Chapter 1-5 Summaries Chapter 1 Encountering Film: From Preproduction to Exhibition Much goes into making a film before viewers experience it. The varied filmmaking practices are artistic and commercial, but also social and cultural. Understanding the production, distribution, promotion, and exhibition processes deepens our appreciation of the labor and art of filmmaking, and illuminates the influence of society and culture on filmmaking. Where and when we see a movie shapes our response, enjoyment, and understanding as much as do the form and content of the film itself. The film experience encompasses rapidly expanding viewing technologies (from HDTV to movies viewed on computers, smartphones, and ipads), changing social environments (from IMAX to home theaters), and multiple cultural activities designed to promote interest in individual films (reading about films, directors, and stars, or consuming video games or special DVD editions connected to a film franchise). Production: How Films Are Made Film production describes the different stages from the financing and scripting of a film to its final edit and, fittingly, the addition of production credits that contribute to the construction of a movie. Film production is generally broken down further into three stages: preproduction, production, and postproduction. However, these stages often tend to overlap and blend into one another, especially in the age of digital filmmaking. Preproduction describes the various efforts that occur before the actual filming of a movie begins this includes financing, screenwriting, casting, location scouting, story-boarding, designing costumes, set building, and so forth. Key preproduction personnel include producers, screenwriters, casting directors, agents, art directors, production designers, and costume designers. Production typically refers to the weeks or months spent actually shooting film on sets or location. Key personnel for this stage include the director, cinematographer, actors, sound mixers, stunt coordinators, camera operators, grips, electricians, carpenters, make-up artists, caterers, and dozens of other on-set assistants and crew members. Postproduction refers to processes that occur primarily after but often also simultaneously with principal photography and production, including laboratory work (film developing, color correction, etc.), editing, sound mixing, and special effects like computer-generated imagery (CGI). Most Hollywood movies rely on hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals working in various capacities; even smaller independent films rely on multiple dozens of individuals. As Orson Welles once said, to create art [a] poet needs a pen, a painter a brush, and a filmmaker an army. Chapter 2 Exploring a Material World: Mise-en-Scène
Mise-en-scène refers to those elements of a movie scene that are put in position before filming actually begins and that are employed in certain ways once filming does begin. These include the scenic elements of a movie, such as actors, lighting, sets and settings, costumes, make-up, and other features of the image that exist independent of the camera and the processes of filming and editing. A Short History of Mise-en-Scène The heritage of mise-en-scène lies in the evolving Western theatrical tradition beginning with the Greek theater around 500 B.C.E. and continuing through the medieval mystery plays, the secular stage plays of the Renaissance and William Shakespeare, and the technological advances (such as lighting) introduced in the nineteenth century. Early movies were limited by their dependency on natural light, but the introduction of artificial lighting allowed filmmakers to move a large portion of film production into studios, offering them a more controlled environment. In the 1910s and 1920s, feature films became the norm and the movie industry expanded rapidly, in part due to the rise of the studio system. The introduction of sound at the end of the 1920s was also facilitated by the stability of the studio system. Studios had the capital for large soundstages that housed elaborate sets, which were often accompanied by lavish costumes, lights, and props. A greater emphasis on realism, and therefore on-location shooting, came to prominence around World War II and was most evident in Italian neorealist films and documentary-influenced Hollywood crime dramas such as The Naked City (1948). Since the advent of computer-generated imagery (CGI), sets, costumes, and even actors can be created digitally after actual filming has occurred, making mise-en-scène as much a part of postproduction as it is of production. The Elements of Mise-en-Scène Settings and sets contribute to a film s mise-en-scène by establishing scenic realism and atmosphere. In addition to creating realism an accurate and truthful depiction of a society, people, or some other aspect of life the mise-en-scène of a film creates atmosphere and connotations, those feelings or meanings associated with particular sets or settings. For example, a kitchen might connote warmth and domesticity. Props (shorthand for property ) are objects that function as parts of the set or tools used by the actors. Props are integral elements not only of storytelling, but also of genre conventions what s a gangster movie without machine guns or a Western without horses? A film s staging refers to the actors performances and to blocking. Performance describes the actor s use of language, physical expression, and gesture to bring a character to life and to communicate important dimensions of that character to the audience. Leading actors play the central characters in a film, while supporting actors play secondary characters in a film, serving as foils or companions to the central characters. Blocking is the arrangement and movement of actors in relation to each other within the single physical space of a mise-en-scène. An actor s make-up and costume can play a central part in a movie it can support scenic realism, highlight an important part of a character s personality, act as a narrative marker, or signify genre. Costumes are the clothing and related accessories that define specific characters. They can range from common fashions, like a dark suit or a dress, to more fantastic costumes. Make-up refers to cosmetics applied to the actors faces and bodies that highlight or distort certain features and attributes to contribute to the mise-en- scène of the film.
