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Cinematic Elements: Types of Movies and Narrative Structures |, Study notes of The Avant Garde in Literature and Cinema

Heartland Community College The Avant Garde in Literature and Cinema

Cinematic Elements, Types of Movies, and Narrative Structure Material Type: Notes; Class: American Cultures in Film; Subject: Film; University: Heartland Community College;

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Chapter One Terms & Concepts 01/30/2012

Invisibility and Cinematic Language

Invisibility- movies are designed to make the audience forget they are experiencing a

highly manipulated, artificial reality.

Cinematic language – early filmmaking pioneers created a film grammar (cinematic

language) that draws upon the way we automatically interpret visual information in

our “real” lives, thus allowing audiences to absorb movie meaning intuitively; not

words but integrated techniques and concepts which connects us to the story while

deliberately concealing the means by which it does so; visual vocabulary

Fade-out/fade-in – transition meant to convey a passage of time between scenes;

last shot of a scene grows gradually darker, screen is black momentarily, then first

shot of the subsequent scene fades in out of darkness

Low-angle shot – view of a subject from a low camera angle to associate the subject

with figures who we must literally look up to with figurative or literal power; depending

on the context the audience should interpret the subject as strong, noble, or

threatening

Cutting on action – editing technique designed to hide the instantaneous shift from

one camera viewpoint to another; when connecting one shot to the next, the film

editor will end the first shot in the middle of a continuing action and start the

connecting shot at some point further along in the same action; as a result, the action

flows so continuously over the cut between different moving images that most

viewers fail to register the switch



Cultural invisibility

Commercial instinct which compels filmmakers to favor stories and themes that

reinforces viewers’ shared belief systems

trigger emotional responses from their viewers that reinforces yearnings or beliefs

that lie deep within; because much of this occurs on an unconscious, emotional level

the casual viewer may be blind to the implied political, cultural, and ideological

messages that help make the movie so appealing

protagonist (main character)

oin the movie Juno, the protagonist reinforces our culture’s celebration of the

individual; her promiscuous, forceful, and charming persona is familiar b/c it

displays traits that we associate with Hollywood’s dominant view of the

(usually male) rogue hero

Partial preview of the text

Download Cinematic Elements: Types of Movies and Narrative Structures | and more Study notes The Avant Garde in Literature and Cinema in PDF only on Docsity!

Chapter One Terms & Concepts 01/30/

Invisibility and Cinematic Language

 Invisibility- movies are designed to make the audience forget they are experiencing a

highly manipulated, artificial reality.

 Cinematic language – early filmmaking pioneers created a film grammar (cinematic

language) that draws upon the way we automatically interpret visual information in

our “real” lives, thus allowing audiences to absorb movie meaning intuitively; not

words but integrated techniques and concepts which connects us to the story while

deliberately concealing the means by which it does so; visual vocabulary

 Fade-out/fade-in – transition meant to convey a passage of time between scenes;

last shot of a scene grows gradually darker, screen is black momentarily, then first

shot of the subsequent scene fades in out of darkness

 Low-angle shot – view of a subject from a low camera angle to associate the subject

with figures who we must literally look up to with figurative or literal power; depending

on the context the audience should interpret the subject as strong, noble, or

threatening

 Cutting on action – editing technique designed to hide the instantaneous shift from

one camera viewpoint to another; when connecting one shot to the next, the film

editor will end the first shot in the middle of a continuing action and start the

connecting shot at some point further along in the same action; as a result, the action

flows so continuously over the cut between different moving images that most

viewers fail to register the switch

Cultural invisibility

 Commercial instinct which compels filmmakers to favor stories and themes that

reinforces viewers’ shared belief systems

 trigger emotional responses from their viewers that reinforces yearnings or beliefs

that lie deep within; because much of this occurs on an unconscious, emotional level

the casual viewer may be blind to the implied political, cultural, and ideological

messages that help make the movie so appealing

 protagonist (main character)

o in the movie Juno, the protagonist reinforces our culture’s celebration of the

individual; her promiscuous, forceful, and charming persona is familiar b/c it

displays traits that we associate with Hollywood’s dominant view of the

(usually male) rogue hero

Implicit and Explicit Meaning

 No matter how many different layers of meaning there are in a movie, each layer is

either implicit or explicit

 Implicit meaning – lies below the surface of a movie’s story and presentation; an

association, connection, or inference that a viewer makes on the basis of the explicit

meanings available on the surface

o In the movie Juno, Juno’s application of lipstick before she visits the adoptive

father is explicit information; the implications of this – that her admiration for

mark is beginning to develop into more than a crush – are implicit.

