Lecture Notes

So these are straight from the power points that I put together for class. Hopefully this will help you when studying for the quiz on Tuesday. Don't forget: Raspberry Scantrons



STORY
CINEMA SURVEY FALL ‘07
LECTURE #1
Points for Today
• Drama
• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• Conflict
• Plot Vs. Story

Drama
• A Greek word meaning “action”
• Drawn from the Greek word dran, meaning “to do”.
Drama relies on 2 important rules…
• There must be a PROTAGONIST who will take action to achieve something.
• This character will meet with CONFLICT.

• In today’s usage the protagonist is the central figure of a story, and is often referred to as a story's main character.

Protagonist cont’d…
• In movies, the story is usually told from the protagonist's point of view, even when not in first-person narrative.



Antagonist
• That character, group, or force which provides the chief obstruction to the protagonist.

• Note that the antagonist is not necessarily human; often, the forces of nature or psychological elements provide this element of opposition.


Conflict
• Man vs. Himself
• Man vs. Man
• Man vs. Society
• Man vs. Nature
• Man vs. God

Conflict cont’d…
• Conflict casts doubt on the character's ultimate success and increases our interest. Conflict creates stress and trouble we want to see resolved.


• In movies, the final battle between the protagonist and the antagonist usually resolves the CONFLICT that has been brewing for the past 80 or so minutes.

Conflict cont’d…
• On the most superficial level, every story is about the quest to attain a goal and whether a character will achieve it or not.

• Anyone who has ever directed a scene will tell you the first thing the director and actors must find in the material are what each actor wants (in the scene and overall) and the source of the conflict
Children of Men
• What does Theo want?
• Who is the antagonist?
• What is the conflict?


Plot and Story cont’d
• STORY and PLOT overlap because each includes events seen onscreen, but they are not the same.
• STORY exists as a precondition for PLOT. Filmmakers have to understand a STORY very well in order to pick and choose which elements will be included within the PLOT and how those elements will be ordered and presented.


Plot and Story cont’d…
• The STORIES are basically the same.
• But how the story is told (THE PLOTS) are very different.


• (e.g. Fairy Godmother vs. Hector Elizondo)



TIME & SPACE
CINEMA SURVEY FALL ‘07
LECTURE #2
Points for Today…
1. Difference between stage and film
2. Film can manipulate time and space
3. Difference between photography and motion pictures
4. Persistence of Vision


Film Has Its Roots In…
Oral Storytelling
Theater
Painting
Photography
Film Vs. Theater
• Moviemaking draws on many ancient art forms, but in particular the live theater paved the way for movies.

• To study movies, we’ll need to understand the similarities and differences between plays and cinema.


PROSCENIUM ARCH
Film Vs. Theater cont’d…
• Relationship between The PROSCENIUM ARCH and the movie FRAME.
Film Vs. Theater cont’d…
• Live performance takes place in a three-dimensional space, divided into a performance area and a spectator area.

Theater Experience
• What happens on the stage is designed by the stage director, placing actors and scenery and props where they will have the most effect within the frame of the proscenium arch.

Cinematic Experience
• You still sit in a fixed seat but the screen images move constantly, based on what a director want you to see – either close-ups, wide shots, flashbacks, etc.

• Each shot is carefully planned and executed and put in a certain order (edited) to achieve the desired impact that the director intends.


• Movies can move seamlessly from one space to another (an interior room to an exterior landscape to outer space)

• Film can change spatial relationships (when a camera turns from the subject, changing the relationship between viewer and subject).


Time
• Manipulation of Time
– “Montage Sequences”
• Rocky
• The Right Stuff

Film Techniques For Manipulating Time
• Slow motion
• Sped up action
• Reverse motion


• Flashback
• Freeze frame
• Replay




PHOTOGRAPHY
• With the invention of the camera, we could now show “reality” - it was no longer strictly the artists’ interpretation
Movies
• “Moving Pictures”
• Even more “real” in terms of what we see with our eyes.
How Motion Pictures Work
In a motion picture camera, the camera is actually taking a whole bunch of still photographs one right after the other.


Persistence of Vision
• In between these pictures is – nothing.
• We spend time in the theater watching darkness on the screen but we don’t realize it because of something called persistence of vision…

…the process by which the human brain retains an image for a fraction of a second longer than the eye records it.



Persistence of Vision
• A movie projector shows 24 fps (frames per second) and tricks use into believing that separate images are one continuous moving image. We perceive apparent motion rather than jerky movements.




The Director/Visual Storytelling Elements
Points for Today…
• The Role of the Director
• Mise-en-scene
• Design Principles
– Balance
– Rhythm
THE ROLE OF THE DIRECTOR
Film Director
• The Director is the driving creative force in a film's production, and acts as the crucial link between the production, technical and creative teams
• Responsible for bringing together visual elements to make a cohesive finished piece.
• Works with Heads of all departments to put vision onto the screen.

Directors' main duties include

Casting
Script editing
Shot composition
Shot selection
Editing
Mise En Scene
• Pronounced ‘mees on sen’
• From French literally meaning "putting into the scene”
• Everything in front of the camera.
• Involving every dept. on a film shoot…
Mis-En-Scene
• There is nothing in a film frame that is not meant to be there, that is not planned.

• Mise-en-scene is a strategy the filmmaker uses to create a world of space, time and narrative.
Director sets the mis-en-scene
• The director creates and alters the mood and ambience of the film through mis-en-sene

• The director's use of mise-en-scene creates systems that not only guide our perception from moment to moment but also help to create the overall form of the film.
Mise-En-Scene includes
1. Setting
2. Costume and make-up
3. Lighting
4. Actor's expression and movement
5. Screen space
6. Time
Design Principles
Balance
Positive and Negative Space
Symmetrical Balance
Asymmetrical Balance
Radial Balance
Rhythm
• Rhythm - In context of film, can be used to describe reocurring elements in a composed frame.
• Repetition of visual elements such as shapes or colors create a rhythm and pattern in an artwork.