Lighting is one of the more subtle aspects of mise-en-scène, and also one of the most important. Lighting can be natural or directional and can range from hard to soft. Three-point lighting is a common style that uses three sources: a key light to illuminate the object, backlighting to pick out the object from the background, and fill lighting that minimizes shadows. Directional lighting may appear to emanate from a natural source and defines and shapes the object, area, or person being illuminated. Natural lighting is derived from a natural source in a scene or setting, such as the illumination of the daylight sun or firelight. Low-key lighting is a high-contrast style that creates hard edges, distinctive shadows, and a harsh effect, especially when filming people. High-key lighting is diffused, low-contrast lighting that reduces or eliminates hard edges and shadows and can be more flattering when filming people. All the various elements of mise-en-scène are brought together in the space and composition of a scene, which is put together by the design team. The Significance of Mise-en-Scène Whether mise-en-scène presents authentic places or ingeniously fabricates new worlds, audiences look for and find particular meanings in sets, props, acting styles, blocking, lighting, and other elements. A film s mise-en-scène has always been the site where viewers measure human, aesthetic, and social values, recognize significant cinematic traditions, and, in those interactions, identify and assign meaning to the changing places of films. Mise-en-scène as an external condition indicates surfaces, objects, and exteriors that define the material possibilities or limits in a place or space. Mise-en-scène as a measure of character dramatizes how an individual or group establishes an identity through interaction with (or control of) the surrounding setting and sets. There are two prominent traditions of cinematic mise-en-scène naturalistic and theatrical. Naturalistic mise-en-scène is a realistic style that appears to correspond to the real world and is recognizable to viewers. Two specific traditions of naturalistic mise-en-scène are historical mise-en-scène and everyday mise-en-scène. In contrast, theatrical mise-en-scène denaturalizes locations and other elements so that they appear unfamiliar, exaggerated, or artificial, like the fantastical settings of Willy Wonka s factory in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005). Two types of theatrical mise-en-scène are expressive mise-en-scène and constructive mise-en-scène. Movie spectaculars are films in which the magnitude and intricacy of the mise-en-scène share equal emphasis with or even outshine the story, the actors, and other traditional focal points for a movie. If low-budget independent films usually concentrate on the complexity of character, imagistic style, and narrative, movie spectaculars attend to the stunning effects of sets, lighting, props, costumes, and casts of thousands. Marie Antoinette: 1. Describe how the mise-en-scène of this film informs the audiences understanding of its main character and the pressures and anxieties she faces as a teenaged queen of a foreign land. Please consider how costumes, props, make up, blocking and locations contribute to the film s meaning and value. 2. Sofia Coppola has claimed that her film is not a history lesson. What would you point to in the film s mise-en-scène that might disqualify it from being a history lesson? What other aspects of the film further contribute to its status as something other than history? If it is not a history lesson, what is it? 3. There are some amazing anachronisms in the film s mise-en-scène, notice for example the presence of converse all-stars among the queen s shoe collection or the blocking showing French aristocrats dancing to early 80s pop music by The Cure and Bow Wow Wow. Why are these anachronisms present in the film? What is Coppola trying to accomplish through them? 4. Roger Ebert claimed in his review of the film that it centers on the loneliness of being female and surrounded by a world that knows how to use you but not how to value and understand you. Is this a good way to look at the theme of this film? Narrative films have mostly been directed by men. There is a tendency in most of them 5.