Viewer Expectations

 Our expectations of nearly every movie we see is shaped by what we have been told

about that movie beforehand by previews, commercials, reviews, interviews, and

word of mouth

 We all harbor essential expectations concerning a film’s form and organization; most

filmmakers give us what we expect: a relatively standardized cinematic language,

seamless continuity, and a narrative organized like virtually every other fiction film

we’ve seen

 Your experience, and thus your interpretation, of any movie is affected by how the

particular film manipulates these expected patterns

Formal Analysis – analytical approach primarily concerned with film form, or the means

by which a subject is expressed

 Dollies in – the camera moves slowly toward the subject which gradually enlarges

the subject in the frame sufficient

Chapter 3 – Types of Movies 01/30/

1. Narrative films  narrative is a type of movie – categorical term for those particular movies devoted to conveying a story  narrative is a way of structuring fictional or fictionalized stories presented in narrative films – the way that movie stories are constructed and presented in order to engage, involve, and orient an audience o narrative structure includes exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement; this structure helps filmmakers manipulate the viewers experience by selectively conforming or diverging from audience expectations of storytelling  narrative is a broader concept that both includes and goes beyond any of these applications – content is selected and arranged in a cause-and-effect sequence of events; material is organized so that one event leads to another in a recognizable progression; a structural quality that nearly every movie possesses  nearly every movie employs at least a loose interpretation of narrative  directed towards fiction; based on screenplays in which nearly every behavior and spoken line is predetermined; primary purpose is entertainment, a stance motivated by commercial intent 2. Documentary films  more concerned with the recording of reality, the education of the viewers, or the presentations of political or social analyses  employ storytelling and dramatization to some degree in shaping their material  John Grierson coined the term documentary in 1926 for cinema that observed life; described the term as “creative treatment of actuality”  4 basic approaches of documentary films: o factual films – present people, places, or processes in straightforward ways meant to entertain and instruct without unduly influencing audiences o instructional films – seek to educate viewers about common interests, rather than persuading them to accept particular ideas o persuasive films – originally called documentary films until the term was evolved to refer to all nonfiction films; founding purpose was to address social injustice, but today any documentary presenting a particular perspective on social issues or with corporate and governmental injustice of any kind o propaganda films – when persuasive films are produced by governments and carry governments’ messages, they overlap with propaganda films which systematically disseminate deceptive or distorted information

o direct cinema – eschews interviews and limit the use of narrators; rather than having voice-over narration, it involves the placement of small portable cameras and sound- recording equipment in an important location for days/weeks, recording events as they occur which enables the audience to overhear conversations and interactions as they happen 3. Experimental movies – experimental filmmakers actively seek to defy categorization and convention; an attempt to capture innovative spirit of an approach to filmmaking that plays with the medium, is not bound by established traditions, and is dedicated to exploring possibility  Fred Camper offers six criteria that outline basic characteristics that most experimental films share: o They are not commercial – made by single filmmakers for very low budgets and with no expectation of financial gain o They are personal – reflect the creative vision of a single artist who typically conceives, writes, directs, shoots, and edits the movie by him/herself o Do not conform to conventional expectations of story and narrative cause and effect o Exploit the possibilities of the cinema- this often reveals tactile and mechanical qualities of motion pictures that conventional movies seek to obscure o Critique culture and media o Invite individual interpretation – resist the kind of accessible and universal meaning found in conventional narrative and documentary films 4. Hybrid movies – have blurred what were once distinct borders among the three primary film categories (documentary, narrative, and experimental) 5. Genre films – the categorization of narrative films by the stories they tell and the ways they tell them  genres tend to spring up organically, inspired by shifts in history, politics, or society; brought about because of a cultural need to explore and express the issues and ideas through images/stories  significant effect on how audiences choose the movies they view; reviewers often critique a film based on how it stacks up against others in its genre  genre films have been prevalent since the earliest days of cinema because most movie viewers value predictability over novelty  as our world evolves and audience perspectives change, genre movies adapt to reflect these cultural shifts 6. Genre conversations  movie genres are defined by sets of conversations – aspects of storytelling such as reoccurring themes and situations, setting, character types, and story formula

