Media Aesthetics 2023
Lecture: English / Class notes: Dutch
What is analysis?
Formal analysis vs Cultural/ contextual analysis
We connect cultural meaning to contextual analysis
The book says that analysis is taking something apart and rearrange all the parts to a more coheritant
argumentation.
All of the media have an own medium that characterized that type of medium
Film, tv + cross- media
- Affordances, medium specificity
- Common media language: technology, audio-visual/textual
o Example 1 → first film versus first tv image
o Example 2 → VR & Videogames
Why analyse?
- Popular media
- Cinematic versus cultural invisibility
Cinematic invisibility = the way in which the whole construction of audiovisual might seem natural
but is in fact a constructed language
In reality is audiovisual language is very clearly formed and structured, it is a constructed type of
selecting and presenting information.
Cultural invisibility = Refers to the fact that we as subjects within a specific kind of culture/cultural
context/historical context and film makers ask subjects in a certain kind, might not always be fully
aware of the way in which norms and values are imbedded in certain audiovisual media objects.
- Mass media Norms
- Media object shape the way we see the world around us
- Cultural analysis can tell us a lot about the filmmaker, historical time period, society in
general and the film industry
How to analyze?
“every element in every frame is there for a reason” → every aspect that we see or hear in a certain
medium might potentially carry formal or cultural meaning.
- Explicit versus implicit meaning
o Explicitly meaning = it is obviously there. A sound motive with a view of legs which
might apply a explicit meaning.
o Implicit meaning = It might apply danger, the implicit meaning. The interpretation
that we connect to the explicit aspects.
- Interpretative claim = if you want to connect several implicit aspects (for example:
cinematography, editing and sound) to the creation of suspense in a certain clip.
- Form versus content
1
, o Form = how (personal style of the painting)
o Content = what (the face of the woman)
- Viewer expectation = the way in which media language, all of these formal constructions,
work together to guide
Formal → cultural analysis
Cultural analysis happens when we connect implicit meaning from a film to societal norms and
values. We understand how woman should behave in the 30’s by looking at film from that period of
time.
Formal analysis for example is looking at a close-up or a view shot in terms of power dynamics within
the story itself. How is it that the villain is always shot from below, a low angle shot. How does that
signify power within the context of the film itself.
Some terms and concepts: shot, editing, cut, close-up, fade-in and fade-out, low-angle shot,
protagonist
- Shot: uninterrupted action without editing or cuts
- Editing: cutting and pasting together of individual shots
- Closeup: when a camera is very up close to the object it is filming
- Fade-in and Fade-out of how film language tends to come natural to us. We sense a clear
way in which film language seems to come natural to us.
o Fade in suggest that time had past. You are back in the players time
o Fade out we are exiting a certain time period, time will fade as well
- Low-angle shot: very often used to express power dynamics in compositions. The camera is
lower than the objects that is being filmed
- Protagonist: the main character in a story/narrative
Steven Spielberg:
- Moviebrats & new Hollywood
o Moviebrats are the generation of filmmakers who were born in the 1960’s and grew
up in Hollywood
- Auteur: the “Spielberg face” & the “Spielberg Oner”
o Spielbergs face = the camera turning to a shocked closeup from a face
o Spielbergs Oner = a long take/shot. Manipulate the attention of the audience. Gives
the filmmaker novels ways of selecting what we (don’t) see and hear without using a
cut or editing.
- Blockbuster era: high-concept film = marketable type of film. Strong hook. The shark in the
movie Jaws.
Viewer expectations:
- Suspense versus surprise (Alfred Hitchcock), genre
o Audiovisual language manipulates the viewer expectations
- Selective information: role of image/sound
2
, Film Narration
Elements of narrative
- Diegesis versus non-giegesis
o Diegesis are all the aspects of that originate from inside the story world
o non-giegesis all the aspects that originate from outside the story world of the film.
For example music
Narrator: is there a person or object telling the story?
- 1st (speaks in the I or we form) or 3rd person (speaks in the he she or they form)
- Diegetic (has a part in the fictional world of the film) of the or non-diegetic (a voice over)
- Direct address (breaking the forth wall) , frame narration (occurs when we have one
perspective framing the other, story in a story)
Story versus plot
Story includes explicitly presented events on screen as well as the implied events.
Plot includes only the explicitly presented events in screen as well as the nondiegetic material
Screen duration = the running time of the film itself
Duration: plot/ story duration versus screen duration
Cinematic time (+editing): summary relation, real time, stretch relation
- Realtime, no cutting or so. So the film time is real
- Summary relation happens when the duration of the screentime is shot than the story
3
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