5. to emphasize surface rather than inner feelings as central to the medium. This film provides little by way of action and the story often feels secondary to the mise-en-scène. Some have called it a film about feelings rather than actions. Do you feel that Coppola s direction results in a film made from a uniquely feminine perspective? Why or why not? CHAPTER 3 Framing What We See: Cinematography Although movie images sometimes seem like transparent windows into the world, they are actually carefully constructed and filmed. The magic of the film image comes from its power to re-create how we see the world through imagistic compositions that direct, expand, and even transform our natural vision. The filming of images is called cinematography, which means motion-picture photography or, literally, writing in movement. A Short History of the Cinematic Image Human beings have long had an interest in visual illusions and the reproduction of images. The scientific study of vision led to the development of optical devices such as the phenakistiscope (1832) and the zoetrope (1834) that create the illusion of movement. The ability to mechanically create the illusion of movement and the subsequent invention of photography helped pave the way for motion-picture cinematography. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, inventors such as W. L. K. Dickson (who was employed by Thomas Edison) and the Frenchmen Auguste and Louis Lumière developed the first motion-picture cameras and projectors. Equally integral to the development of the cinema was Eastman Kodak s creation of strong but flexible and transparent film stock that could move through the mechanisms of the camera and projector with minimal breakage. Early film stock was made from highly flammable nitrate, which caused numerous fires and fatalities before the eventual development of acetate-based safety film. Black-and-white film emulsion was originally orthochromatic (only sensitive to blue and green portions of the light spectrum), but it was replaced in the 1920s with panchromatic film stock, which was sensitive to the full range of the light spectrum. Although early movies were filmed in black and white, they were often colored through tinting or toning processes before the eventual development of two-strip and three-strip Technicolor processes in the 1930s. The development of different camera lenses allowed for different focal lengths the distance from the center of the lens to the point where light rays meet in sharp focus that alter the perspective relations of an image. Wide-angle lenses have a short focal length, telephoto lenses have a long one, and a zoom is a variable focus lens. The technology of cinematography has continued to develop over the years with the introduction of more lightweight handheld cameras (such as the Arriflex camera) that were widely used during World War II, the arrival of widescreen cinematography in the 1950s, the invention of the Steadicam in the 1970s, the
development of digital cinematography in the 1990s, and the recent advances in 3-D cinema. The Elements of Cinematography The most basic unit of cinematography is the shot a continuous exposed piece of film without stops or edits. Each shot orchestrates four important attributes: framing, depth of field, color, and movement. In cinematographic terms, point of view refers to the position from which a person, an event, or an object is seen (or filmed). The aspect ratio describes the relation of width to height of the film frame as it appears on a movie screen or television monitor. Onscreen space refers to the space visible within the frame of the image, whereas offscreen space is the implied space or world that exists outside the film s frame. The scale of the shot the distance between the camera and the shot subject is described by a variety of terms, including close-ups, extreme close-ups, medium close-ups, long shots, extreme long shots, medium shots, and medium long shots. A deep-focus shot is one in which multiple focal planes foreground, middle ground, and background are all in sharp focus. The film camera can be moved in a variety of ways to create a moving frame that seeks to replicate aspects of human vision in the natural world. While on a tripod, the camera can pan or tilt to provide horizontal or vertical movement. Reframing refers to the movement of the frame from one position to another within a single continuous shot. A tracking shot changes the position of the point of view by moving the camera forward or backward or around the subject, usually on tracks that have been constructed in advance. The camera can be mounted on a dolly to create tracking shots, on a crane for overhead shots, or on a Steadicam (essentially a gyroscope harness worn by the camera operator) to create smooth moving shots. For example, the long, flowing shots of Danny riding his tricycle through the hallways of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining (1980) were created using a Steadicam. A handheld shot allows freedom of movement like a Steadicam, but results in a shaky image, such as often seen in documentary war footage, for example. Film shots are positioned according to a multitude of angles, from straight on to above or below. High angles present a point of view from above, directed at a downward angle on individuals or a scene, while low angles present a point of view from below, directed at an upward angle. Animation traditionally refers to moving images that are drawn or painted on individual cels that are then photographed onto single frames of film. Stop-motion animation is created by manipulating three-dimensional objects (often clay figures) and by exposing one frame of film at a time to create movement, as seen in Tim Burton s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). After the runaway success of Pixar Studios Toy Story (1995), contemporary animated feature films are more commonly created using digital technology. Special effects cinematography includes not only computer-generated imagery (CGI) but also manipulations like slow motion, fast motion, process shots, and matte shots. The Significance of the Film Image The cinematic image has two primary values: as presentation, or as a true record of the world, and as representation, an interpretation or suggested meaning of that record. Two traditions of compositional practice for the film image are presence, in which the audience identifies emotionally with the image, and textuality, in which the audience identifies intellectually with the image. The phenomenological image and the psychological image are variations on the tradition of presence. The aesthetic image and the semiotic image are variations on the tradition of textuality.