 The result was movies that had audiences sympathizing with criminals at the start and would turn an exhilarating rags-to-riches story of empowerment into a cautionary tale of the consequences of blind ambition; the central characters would be killed by the law or their own equally ruthless subordinates o Classic gangster plots typically follow the rags-to-riches-to-destruction formula  2. Film Noir – in the early 1940s, the outlook, tone, and style of American genre films grew darker with the emergence of film noir o WWII gave birth to the film genre by exposing Americans to the horrors of war; film noir fed off the postwar disillusionment that followed prolonged exposure to this new perspective from the atomic bomb o Not initially recognized by American scholars because its emphasis on corruption and despair was seen as an unflattering portrayal of the American character; French critics recognized and named the genre o This genre has continued to flourish in part because of a universal attraction to its visual and narrative style o The themes are fatalistic, the tone cynical; may not be defined by setting but they are typically shot in large urban areas and contain gritty, realistic night exteriors that are filmed on location, rather than the streets built on the studio back lot o Film noir protagonist is an antihero; rarely pursues or achieves leadership status; the central noir is an outsider  Private detectives at the center of man noir films operate midway between lawful society and the criminal underworld, with associates and enemies on both sides of the law  the noir protagonist is small-time, world-weary, aging, and not classically handsome o WWII expanded opportunities for women on the home front who took over the factory jobs and other responsibilities from the men who left to fight  As a reflection of men’s fear of resentment of these newly empowered women, film noir elevated the female character to antagonist status; cast women as seductive, deceptive predators who use men for their own means o Distinguished by its visual style which employs lighting schemes that emphasize contrast and create deep shadows that can obscure as much info as the illumination reveals o The plot structure reinforces this feeling of disorientation; the complex narratives are often presented in non-chronological arrangements

 Plots twist, goals shift, and expectations are reversed; allies are revealed to be enemies  3. Science Fiction o genre’s focus is on hummanity’s relationship with science and the technology it generates o began as a reaction to the radical societal and economic changes spurred by the industrial revolution; explores our dread of technology and change o science-inspired anxiety is behind the defining thematic conflict that unites most science fiction movies; its technology vs. humanity or science vs. soul  expressed in stories that envision technology enslaving humanity, invading our minds and bodies, or bringing an end to civilization as we know it  the otherness (anything that is not human, like vampires, aliens, etc.) is emphasized by designing their appearance to resemble machines or insects  4. Horror o genre born out of a cultural need to confront and conquer something frightening that we do not fully comprehend; those frightening somethings are aspects of our existence even worse that technology and science: death and insanity o intensity and immediacy of cinema is displayed – sitting in a dark theater, movie viewers are immersed in a shared ritual that exposes them to dread, terror, and catharsis; we vicariously defeat death because we survive the movie and walk back into our safe lives o the U.S. embraced the genre with the release of Dracula and thus began hollywood’s on again off again relationship with horror film  with the end of WWII, the classic “monster”-based horror film faded into mediocrity until a new generation of audiences with their own fears resurrected the genre  horror truly returned to the mainstream with Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Michael Powell’s Pepping Tom o chiaroscuro lighting – the use of deep gradiations of light and shadow within an image; emphasizes stark contrasts, the result is distorted facial features and looming cast shadows known on film sets as “Halloween lighting”  5. Western o American history inspired the genre but it’s popularity has more to do with how Americans see and explain themselves o Narrative representations of Americans as rugged, self-sufficient individuals taming a savage wilderness with common sense and direct action

o just when we thought western was dead, it was transformed in an original way in Brokeback Mountain (2005); the director transforms our fixed idea of the convention of the Western; in the place of these traditional elements, he gives us the story of two ranch hands who fall in love with one another 9. Animation – a different form of moviemaking; the process if the only difference between animation and filmmaking that relies on conventional photography;  3 types of animation are used widely today: o hand-drawn: animators draw or paint images that are then photographed one frame at a time in a film camera; 24 frames equals 1 second, so the animators must draw 24 separate pictures to achieve one second of animation  cel animation – use of clear celluloid sheets to create single backgrounds that could serve for multiple exposures of the main character, thus, needing to draw only the part of the image that was in motion o stop-motion: records the movement of objects with a motion-picture camera; the animator moves the objects slightly for each recorded frame o digital animation: may begin with all the traditional tools of theater and animation, then uses the virtual world of computer-modeling software to generate the animation  the uncanny valley – a theoretical concept that states the closer an object comes to resemble a human being in its motion and appearance, the more positive our emotional response to that object becomes until suddenly, at some point of perfect (or almost perfect) resemblance, our emotional responses turn from empathy to revulsion, which is the result of human tendency to look for anomalies in the appearance of other human beings 

