 times every second - shine light through a frame
to project its image and then move the next frame into place for its moment of projection
, Shutter was used to block light and obscure the mechanical movement of each new frame -
screen was momentarily dark at least 24 times every second
Movies manipulate space and time in unique ways
Movies can more seamlessly from one space to another, make space move or fragment time
in many ways
Space and time are relative to each other on screen
Dynamization of space and the spatialization of time
o A phenomenon by art historian and film theorist Erwin Panofsky
o Where movies give time to space and space to time
Freeze frame
o Still image is shown on-screen for a period of time
Can slow down time
Change the time period
Realism, Antirealism and Formalism
Realism
o Lumiere brother - came down to subject matter (content) and style (form)
o The brothers had documented unrehearsed scenes from everyday life
o Did not stylize "reality" with conspicuous camera angles, compositions, lighting or
edits
o Formal components include naturalistic performances and dialogue, modest,
unembellished sets and setting; wide angle compositions and other unobstructed
framing
o Unorganized - more messy
Antirealism
o Georges Melies - interest in speculative and fantastic
Formalism
o An approach to style and storytelling that values conspicuously expressive form over
the unobtrusive form associated with realism
o Melies films incorporate special effects, elaborate costumes, theatrical
performances and fanciful sets
o Contemporary movies that can be considered formalist may use highly stylized and
distinctive camera work, editing and lighting to convey sensational stories set in
embellished or imaginary setting
o E.g. Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) is located at the pinnacle of
formalism and antirealism
Verisimilitude
o The appearance of being true or real
o Is not the same as realism
o In a film world, it would make sense
o Would not make sense in real life
Cinematic language -> conventions: what are the properties?
o Accepted systems, methods or conventions which movies communicate with the
viewer
o Lighting, sound etc.
o Makes itself invisible
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