The Big Sleep: This film features many underhanded doings and unfolds in a moral twilight. Describe 1. ways the film s cinematography suits the film s ethical and moral setting. 2. From the moment the audience first sees him to the film s last frame, Philip Marlowe is the key figure holding the diffuse plot together. There are almost no scenes without him. How is he depicted visually through cinematography and what does his visual handling do to help him hold our attention and admiration? 3. Camera movement figures prominently in the cinematography of the film. Cite examples of reframing, pans, tilts and tracking in the film and discuss how they serve the productions story, characters and themes. 4. Take the first sequence of the film. It depicts a rather simple situation. Marlowe visits the Sternwood mansion. He meets Carmen first, then the General and finally Vivian Rutledge. Describe the shots used in this fairly simple story. What do you find admirable or problematic about the shot choices in this opening section of the film? 5. For a complex story, do you ever find yourself confused as to what is happening in any particular shot? If so, when and how? If not, how would you characterize the film s cinematography in terms of helping the audience feel like everything is making perfect sense? Vertigo: 1. Some viewers mistake "Vertigo" for a naturalistic and realistic film. In some ways it is. What elements of the film suggest a naturalistic approach? But in many ways it is highly artificial and theatrical. What elements of the film's photography accentuate its expressionism? Be sure to consider the role of extreme close ups, repetitive tracking shots, animation, trick photography, point-of-view and mattes. How might an artificial approach serve the film s themes centered on Scottie s twin afflictions of vertigo and obsessive/compulsive disorder? 2. The opening sequence in which "Scottie" chases the criminal is necessary to the story in that it establishes Scottie"s fear of heights. Does it have any other function? Describe how cinematography positions the audience relative to Scottie s problem. 3. The early sequence between Midge and "Scottie" is interesting. A routine dialogue scene is comprised of a surprisingly large number of shots. How does Hitchcock's composition of these shots advance our understanding of the complex relationship between these two people? 4. Scottie's obsession with Madeleine reaches creepy proportions. How does Hitchcock get his audience to identify with this unhealthy obsession? 5. How are the so-called "vertigo" shots achieved in this film? Those moments when "Scottie" is afraid of heights are treated with rather interesting shots. Describe them technically. Chapter 4 Relating Images: Editing Chapter Summary Editing is the process of cutting and combining multiple shots into sequences that present events and story information. The power and art of film editing lie in the ways in which the hundreds or thousands of discrete images that make up a film can be shaped to make sense
within the narrative arc of the film or to have an emotional or visceral impact upon the audience. A Short History of Film Editing Long before film technology was invented, people used images to tell stories. These images ranged from cave paintings to religious triptychs to comic strips. In the late nineteenth century, Eadweard Muybridge s famous chronophotography experiments studied animal and human movement and anticipated the sequencing of multiple images in the cinema. Films quickly evolved from the use of single shots to the use of multiple images to tell a story. Early filmmaker Georges Méliès used stop-motion photography, and later editing, to create delightful visual effects. By 1906, the period now known as early cinema gave way to narrative-driven cinema, a transition facilitated by more codified practices of editing. While not the first filmmaker to use it, D. W. Griffith helped pioneer the editing technique of crosscutting, or parallel editing, which involves alternating among multiple strands of simultaneous story action. The concept of editing as montage is closely associated with Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. While montage is simply the French word for editing, the term has come to designate a theory of editing that emphasizes the breaks and contrasts between images joined by a cut. The introduction of sound technology in the late 1920s solidified Hollywood s commitment to continuity editing, an approach that emphasizes spatial and temporal clarity in order to present a story to an audience in a logical and coherent manner. Beginning in the 1940s, cinematic realism became established as one of the primary aesthetic principles in film editing, influenced in part by Italian neorealism and documentary filmmaking practices. In the post-world War II period, alternative editing styles emerged and aimed to fracture classical editing s illusion of realism. Various strategies of disjunctive editing, such as jump cuts, were utilized in the artistic cinema of directors like Jean-Luc Godard, who sought to provide an alternative aesthetic to Hollywood. However, these