Chapter 4 – elements of narrative 01/30/

1. Screenwriter: responsible for creating the movie’s story and for writing the screenplay

in its various stages

 during preproduction the story is referred to as the property which may be an idea

the writer has pitched to the producer, an outline, or a completed script

 skills required: creating a compelling story, engaging plot, and fascinating characters,

and must have a solid understanding of what is marketable; their screenplay must

conform to industry expectations regarding format and style

 Script Doctors – profession screenwriters who are hired to review a screenplay and

improve it

 Earliest form of a screenplay may be a treatment or synopsis (an outline of the action

with brief essential ideas). During story conferences it is transformed from an outline

into a rough-draft screenplay, or scenario.

 Next, a storyboard is created, which is a shot-by-shot breakdown that combines

sketches or photographs of how each shot is to look along with dialogue, sound, and

music.

o A graphical representation of the director’s conception of the film and is vital

in helping to explain the director’s concepts to the production team

o An organizational tool, enabling the production manager to organize the

actually shooting; assists in maintaining the continuity of the movie (how

edited shots in a sequence will relate to one another)

 Then before shooting, the director prepares the shooting script, which lists details of

each shot so it can be followed by the directors and actors; serves as a guide and

reference point for all members of the production unit by breaking down individual

shots by location, setting, and the editing technique to be used between these shots

2. Elements of Narrative

 diegetic vs. nondiegetic: diegetic elements are the events, characters, objects,

setting, and sound that relates to the world of the story; non-diegetic elements are

things we hear and see on the screen but that come from outside the world of the

story including: background music, titles and credits, or voice-over comments from

an omniscient narrator.

o Rule of thumb: if the characters can hear it, then its diegetic

 Five part dramatic structure

o Exposition – everything preceding and including the inciting moment (the

event or situation that sets the rest of the narrative in motion); provides

background information on the characters, setting, and basic conflict

5. Duration – the length of time; 3 specific kinds of duration:

 story duration – the amount of time the implied story takes to occur; so although the

movie’s implied story duration is one week, the events that are explicitly part of the

plot of the movie take place during four days within that week (plot duration)

 plot duration – the elapsed time of those events within the story that the film explicitly

presents

 screen duration is the movie’s running time onscreen

 real time – screen duration corresponds directly to plot duration; the least common of

the three relationships between screen duration and plot duration

6. Suspense vs. Surprise

 Surprise – a being taken unawares which can be shocking and our emotional

response to it is generally short-lives

 Suspense – a more drawn-out experience; the anxiety brought on by a partial

uncertainty

7. Characters – functional roles within the plot, either acting or being acted on

 round characters – complex and three-dimensional, possessing several traits,

sometimes even contradictory ones; unpredictable and capable of surprising us in a

convincing way

 flat – one-dimensional, possessing one or very few discernible traits, and their

motivations and actions are generally predictable; a way of understanding how the

character’s limitations affect his or her narrative functions

 major characters are often further described as protagonists and antagonists

o protagonists – the central figure of a story and is often referred to as the hero;

the story is usually about this person, whose actions are essential to the

action and programs of the plot; should have clear convictions and well-

motivated actions, and be able to change and evolve in response to events

and other characters

o antagonist – a character opposing the protagonist; the one who provokes the

protagonists actions or reactions

 minor – play a less important role in the overall movie, functioning usually as a

means of moving the plot forward or of fleshing out the motivations of the major

characters

 marginal – lack definition and are onscreen for very short periods of time

8. Setting – the time and play in which the story occurs; provides the characters’ social,

educational, and cultural backgrounds and other identifying factors vital for understanding them

 sometimes provides an implicit explanation for actions or traits that we might

otherwise consider eccentric

9. Scope – the overall range in time and place of the movie’s story

10. Narration and Narrators

 the camera itself can be a narrator

 the visual narrator can take several forms, it can be omniscient (or unrestricted),

giving us a third person view of all aspects of the movie’s action or characters

o restricted – a narration that reveals information to the audience only as a

specific character learns it

 narrative – the story; narration – the act of telling the story; and narrator – who tells

the story

 first person narration – the narrator’s voice is of an actual character in the movie; use

Cinematic Elements: Types of Movies and Narrative Structures |, Study notes of The Avant Garde in Literature and Cinema

Related documents

Partial preview of the text

Download Cinematic Elements: Types of Movies and Narrative Structures | and more Study notes The Avant Garde in Literature and Cinema in PDF only on Docsity!