avant-garde practices were later assimilated into the mainstream aesthetics of fast-paced editing and frenetic camera work, like that seen in commercials, music videos, and Hollywood action films. One of the most significant changes to film editing was the emergence of digital editing in the later part of the twentieth century. Computer-based digital editing systems allow immediate access to footage and unprecedented opportunities to manipulate and combine images in new ways. Although one effect of the ease and affordability of digital editing seems to be a more rapid pace of editing, digital filmmaking can also embrace the opposite aesthetic effect. Another significant benefit of digital editing is longer shot length. On film, the length of a single take was limited by how much stock the camera could hold; on digital video, the duration of a shot is virtually limitless. The Elements of Editing Editing involves decisions about which shots to include, the most effective take of each shot, the arrangement and duration of shots, and the transitions between them. Editing can produce meaning by combining shots in an infinite number of ways. One shot is selected and joined to other shots by the editor to guide viewers perceptions and emotions. A cut describes the break and common border that links two different pieces of film and separates two shots. Other types of editing transitions between shots known as optical effects include fade-outs, fade-ins, dissolves, the iris, and wipes. In both narrative and non-narrative films, editing is a crucial strategy for ordering space and time. As mentioned above, continuity editing is a system that uses cuts and other transitions to establish verisimilitude and to tell stories efficiently, requiring minimal mental effort on the part
of viewers. The basic principle of continuity editing is that each shot has a continuous relationship to the next shot. It is also called invisible editing. Spatial patterns are frequently constructed by the use of an establishing shot, generally an initial long shot that establishes the setting and orients the viewer in space to a clear view of the action. The standard practice of filming a conversation involves a close shot of both characters, and following that with a shot of the person speaking before cutting to the other person in the conversation. The 180-degree rule is a conventional rule of continuity editing in which the camera must film the action of a scene from one side of an imaginary line called the axis of action. The 30-degree rule specifies that a shot should only be followed by another shot taken from a position greater than 30 degrees from that of the first. Other common devices or techniques of continuity editing include shot/reverse shot, eyeline match, point-of-view shot, reaction shot, and cutaway. Editing is one of the chief ways that temporality is manipulated in the time-based medium of cinema. Story chronology can be manipulated through flashbacks or, more rarely, flashforwards. In the classical model of Hollywood filmmaking, the temporal relations among story segments are usually clearly indicated. However, in certain art cinema practices story temporality can be purposely ambiguous to suggest subjective or psychological conceptions of time. Duration denotes the temporal relation of shots and scenes to the amount of time that passes in the story. In addition to temporal and spatial narrative patterns, editing may link images according to more abstract similarities and differences that make creative use of space and time. Here we distinguish among three abstract patterns in editing: graphic editing, movement editing, and rhythmic editing. Often these patterns work together to support or complicate the action being shown. The Significance of Film Editing Editing styles are not simply neutral ways of telling stories; they convey different perspectives on art and realism. Film editing can be used either to generate emotions and ideas through the construction of patterns of seeing or to move beyond the confines of individual perception and its temporal and spatial limitations. Continuity editing proceeds as if organized around continuous human perception even if there is no clearly identified person driving that perception, as in a series of establishing shots of decreasing distance. In a Hollywood film, editing a scene in the service of narrative continuity and clarity is called analytical editing. In other words, the scene is analyzed or broken down by the camera to direct viewers attention from the general perspective of an establishing shot to increasingly more specific views. Continuity style refers to an even broader array of technical choices that support Hollywood s principle of effacing technique to clarify the narrative and its human motivation. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, continuity editing has been challenged by various alternative practices that we refer to collectively as disjunctive editing. Disjunctive editing is a term that refers not to a single editing system with rules and manuals like Hollywood continuity editing, but rather to a variety of alternative practices that may be organized around any number of different aspects of editing, including spatial tension, temporal experimentation, and rhythmic or graphic patterns. These practices may confront the viewer by calling attention to the editing for aesthetic, conceptual, ideological, or psychological purposes, or working to disorient, disturb, or viscerally affect the viewer. However, in modern filmmaking it is quite possible to find continuity and disjunctive styles in the editing of a single film. Goodfellas:
Chapter 5 Listening to the Cinema: Film Sound The cinema is an audiovisual medium, one among many that saturate our contemporary media experience. Despite our habitual references to motion pictures, we are not only film spectators but film auditors as well. We pay attention to narrative cues found not only in what we see on the screen but also in what we hear, whether it s background music that warns us tragedy is imminent or the screeching of cars on the street that signals a high-speed chase or the indistinct voices of guests at a gala event. A Short History of Film Sound The cinema s use of music has its origins in theatrical traditions such as the Greek chorus and eighteenth-century melodrama (literally meaning music drama ), which originally designated a theatrical genre that combined spoken text with music. The development of film sound was also dependent upon technological inventions such as the phonograph ( sound writing ) introduced by Thomas Edison in 1877. Since the very beginning of filmmaking, filmmakers and inventors sought to combine visual images with sound. Early silent films were often shown in music halls and vaudeville theaters with musical accompaniment and sometimes with narration, sound effects, and even actors reciting dialogue. The Hollywood film industry rapidly converted to synchronized sound in the late 1920s, requiring new sound equipment to be installed in movie theaters. Two different sound technologies were introduced during this time. Warner Brothers Vitaphone used a sound-ondisk system, while Fox s Movietone used optical sound recorded directly onto the film stock. The success of Warner Brothers The Jazz Singer in 1927 helped convince studios, exhibitors, and the public that synchronized sound films were here to stay. While the transition to sound was fairly rapid and successful, it was not without difficulties. In addition to the expensive sound equipment required for theatrical exhibition, cumbersome sound cameras and recording equipment initially proved a challenge for film production as well. Sound film with spoken dialogue could not easily cross-linguistic borders, as dubbing technology was still being developed. One solution was to film a movie in multiple languages simultaneously on the same sets.
Technological innovations in the 1950s (stereophonic sound), the 1970s (Dolby and surround sound), and the 1990s (digital sound) reflected both an attempt to improve sound fidelity and a reaction to other competitive entertainment media including television, home video, and video games. The Elements of Film Sound In order to understand the role of sound in film, one must examine the relationship between sounds and images. Since film is considered a predominantly visual medium, for many filmmakers and viewers, sound exists in movies to enhance the impact of an image. However, sounds can interact with images in infinite ways, and strategies used to combine the two fundamentally affect our understanding of film. Sound is an important aspect in guiding our perceptions of cinematic realism. Synchronous sound has a visible onscreen source, while asynchronous sound does not (these can also be referred to as onscreen sound and offscreen sound, respectively). We can further differentiate between parallelism in the use of sound, which occurs when the soundtrack and image say the same thing, and counterpoint (or contrapuntal sound), which occurs when two different meanings are implied by these elements. Diegetic sound, such as dialogue, has its source in the narrative world of film, while nondiegetic sound, such as backgroundmusicor certain kinds of narration, does not belong to the characters world. During production, sound recording takes place simultaneously with the filming of a scene. Microphones for recording synchronous sound may be placed on the actor or positioned overhead with the use of a device resembling a long pole called a boom. The snap of a clapboard is recorded at the beginning of each take to synchronize sound and image. When a cut of the film is prepared, the crucial and increasingly complex phase of postproduction sound work begins. Sound editing interacts with the image track to create rhythmic relationships, establish connections between sound and onscreen sources, and smooth or mark transitions. Sound effects may be gathered, produced by sound-effects editors on computers, retrieved from a sound library, or generated by foley artists. Postsynchronous sound is recorded after the fact and then synchronized with onscreen sources. During automated dialogue replacement (ADR), actors watch the film footage and re-record their lines to be dubbed into the