Chapter One Terms & Concepts 01/30/

Invisibility and Cinematic Language

 Invisibility- movies are designed to make the audience forget they are experiencing a

highly manipulated, artificial reality.

 Cinematic language – early filmmaking pioneers created a film grammar (cinematic

language) that draws upon the way we automatically interpret visual information in

our “real” lives, thus allowing audiences to absorb movie meaning intuitively; not

words but integrated techniques and concepts which connects us to the story while

deliberately concealing the means by which it does so; visual vocabulary

 Fade-out/fade-in – transition meant to convey a passage of time between scenes;

last shot of a scene grows gradually darker, screen is black momentarily, then first

shot of the subsequent scene fades in out of darkness

 Low-angle shot – view of a subject from a low camera angle to associate the subject

with figures who we must literally look up to with figurative or literal power; depending

on the context the audience should interpret the subject as strong, noble, or

threatening

 Cutting on action – editing technique designed to hide the instantaneous shift from

one camera viewpoint to another; when connecting one shot to the next, the film

editor will end the first shot in the middle of a continuing action and start the

connecting shot at some point further along in the same action; as a result, the action

flows so continuously over the cut between different moving images that most

viewers fail to register the switch

Cultural invisibility

 Commercial instinct which compels filmmakers to favor stories and themes that

reinforces viewers’ shared belief systems

 trigger emotional responses from their viewers that reinforces yearnings or beliefs

that lie deep within; because much of this occurs on an unconscious, emotional level

the casual viewer may be blind to the implied political, cultural, and ideological

messages that help make the movie so appealing

 protagonist (main character)

o in the movie Juno, the protagonist reinforces our culture’s celebration of the

individual; her promiscuous, forceful, and charming persona is familiar b/c it

displays traits that we associate with Hollywood’s dominant view of the

(usually male) rogue hero

Implicit and Explicit Meaning

 No matter how many different layers of meaning there are in a movie, each layer is

either implicit or explicit

 Implicit meaning – lies below the surface of a movie’s story and presentation; an

association, connection, or inference that a viewer makes on the basis of the explicit

meanings available on the surface

o In the movie Juno, Juno’s application of lipstick before she visits the adoptive

father is explicit information; the implications of this – that her admiration for

mark is beginning to develop into more than a crush – are implicit.

Viewer Expectations

 Our expectations of nearly every movie we see is shaped by what we have been told

about that movie beforehand by previews, commercials, reviews, interviews, and

word of mouth

 We all harbor essential expectations concerning a film’s form and organization; most

filmmakers give us what we expect: a relatively standardized cinematic language,

seamless continuity, and a narrative organized like virtually every other fiction film

we’ve seen

 Your experience, and thus your interpretation, of any movie is affected by how the

particular film manipulates these expected patterns

Formal Analysis – analytical approach primarily concerned with film form, or the means

by which a subject is expressed

 Dollies in – the camera moves slowly toward the subject which gradually enlarges

the subject in the frame sufficient

Chapter 3 – Types of Movies 01/30/

Chapter 4 – elements of narrative 01/30/

1. Screenwriter: responsible for creating the movie’s story and for writing the screenplay

in its various stages

 during preproduction the story is referred to as the property which may be an idea

the writer has pitched to the producer, an outline, or a completed script

 skills required: creating a compelling story, engaging plot, and fascinating characters,

and must have a solid understanding of what is marketable; their screenplay must

conform to industry expectations regarding format and style

 Script Doctors – profession screenwriters who are hired to review a screenplay and

improve it

 Earliest form of a screenplay may be a treatment or synopsis (an outline of the action

with brief essential ideas). During story conferences it is transformed from an outline

into a rough-draft screenplay, or scenario.

 Next, a storyboard is created, which is a shot-by-shot breakdown that combines

sketches or photographs of how each shot is to look along with dialogue, sound, and

music.

o A graphical representation of the director’s conception of the film and is vital

in helping to explain the director’s concepts to the production team