soundtrack (a process also known as looping because actors watch a continuous loop of their scenes). During the sound mixing stage, the three elements of a soundtrack voice, music, and sound effects are combined. Although the three sound elements (voice, music, and sound effects) can all be present and combined in relation to any given image, conventions have evolved governing these relationships. Human voice is often central to narrative film s intelligibility, primarily in the form of dialogue. Speech is used to expose a character s motivation and goals and convey plot information, and it is therefore typically mixed to be the most audible sound heard by the audience. Used famously by filmmaker Robert Altman, overlapping dialogue is a technique that makes individual lines less distinct and is often used to approximate the everyday experience of hearing multiple competing speakers and sounds at the same time. A voice-off is a voice that originates from a speaker who can be inferred to be present in the scene but who is not currently visible onscreen, while a voiceover describes a voice whose source is not visible in the frame yet acts as the organizing principle behind the film s images, such as the narration in a documentary film. Music is a crucial element in the film experience, providing rhythm and deepening emotional responses. Soundtrack music can work to guide an audience s attention, provide character information, and cue emotional responses. Background music, or underscoring, literally underscores what is happening dramatically. Narrative cueing is how music tells us what is happening in the plot. The most noticeable examples are called stingers, sounds that force us to notice the significance of something onscreen. Popular songs have long had a place in the movies, promoting audience participation and
identification by appealing to tastes shared by age or ethnic groups. Sheet music and recordings were profitable tie-ins even before sound cinema. Since the 1980s, pop songs began to dominate many film soundtracks, and now rock and pop soundtrack tie-ins have become increasingly prevalent. Much of the impression of reality in cinema comes from the use of sound effects, although, like other aspects of the soundtrack, they may not be consciously noticed by viewers. When reproduced in the three-dimensional space of the theater, sound effects are also one of the most effective techniques used to add depth to the two-dimensional image of a film. The Significance of Film Sound The sounds of the film experience build on viewers everyday social and leisure activities to contribute to the movies immediacy and sensory richness and to convey what seem like essential truths and meanings. Paradoxically, movie soundscapes often eschew realism and plausibility in order to heighten authenticity and emotion, like foregrounding actors whispered conversation in a crowded room so we feel intimately connected to them. The variety of sounds in film gives the viewer an impression of being authentically present in space, and this impression is supported by the preferences established in the standard techniques of sound recording, mixing, and reproduction. Sound also encourages the viewer to experience emotion and to see the world in terms of particular emotions. Sound continuity describes the range of scoring, sound recording, mixing, and playback processes that strive to unify meaning and experience by subordinating sound to the aims of the narrative. On the other hand, sound montage reminds us that just as a film is built up of bits and pieces of celluloid, a soundtrack is not a continuous gush of sound from the real world; rather, it is composed of separate elements that can be creatively manipulated and reflected upon to achieve certain effects.
Students Writing on Film Review of Citizen Kane Citizen Kane is one those movies that everyone talks about but few of us have every seen. It first appeared in 1941, and was surrounded by enormous hype about the debut of the "boy genius" Orson Welles and his ballyhooed transition from the New York stage to the Hollywood screen. Before the film even appeared, rumors also connected Citizen Kane to the life of William Randolph Hearst, the American newspaper mogul, and this too made the movie something of a fascinating scandal. In the six decades since then, Citizen Kane has appeared at the top of almost every list of "the greatest movies ever made" and it appears in practically every film course in the world. Be prepared for a bit of a disappointment. The story is simple enough: played wonderfully by Welles himself, Charles Foster Kane grows, with the help of windfall fortune, from a boy torn from his childhood home in Colorado into a lonely man obsessed with power and possessions. For me, the story is melodramatic and overblown, and Kane never becomes a very likeable character. What redeems Citizen Kane, however, is the construction of the story: different parts of Kane s story are told through the eyes of his friends and acquaintances, and these shifting perspectives create a kind of visual puzzle that the movie never really solves, enlivening an otherwise dull tale.
This black-and white movie is a continuous series of stunning (and famous) shots, like the opening sequence of dark shots that take you past a "No Trespassing" sign to Kane s deathbed. In this age of computer technologies and new-wave television commercials, these images will probably seem less surprising and innovative than they did when the movie first appeared. Yet Citizen Kane remains a movie to see if only to judge for yourself if it is the greatest movie ever made. Critical Essay on Citizen Kane The same writer who wrote a review of Citizen Kane chooses to write a critical essay on for his course on film history. In this case, he identifies his readers as the other students in the class, readers who are familiar with the film, have discussed it, and have even read other material about Citizen Kane. In the many critical essays on Citizen Kane, three different perspectives on its meaning have dominated analytical writing about that film: work that concentrates on the mythic characters of Kane; essays that analyze the kaleidoscopic narrative structure that shapes its story; and writing that offers detailed interpretations of the stylistic compositions in the film, such as its use of deep focus and dramatic editing techniques. With the first two types of analysis as a background, here I will examine a single, early scene in Citizen Kane to demonstrate the legendary visual power of the film. In this scene, Citizen Kane crystallizes a family drama of loss and division inseparable from a life lived in dense and complex spaces and perceived from many points of view. In this tale of Charles Foster Kane s rise to a position as one of the richest and most powerful men in America, the episode in question sets the stage for the entire film. It succinctly describes the sudden wealth of Kane s mother, an unexpected windfall from a deed to a silver mine (mistakenly presumed useless), and her subsequent arranging to send Charles to boarding school on the East coast. The setting is the rustic Colorado cabin of the family, with glimpses of the snowy yard outside where the child, Charlie Kane, plays. In this scene, the shot in fact begins by showing Charles making snowballs in the field, then moves back to show his mother in the foreground watching and, now though an open window, the boy building a snowman in the background. Here the window frame within the film frame calls attention to how a point of view controls perspective in certain ways, specifically the point of view on the child Kane. As the shots pulls back further, the frame then expands to include the central conversation about the boy and the money, while the original subject of the shot, Charlie, now becomes a much smaller, background figure in the action and the frame. As the shot pulls back even farther, following the mother s movement away from the window, the frame creates visible tensions and conflicts between the individuals. The stern face and upper body of the mother Mrs. Kane dominates the center of the image, flanked by the banker Thatcher, while Charlie s father drifts along the edges of the frame, complaining, "You seem to forget I m the boy s father." Moments later, Thatcher and Mrs. Kane sit at a table in the foreground of the image and prepare to sign papers authorizing the child s departure, while the father protests in vain in the middle ground and Charlie remains barely visible in the far background playing outside in the snow. The rectangular height and width of the frame crowds these individuals within a tight visual space, even including the ceiling on the top of the frame as a way of further drawing in the space. Positioned between the adult individuals but in the far background is the diminutive shape of Charlie, the subject of their quarreling and plan to remove him from the home. Visually, it is fairly clear how power and control are being distributed through this frame: the mother and Thatcher visually overwhelm the father, and the tiny figure of Charles is the impotent object of exchange. In Citizen Kane Charles Foster Kane grows up to become obsessed with the power of images paintings, newspaper pictures, images of himself. This obsession perhaps acts out his semiconscious struggle to replace the image of his lost childhood and family torn apart in this early scene in the film. Throughout the remainder of his life he struggles to create, own, and
control the people and things around him by imposing his perspective on them the way the perspective of others controlled him early in his life. The film is also a narrative constructed around the multiple points of view of Kane s friends, wife, and associates, all of whom dramatize how points of view can attempt to frame a man s life as a way of understanding or interpreting that life. The irony and tragedy of Charlie Kane s life is that no one, not even he himself, is able to reconstruct the complete picture and harmony lost in that early childhood scene. Taking Notes on Film Each person will develop his or her own short hand for taking notes, but the trick is to not only jot down important information about the story or characters that seems significant but also to record visual, audial, or other formal details. Some common abbreviations for visual compositions are: ES: establishing shot CU: close up LS: long shot MLS: medium long shot HA: high angle LA: low angle DS: diegetic sound NDS: Nondiegetic sound CT: cut TRS: tracking shot PS: pan shot VO: voice over More specific camera movements and directions can often be recreated with arrows and lines that graph those actions those actions.